Charles Morgan and Janet Barton Morgan Papers
COLLECTION OVERVIEW
Collection Number: GR ASCSA CJM 041
Name(s) of Creator(s): Charles Hill Morgan (1902-1984), Janet Barton Morgan (1907-1997)
Title: Charles Morgan and Janet Barton Morgan Papers
Date [bulk]: 1933-1938
Date [inclusive]:
Language(s): English
Summary: The collection consists of Charles Morgan’s correspondence, notes, memos, and minutes from the 1930s, when Morgan was Visiting Professor (1933-1934), Assistant Director (1935-1936) and Director (1936-1938) of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and plans of the Agora and Corinth Excavations. The bulk of the collection are snapshots, negatives, rolls of film, and lantern slides of archaeological sites—especially Corinth and the Agora—in Greece; photographs of objects in Greek and Italian museums; about one hundred Alison Frantz photographs; and Janet Morgan’s photographs of Greece. Many of the photographs have been digitized and are available as "Charles and Janet Morgan Photographic Collection" at the Search Culture portal.
Quantity: 0.50 m
Immediate Source of Acquisition: Gift of Prudence Morgan Fitts, 2007-2019.
Information about Access: The collection is available for research
Cite as: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Archives, Charles Morgan and Janet Barton Morgan Papers (Αμερικανική Σχολή Κλασικών Σπουδών στην Αθήνα, Αρχείο Charles Morgan and Janet Barton Morgan Papers)
Note: The colections was catalogued by Lizabeth Ward Papageorgiou, 2007.
For more information, please contact the Archives
The American School of Classical Studies at Athens
54 Souidias Street, Athens 106 76, Greece
phone: 213 000 2400 (ext. 425)
Contact via E-mail
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Charles Hill Morgan was born 1902 in Worcester, Massachusetts. He studied at Harvard, receiving his PhD in 1928. In 1930, he began his thirty-eight year association with Amherst College, interrupted only by his three year WWII service in combat intelligence and his many stays in Greece.
In 1928, Charles Morgan married Rev. Janet Barton, who later became the deacon at Grace Episcopal Church in Amherst. Janet Morgan was also a talented photographer, attested by the photographs in this collection which were taken when she was in Greece.
Charles Morgan’s interests and activities were wide-ranging: at Amherst, he strengthened the fine arts teaching department and was instrumental in building the college’s Mead Art Museum collection; his scholarly interests resulted in publications on Greek sculpture, Michelangelo, George Bellows and Benjamin West; he was chairman of the American Friends of Greece during the occupation of Greece, served on the Board of the Archaeological Institute of America, was head of the American Farm School at Salonika, and devoted many years to the ASCSA.
Charles Morgan’s association with the ASCSA started as a student (1927, 1928/29); later he was Visiting Professor (1933-1934), Assistant Director (1935-1936) and Director (1936-1938). “Among the memorable achievements of Morgan’s directorate was the excavation of the area of the Agora in Corinth.” This work resulted in the publication, The Byzantine Pottery (Corinth 11 [1942]). From 1950 to 1959, he was Chairman of the Managing Committee and Trustee and during his tenure his “good judgment, integrity and personal devotion to the School” enabled him to revive every aspect of the School, which was recovering from the devastating years of the war.
Charles Morgan received the Allied Legion of Merit, the Belgian Croix de Guerre, the Greek Grand Cross of the Royal Order of the Phoenix, and was made an honorary citizen of Athens.
From Homer A. Thompson, “Necrology: Charles Hill Morgan (1902-1984)” AJA 88:3 (1984) pp. 439-440.
Janet Barton Morgan, born in Worcester, Mass. in 1907, studied Italian, piano, and fencing in Florence, and Elizabethan Drama at Oxford. She lived in Greece with her husband Charles Morgan from 1933 until 1938, after which they lived in Amherst. She became the first woman deacon of the Diocese of Western Massachussets at the age of 72. See also R. Hood, Faces of Archaeology in Greece: Caricatures by Piet de Jong, 1998, pp. 187-188.
SCOPE AND CONTENT
This small collection contains some of Charles Morgan’s correspondence, notes, memos, and minutes from the 1930s, when Morgan was Visiting Professor (1933-1934), Assistant Director (1935-1936) and Director (1936-1938) of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and plans of the Agora and Corinth Excavations. The bulk of the collection are snapshots, negatives, rolls of film, and lantern slides of archaeological sites—especially Corinth and the Agora—in Greece; photographs of objects in Greek and Italian museums; about one hundred Alison Frantz photographs; and Janet Morgan’s photographs of Greece.
Most of this material was donated by Charles and Janet Morgan’s daughter, Prudence Morgan Fitts.
CONTENT LIST
BOX 1: Correspondence, and other material related to Charles Morgan's professional connection with the ASCSA
Folder 1: Donation letter from Prue Morgan Fitts and accession history
Folder 2: Correspondence (1931–1933)*
Folder 3: Correspondence (1934)*
Folder 4: Correspondence (1935)*
Folder 5: Correspondence (1936–1937)*
Folder 6: ASCSA Memos and Minutes (1935–1936)
Folder 7: Charles Morgan’s Notes (undated notes transcribed by Charles Morgan’s son)
Folder 8: Plans of Agora and Corinth (nd) - The Agora plan, titled Τοπογραφική Υπηρεσία Υπουργείου Συγκοινωνίας. Κτηματογράφησις Αθηνών-Προαστείων και Περιχώρων (1:500), should be dated before the beginning of the American Excavations (also entered in the inventory of the Ex-Blegen Library Map Collection as F 013).
Folder 9: Miscellaneous
Folder 10: Photographs, snapshots, negatives, postcards of Corinth, Agora and undated and unidentified archaeological sites, objects in situ and museum objects
Folder 11: Snapshots of undated and unidentified excavations, objects, festivities; Lantern slide: Corinth (Acc# 2006-02-PP041)
* Correspondence with Philip R. Allen, Oscar Broneer, Edward Capps, George H. Chase, Louis Lord, Lincoln MacVeagh, John Hill Morgan, Richard Stillwell, Homer A. Thompson, W. Stuart Thompson
BOX 2: Photographs
Folder 1: Agora Excavations (with Negative Numbers)
Folder 2: Statuary in Italian Museums (professional photographs and postcards)
Folder 3: Objects in Greek Museums (professional photographs and postcards)
Folder 4: Greek Objects (most Photo Emile)
Folder 5: Alison Frantz Photographs (AE 4; AT1, 5, 53, 54(four), 56, 73, 74, 75, 76, 79, 80, 82, 84, 85,
86, 95, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 112, 114, 116, 122, 131, 133, 136, 137, 138, 147, 148,
152, 154, 155, 161, 168, 184, 222, 231, 240, 242, 248, 260, 269, 294, 303, 329, 334, 336,
337, 338, 340, 343)
Folder 6: Alison Frantz Photographs (CR35, 39; EU1, 14; F56, 64, 78, 93, 96, 106, 116, 130, 178; PE6,
11, 14, 15, 19, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 37, 39, 40, 43, 45)
Folder 7: Alison Frantz Photographs (SC5, 8, 9, 10, 12; ST16, 17, 21, 23, 31, 39, 45, 46, 47, 51, 52, 53,
55, 56, 60, 61)
Folder 8: Miscellaneous Objects
BOX 3: Rolls of Film (1936–1938)
34 rolls of film (fragile) labeled as: “Byz June ’38”, “Byz ’38”, “Byz Fall ’37”, “Byz”, “Potters Kiln ’38”, “Mosques Castles …”, “Play Garden 2 Pottery”, “Salamis Corinth”, “Threshing ?”, 4 are not labeled.
BOXES 4-5 Photographs
210 photos from Greece, most of which were taken by Janet Barton Morgan. The photos have been digitized and are available as the "Charles and Janet Morgan Photographic Collection" at the Search Culture portal.
Note: Box 5 holds the oversize photos.