Correspondence with Ethel M. Duncan, 1934 - 1942

The majority of the collection is comprised of letters received by Babbitt during the 1930s through the early 1940s from Ethel May Duncan, a former classmate at Emerson College. During school Babbitt (then Berner) served with Duncan (one year her senior) on the yearbook committee of the Emersonian. While Duncan graduated in 1919 and Babbitt in 1920, the two maintained a relationship as they developed families and careers. At the time of their writing, Duncan was a grammar school teacher in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and an active advocate for desegregated, multicultural classrooms. She frequently referenced her proposed writings and included handwritten manuscript notes. Another recurring theme was travel, with letters often containing references to her own trips to New York, those of the Babbitt family in New England, and a vacation Duncan and Babbitt planned together to the American Southwest.