Anson Phelps Stokes (philanthropist)
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Anson Phelps Stokes (1874-1958), was an American educator, clergyman, author, philanthropist and civil rights activist.
Stokes was one of three men of the same name: his father was multimillionaire banker Anson Phelps Stokes and his son was Anson Phelps Stokes, an Episcopal bishop.[1]
He was born in New Brighton on Staten Island to Anson and Helen Louisa Phelps Stokes, and attended Yale University, graduating in 1896 with a bachelor's degree. He then traveled, mostly in East Asia. In 1897 he entered the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts to prepare for the priesthood, and received his bachelor of divinity degree in 1900, although it wasn't until 1925 that he formally become a priest.[1]
In 1899, Stokes took the post of secretary of Yale University, second in command to the college president, and Stokes also served as assistant rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in New Haven from 1900-1918.[1]
Stokes married Carol G. Mitchell, and the two had at least one son, Anson Phelps Stokes, Jr., (1905-1986), born in New Haven. The younger Stokes was ordained an Episcopal priest in in 1933.[1]
From 1924 to 1939, Stokes was resident canon at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. During this time he became involved in many social, cultural, and ecclesiastical causes and guided the philanthropy of the Phelps Stokes Fund (established in 1911) to improve the lives of African and American blacks. In 1936 he published a short biography of Booker T. Washington, an expanded version of a sketch he had written for the Dictionary of American Biography.[1]
Stokes saw all of his work as "fellowship in the gospel" (Philemon 1:5). He died after a lengthy illness in his Lenox, Massachusetts home.[1]
[edit] Works
Phelps wrote these works:[1]
- Memorials of Eminent Yale Men, 2 vols. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1914
- Tuskegee Institute — The First Fifty Years, 1931
- Art and the Color Line: An Appeal made May 31, 1939 to the President General and Other Officers of the Daughters of the American Revolution to Modify the Rules so as to Permit Distinguish Negro Artists such as Marian Anderson to be Heard in Constitution Hall, Washington, 1939
- "Introduction" to Encyclopedia of the Negro; preparatory volume with reference lists and reports, by W. E. B. Du Bois and Guy B. Johnson, prepared with the cooperation of E. Irene Diggs, Agnes C. L. Donohugh, Guion Johnson, et al. New York: The Phelps-Stokes Fund, Inc., 1946
- Contributor, Negro Status and Race Relations in the United States, 1911-1946; the Thirty-Five Year Report of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, New York: Phelps-Stokes Fund, 1948
- Church and State in the United States, three volumes, 1950
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g [1]Web page titled "Grandfather, Father, & Son / The Three Anson Phelps Stokes: Anglo-American Philanthropists" at the ChickenBones: A Journal: for Literary & Artistic African-American Themes Web site, accessed March 5, 2007
