READ, Margaret (1889-1991)

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0366 MR
Held at	: Institute of Education   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/sites/ioe ›
Full title	: READ, Margaret (1889-1991)
Date(s)	: 1900-c1982
Level of description	: collection
Extent	: 5 boxes; 1 packet
Name of creator(s)	: Read | Margaret | 1889-1991 | social anthropologist
Detailed catalogue	: Click here to view repository detailed catalogue

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Margaret Read (1889-1991) was an pioneer in applying social anthropology and ethnography to the education and health problems of developing countries. Having studied at Newnham College Cambridge, from 1919 to 1924 she undertook missionary social work in Indian hill villages. From 1924-1930 she lectured on international affairs in Britain and the United States. During the 1930s she studied anthropology at the London School of Economics (LSE), did ethnographic field research in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland and lectured at LSE. In 1940 Margaret Read was awarded a Chair at the Institute of Education, University of London and became Head of the Department of Education in Tropical Areas, a post which she held until her retirement in 1955. Read was influential in shaping the British Government's attitude to post-war colonial education and was a close personal friend of Sir Christopher Cox at the Colonial Office. After her retirement, she undertook consultancy work, notably for the World Health Organisation and held a number of visiting professorships in Nigeria and the United States.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers of Margaret Read, comprising travel notebooks and diaries, dating particularly from the 1940s onwards; photographs, including albums of overseas visits and tours, dating from 1919, particularly in Africa; personalia; drafts of published and unpublished writings; correspondence.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

Conditions governing access:

Open.

Conditions governing reproduction:

A reader wishing to publish any quotation of information, including pictorial, derived from any archive material must apply in writing for prior permission from the Librarian or other appropriate person(s) as indicated by the Archivist. A limited number of photocopies may be supplied at the discretion of the Archivist.

Finding aids:

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Deposited in 1993 and 1994.

Allied Materials

Related material:

Papers relating to Margaret Read's anthropological work amongst the Ngoni of Malawi are held at the British Library of Political and Economic Science. Correspondence between Read and Margery Perham is held at Rhodes House, Oxford.

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:

Rules or conventions:

Date(s) of descriptions:
Created 11/24/1999, modified 12/5/2000