William Curtis Bok and Nellie Lee Holt Bok papers 1836-1991 1905-1984 | WorldCat.org (original) (raw)

Summary:This collection documents the personal and professional lives of William Curtis Bok (1897-1962) and Nellie Lee Holt Bok (1901-1984). Curtis Bok (he rarely went by "William") worked as a lawyer in Philadelphia and was elected to the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas and later to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. During his tenure on the Supreme Court he oversaw the famous obscenity case Commonwealth v. Gordon, which has yet to be overturned. He married twice, first to Margaret Adams Plummer in 1924, and then to Nellie Lee Holt in 1934. Nellie Lee was born in Nebraska and worked as an educator at Stephen's College, Columbia, Missouri. Between 1926 and 1927 she traveled around the world on behalf of the college interviewing various educational and religious leaders, including Mohandas Gandhi. She maintained a tradition of civic engagement throughout her life. The collection also documents to lives of their children (Curtis had three children with his first wife and two with Nellie Lee) and the Holt and Bok ancestors, but to a lesser extent. Housed in sixty-nine boxes and four volumes, these materials span from the 1830s to the 1990s, and are comprised of a rich assortment of items from correspondence, clippings, and photographs, to book manuscripts, speeches, and court papers. Additional material includes estate papers, vital records, date books, calendars, journals, printed materials, financial papers, and ephemera