JO ANN WHEELER BURBANK PAPERS,, 1944(1969)-1972

Summary: Memoir and correspondence received by Jo Ann Wheeler Burbank (born 1905), who taught at the Modern Schools of Stelton and Mohegan from 1929 to 1946, and was one of the founders of the Friends of the Modern School in 1973.

This series includes a letter from a publisher concerning the publication of Elizabeth Ferm's book; correspondence regarding the distribution of the assets of the Modern School of Stelton in 1961, and letters from former students and teachers about the administration of the Alexis Ferm Fund, which Burbank took over from Nathan Marer in 1968. Most of the correspondence, however, is from Alexis Ferm himself during his last years. He describes his reading, his continuing interest in education, discusses their mutual friends, and his memories of the past. After Ferm moved to a nursing home in Alabama following a fall in 1969, Burbank corresponded with his neighbor Dr. Stanleigh R. Meeker about his condition. The series also contains letters Burbank received after Alexis Ferm's death in 1971.

In addition, this series contains letters from researchers such as Laurence Veysey and Arthur Mark who began to study the Modern School in the early 1970s, along with carbon copies of some of Burbank's letters to them, and her comments on the manuscript of Veysey's book, The Communal Experience: Anarchist and Mystical Communities in Twentieth-Century America (Chicago, 1973). Burbank herself was instrumental in collecting memorabilia and reminiscences from former students and teachers at the Modern School which she later donated to Rutgers, so this series includes replies to her letters soliciting information from John W. Edelman, former principal of the Modern School, Modern School editor Carl Zigrosser and others.

Finally, this series contains Burbank's own memoir, part of a chapter of a proposed book entitled "School in a Jersey Meadow," in which she describes Alexis and Elizabeth Ferm, and some of her experiences as a teacher at the Modern School, such as an incident during the Second World War when she was questioned by the FBI about some conscientious objectors who were staying at the school.