Dorothy Randolph Peterson Collection

Dorothy Randolph Peterson (1897-1978) was a teacher of Spanish at Wadleigh High School in New York City. She was involved in the Harlem writers’ scene with such organizations as the Negro Actors’ Guild, continuing the commitment to African-American causes shown by her father, noted journalist and founder of The New York Age, Jerome Peterson.

 

Peterson was a significant contributor to the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection at Yale, to which she donated pieces of her own and arranged acquisitions from several Afro-Puerto Rican poets. At Peterson’s urging, her father donated more than four hundred titles to the Collection. 

 

The Dorothy Peterson Collection contains correspondence to Peterson from such persons as Langston Hughes, Nella Larsen, and Carl Van Vechten. Pieces span two main periods, from 1919-28 and 1942-53.