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Ammon Hennacy and Associates Collection

NAU.MS.346

Biographical Note

The Ammon Hennacy Associates were Quaker activists Virginia Anderson and George Yamada who in the 1950s wrote letters on behalf of the Hopi to United States Government leaders from the BIA to the Justice Department. Anderson was an Arizona State University Instructor in Social Work and Psychology and George Yamada, was a World War II draft resister.

Ammon A Hennacy was born July 24, 1893 in Negley, Ohio. His formal education consisted of one year each at three institutions: Hiram College in Ohio (1913), University of Wisconsin (1914), and Ohio State University (1915). Although his parents were Quakers, he was a Baptist growing up, and was attracted to Christian Science for a while. He converted to Catholicism out of love for Dorothy Day, and then later (1968) left that church to marry Joan Thomas. With the outbreak of World War I he refused to register for military service and consequently served two years in the U.S. Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia.

In 1919 he married (common law). In 1921 he and his wife hiked throughout the forty-eight contiguous states. Between 1925-1929 he purchased a farm and became the father of two children. In 1931 he engaged in social work in Milwaukee. There he organized one of the first social workers' unions. With the coming of World War II he again refused to register for the draft. Between 1942 and 1953 he worked as a migrant laborer in the Southwest. He became baptized into the Roman Catholic Church in 1952 by an anarchist priest. Between 1953 and 1961 he was an associate editor of the Catholic Worker, located in the Bowery area of New York City. His picketing activities included annual air raid drill protests in New York City between 1955 and 1961. He also expressed protest against war preparation by picketing the Atomic Energy Commission at Las Vegas (1957), Cape Kennedy (1958), Washington, D.C. (1958), and Mead Field in Omaha (1959).

In 1961 he organized and directed the Joe Hill House of Hospitality in remembrance of the martyrdom of Joe Hill. While in Utah he was involved in picketing and fasting protests against scheduled executions of condemned prisoners at the State Prison, fasting on various occasions for periods ranging from 12 to 45 consecutive days. In 1965 he married Joan Thomas, and formally left the Catholic Church. From that time on he wished to be known as a non-church Christian. In 1968 he was forced to close his fourth Joe Hill House, and from then on he devoted himself to his writing. At the same time, he continued to picket and fast against scheduled executions and the payment of taxes for war. Shortly after the publication of his book, The One-Man Revolution in America, he suffered a heart attack while picketing for Lance and Kelback, two convicted murderers scheduled to be executed. He died six days later, on January 14, 1970.

Biography taken from http://www.catholicworker.com/ah_bio.htm on September 26, 2003

Scope and Content Note

The primary focus of the collection are the letters from Anderson and Yamada that concern such diverse issues as the Hopi and the Selective Service, a planned highway that would have cut through the Hopi village known as Hotevilla, and issues surrounding tribal government and soveriegnty. The collection also contains letters from Coconino Sun Editor Platt Cline, and the Finn law firm of Phoenix and attorney Wayne Collins of San Francisco who was prominet in constitutional law.

Finally the collection includes Hennacy's Political writings and various manifestos, federal publications concerning Native Americans, specifically the Hopi and Navajo.

Organization

Restrictions

Restrictions

None.

Copyright

It is the responsibility of the user to obtain permission to publish from the owner of the copyright (the institution, the creator of the record, the author or his/her transferees, heirs, legates, or literary executors). The user agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the Arizona Board of Regents for Northern Arizona University, its officers, employees, and agents from and against all claims made by any person asserting that he or she is an owner of copyright.

Related Material

The Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Raynor Memorial Libraries (Marquette University - Milwaukee, WI) holds a substantial body of Hennacy's writings in Series W-16 of the Dorothy Day - Catholic Worker Collection, as well as 700 letters from Hennacy to Day in Series D-1.

Significant holdings of Hennacy material can also be found at the University of Utah's Special Collections, in the Ammon Hennacy papers.

Platt Cline Collection [manuscript] NAU.MS.91

White Bear Fredricks Collection [manuscript] NAU.MS.361

Frederick Dockstader Collection [manuscript] NAU.MS.327

Access Points

Administrative Information

Credit Line

Ammon Hennacy and Associates Collection, NAU.MS.346, Cline Library. Special Collections and Archives Dept.

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