Charles Whiting Williams Papers, 1904-1913
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Administrative/Biographical History
Charles Whiting Williams (1878-1975), the son of Benjamin Julius and Ida Whiting Williams, was born in the small town of Shelby, Ohio. His father was a prominent executive, which strongly contrasts with Williams' later career as an advocate of the common laborer.
Williams received an A.B. degree in 1899 from Oberlin College. Over the next two years this senior class president from Oberlin studied theology at Berlin University (Germany) and the Theological Seminary (Chicago, Ill.). In becoming a manager of the Bureau of University Travel at Oberlin College (1901-1904), Williams arranged and conducted tours and handled the Bureau's finances.
After Henry Churchill King became president of Oberlin College in 1903, Williams wrote to King, his former teacher, offering his services. Subsequently, in 1904, he was named a presidential assistant to King. Holding responsibilities for administrative and financial matters, Williams' primary tasks included raising money for Oberlin College in support of building programs and scholarships. Like his mentors, H.C. King and civic reformer Graham Taylor (1851-1938), Williams embraced the liberal, socially conscious Protestantism called the "Social Gospel," which called for Christians to reform society's ills and problems. In continuing his search for a career Williams successfully completed an A.M. degree in Sociology at Oberlin in 1909 (or possibly 1911).
During this time Williams also met Caroline Harter (1878-1938), a member of the first Cleveland Orchestra who taught violin at Oberlin. They were married in 1906 and this union resulted in two children, Carol Roberts (1908-1933) and Harter Whiting (1914-1992). After Caroline's death in 1938, he wed Dorothy Rogers in 1941.
In 1912, apparently not destined to be a minister or college president, Williams left Oberlin for Cleveland to work with an Oberlin College classmate, Al Fiebach (1876-1955), a 1902 L.L.B. of Harvard University. There, Williams assisted the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce in the formation of the Cleveland Federation of Charity and Philanthropy (later named the Welfare Federation).
After six successful years as the Executive Secretary of this agency, Williams departed from coordinating community charity efforts in order to pursue other interests. Over the next ten years he held positions at the Equitable Insurance Company and the Cleveland Hydraulic Pressed Steel Company (vice-president of personnel until 1919). He resigned from the latter position because he felt he did not know enough about the workers to be a personnel director. This notoriety earned him the name of the "white collar hobo," as penned by his recent biographer Daniel A. Wren.
After 1920, Williams decided on a consulting career (a relatively new field at the time) as interpreter of the worker to management. His previous interests were in the ministry and he felt that this would be a new, untried way to "minister" to the laborer. His ideas contributed to a concern for the ultimate ends of man and society. Under assumed names, Williams would take the role of the worker so that he could better understand their wants and aspirations. He was then able to council management as to what the typical worker desired. Over the next five decades, he continually strove to gain an understanding of the needs of the working class since he believed that labor and management should cooperate in the performance of their work. In addition, he was active as a writer and speaker on the subject of employee-management relations across the country.
Williams was the author of many books and articles such as "What's On the Worker's Mind" (1920), "Full Up or Fed Up,"(1921) and "America's Mainspring and the Great Society: A Pick and Shovel Outlook" (1963). In addition, he was a trustee of the Cleveland Institute of Art and Hiram House (Cleveland) where the Whiting Williams Room was dedicated in 1965. He was also a member of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, the Union Club and the City Club.
In recognition of his distinguished service to Oberlin he received an Alumni Citation in 1953 and an Alumni Medal in 1958. He served as class president for many years and was active on the Special Gifts Committee of the Development Council in the 1953 King Building campaign. In addition, Cleveland State University awarded him an honorary degree in 1958 for his may contributions to improving worker-management communication.
Charles Whiting Williams died in Cleveland on April 14, 1975. He was survived by his second wife, Dorothy, and his son, Harter. His daughter Carol, a talented musician, was killed in a mysterious explosion in 1932.
Author: Lisa Hicks Subjects (links to similar collections) Administrative Information
Although Charles Whiting Williams was well known for his pioneering effort to get management in the private and public sectors to understand the needs of workers, this portion of his life is not documented here. Instead, these files focus on his brief career as an Assistant to the President of Oberlin College, 1904-1912. It was, however, an important time in the history of the institution.
The Williams Papers are organized around two series: 1. Correspondence and, 2. Writings. The correspondence documents Williams' activities during his tenure as Presidential Assistant, 1904-1912. It covers such topics as scholarships, fund-raising, and women's donations to female students. Businessmen, Lucien C. Warner and Harvey S. Firestone, and Professor Charles Wager are among the names found in the rich correspondence series.
Card Catalogs, indexing the correspondence, are divided A-M and N-Z. Each correspondent is listed, along with the date of his letter and in some cases, a short description of the topic of the letter is mentioned.
The writing files are quite modest in size. One folder consists of a handful of articles written while Williams was at Oberlin College. Titles include: "The Relation to the Constituency" (n.d.) and "The Forlorn Philanthropist: Is it More Blessed to Give Than to Receive" (n.d.). In addition, the second folder, contains a report by Williams entitled "Recommendation for Increasing the Efficiency of Oberlin College" (undated).
SERIES DESCRIPTIONS
Series I. Correspondence, 1904-1912 (5.4 l.f.)
This series consists of two subseries: 1. Indexes (to correspondence files) and 2. Name Files. Two card catalogs (A-M, N-Z) index the collection of letters sent to Williams while he was the Presidential Assistant. In the Name Files is located correspondence, arranged alphabetically, on various topics which include: fund-raising, scholarships, women's donations and building plans. Key correspondents include: Dan Bradley, T.E. Burton, J.G.W. Cowles, Charles and J.D. Cox, Harvey S. Firestone, Henry Churchill King, R.T. Miller, Azariah S. Root J.L. Silsbee and Lucien C. Warner.
Series II. Writings, 1904-1913 (0.1 l.f.)
Two files of writings contain only a modest number of Williams' many writings about the sociology of the common laborer, against a much larger number he wrote later in life. The articles in this series were probably written between 1904-1913.