Oral history interview with Jane Douglas McCallister, 2000

Biographical Note

Jane Douglas McCallister was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1919. She was the youngest of five children in a middle-class Scottish family. She attended Mount Holyoke College from 1936-1938. In 1941, she relocated to Chicago, Illinois and studied international relations at the University of Chicago; she lived in the International House on the campus. In Chicago, McCallister worked for Frank McCulloch, the Industrial Secretary of the Council for Social Action of the Congregation of Christian Churches of America (Church of Christ). McCallister assisted in the founding of Roosevelt University in 1945. She was an active member of Chicago CORE from 1942 to 1946, serving as Secretary from 1943 to 1945. McCallister married socialist labor and education organizer Frank McCallister in 1951

Scope and Contents

McCallister begins her narrative with a description of her family background, focusing on her father's work as a community doctor and his experience in the Spanish-American War. McCallister discusses her two years at Mount Holyoke College, and her decision to attend the University of Chicago. McCallister elaborates on her involvement in Chicago CORE, her friendship to Bernice Fisher, and the Woodlawn African Methodist Episcopal Church, where CORE gathered. McCallister discusses World War II; Minister Archibald Carey Jr.; Atlanta, Georgia mayor Maynard Jackson; the social atmosphere of Chicago CORE; and her experience as a woman in the civil rights movement. McCallister also describes her husband's career, the impact of anti-Communist rhetoric, and the campaigns of Henry Wallace, Eugene McCarthy, and Norman Thomas. McCallister describes the founding of Roosevelt College by Frank McCulloch and Edward J. Sparling. She discusses the mission, politics, and administration of the University. McCallister discusses the later work of McCulloch and Sparling and the Montgomery-Ward strike of 1944

Subjects

• Civil rights movements--United States--History--20th century.
• Congress of Racial Equality. Chicago Chapter.
• Interviews.
• Labor movement--United States--History
• McCallister, Jane Douglas--Interviews.
• Michaels, Sheila, 1939-2017, interviewer.
• Mount Holyoke College.
• Oral histories.
• Roosevelt University.
• United States--Race relations--History--20th century.