45 Years of Community Activism

Another set of materials in the Ade Bethune Collection has been organized and is available for research.  The Newport Community Organizations Materials document Bethune's involvement with the Point Association, East-West Point Committee, Citizens Advisory Committee, Foundation for Newport, and other groups in her adopted home of Newport, RI.

This part of the Collection covers almost a half-century of Ade Bethune's activities, from the late 1950s to her death in 2002.  During this time, Bethune was active on the Board or in other leadership positions for many of these community groups.  Her involvement with them centered on supporting Newport's citizens; she wanted to ensure they had good homes and neighborhoods.  In this effort, Ade Bethune addressed multiple road and redevelopment issues--working for or opposing proposals based on the impact they would have on the community.

At a February, 1970 public hearing regarding a proposed highway that would bisect Ade Bethune's Point neighborhood, she prefaced her questions and comments with the following statement:

"I will speak in the name of families, and children, and mothers, of the elderly, of the poor people, of the pedestrians on both sides of the Point. People who have no advocate to plead their cause and defend their rights. . . People who are not here tonight because they are too young to be here, or too old, like my mother, people who are working tonight and can't come."

Through her work, Ade Bethune made sure that everyone in the community would have a voice.

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Organization of the Newport Community Organizations Materials and production of a finding aid for them was made possible by a CLIR "Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives" grant with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Materials from Ade Bethune's Social Justice Activities Available

The Ade Bethune Collection web site now contains finding aids for the first series processed as part of a CLIR grant-funded project, the Catholic Social Action Access Project (CSAAP).  [For more on the grant and the CSAAP see here and here.] The two series relate to Ade Bethune's social justice activities in her adopted home of Newport, Rhode Island.

Church Community Housing Corporation (CCHC)
Ade Bethune was a co-founder of this organization, and held several positions on its Board of Directors, including president.  The CCHC is a non-profit organization providing affordable housing to residents of Newport County, RI.  In addition to CCHC administrative and organizational documents collected by Bethune, it also contains architectural drawings and other materials related to designs she did for many new homes and rehabilitation projects.  These include a large number of items (one of which is a model) surrounding the design and construction of the first solar-heated house in Newport.

The size of this series is 31 boxes (or 15 linear feet) of materials, plus an additional 8 cubic feet of oversized drawings, plans, and one architectural model.  Materials span the years 1954 to 2000, with the bulk covering the period 1969-2000.
Guide to the Church Community Housing Corporation Materials

Star of the Sea / Harbor House
For more than the last decade of her life Ade Bethune was devoted to a project that became Harbor House, what she called an "intentional community" for active seniors.  Along with members of the CCHC, in 1991 she incorporated Star of the Sea as a non-profit to develop this community.  They focused on an abandoned property that had first been an Auchincloss family estate and later a Cenacle convent and retreat center.  After years of planning and fundraising, which also included obtaining zoning approval and community support for the project, Harbor House opened as a senior housing community in February 2002--with Ade Bethune as one of its first residents.

This series is contained in 17 boxes (8.3 linear feet), along with 2 flat file drawers of oversized materials and 19 sets of rolled architectural drawings.  It spans the years 1985 to 2002, with the bulk covering 1991-2002.
Guide to the Star of the Sea/Harbor House Materials


These 2 series form the bulk of Ade Bethune's community involvement.  But she was active in a number of other organizations in Newport, RI as well, including the Point Association, the Citizens Advisory Committee, and the Foundation for Newport.  Materials in the Ade Bethune Collection related to these activities are also being organized as part of the CSAAP and finding aids for them will be available once they are completed.

Finding Aids Available

Finding aids to three series in the Ade Bethune Collection are now on the Collection web site.  Work on the remaining processed series is in progress, and we hope to make them available over the summer.

Ade Bethune's Writings
The collection includes about 100 published articles in both manuscript (some typed) and printed forms. There are about 17 booklets or books in various forms of draft and print as well as roughly 44 unpublished articles or notes. There is also correspondence with various editors and publishers about Bethune's work. Materials span the years from 1933 to 1998 with the bulk of the collection dating from the 1940s to 1960s.

Bethune published articles in about 37 different journals, with most being in Orate Fratres, Liturgical Arts, and Catholic Art Quarterly. She also wrote a series of 5 articles for Church Property Administration on the need for church architecture to support the liturgy.

Catholic Worker Materials
These materials cover the Catholic Worker movement, from its beginnings in New York to its international presence. The collection spans most of the 21st century, though the bulk of the materials fall between 1940-2000. It includes correspondence; Catholic Worker publications, such as pamphlets, newspapers, and newsletters; other writings both by and about the Catholic Worker movement; and some of Ade Bethune’s artwork for the paper. This collection contains both personal materials illustrating Bethune’s relationship with Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker as well as more generic materials relating to the social movement in general.

Items of particular note include correspondence between Ade Bethune and Dorothy Day, correspondence she held with other Catholic Workers, especially Mary Paulson and Hazen Ordway, and materials relating to the first large Catholic Worker conference held on the 50th anniversary of the movement’s founding.

Personal Correspondence
The collection includes personal correspondence with more than 150 individuals: handwritten and typed letters, photographs, postcards, and greeting cards, also any enclosed materials, such as print samples, informal sketches, or other items, that Bethune kept with the correspondences.

Especially of note is the over 30 years worth of correspondence she had with Arthur Graham Carey. Bethune and Cary discussed matters such as art commissions, personal affairs, and John Stevens Shop or Catholic Art Association business, as well as more general thoughts on the theory and philosophy of art.

It appears from the breadth of this collection that Ade Bethune faithfully saved all the letters that she possibly could. Often times, correspondence was with church community figures (such as Sister Peter Claver Fahy or Rev. Frederick R. McManus) or admirers from all over the world. Topics included informal art and design advice, discussions on liturgy, religion, or other personal matters. Letters to news editors, television hosts, and political leaders are somewhat common. She also corresponded with other successful artists such as Leandro Locsin, Alfonso Ossorio, and Fernando Zobel.

First Finding Aid Entered into CLICnet

Finding aids for the Ade Bethune Collection will be placed online as part of the CLIR grant project. But other ways to improve access to the Collection are being implemented too, including the addition of records into CLICnet, the Library's catalog. Several books in the Collection have already been cataloged and added to CLICnet. Records for finding aids are being created as well. The first one, for the St. Leo Shop and St. Leo League Records, is now in CLICnet.

Bethune originally created a mail-order business because Catholic Worker readers were asking for cards using designs of hers they had seen in the newspaper. Eventually she formed the St. Leo Shop as a means of selling her religious artwork and other religious goods. It also carried publications on liturgical and social justice topics, as well as becoming the main North American outlet for Maria Montessori's books on education. The St. Leo League developed from the shop as an organization that met monthly to discuss sacred and liturgical arts. Both articles in the Shop's catalog and the League's quarterly journal, Sacred Signs, provided Ade Bethune with a forum for her ideas on Catholicism, iconography, and religious art and design.