Guide to the Charles Abrams Papers,
1923-1970

Lawyer, urban housing planner, professor of city planning.

Charles Abrams studied at Brooklyn Law School, and was a landlord in Greenwich Village. He became an authority on urban housing, and served as a consultant on various private, state, federal, and international housing projects. He taught city planning at several colleges, and wrote numerous books, articles, and pamphlets on housing, planning, racial problems, neighborhoods, and other aspects of urban life.

Papers include biographical materials, speeches, course materials, lectures, newspaper clippings, press releases, and correspondence with Max Bloom, John Clarke, Aryeh Cooperstock, Jacob Crane, Alexander L. Crosby, Earle S. Draper, Julius Edelstein, Felix Frankfurter, Josephine Gomon, William L. Halford, Averell Harriman, Hubert H. Humphrey, Jacob K. Javits, J. Marshall Kaplan, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Blanche Mahler Koeffler, Otto Koenigsberger, Louis J. Lefkowitz, Herbert Lehman, Max Lerner, John V. Lindsay, Lewis Lorwin, Bleecker Marquette, Albert Mayer, Morris Miller, Constance Baker Motley, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Kevin Nowlan, William S. Paley, Charles H. Percy, Langdon Post, Perry Prentice, A. Philip Randolph, Lloyd Rodwin, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Nathan Straus, Walter Thabit, Jacqueline Tyrwhitt, Warren Jay Vinton, Robert F. Wagner, Jr., William English Walling, Harrison A. Williams, Herman Wouk, and Catherine Bauer Wurster pertaining to organizations and agencies in which Abrams was actively involved, including the Agency for International Development, American Federation of Housing Authorities, American Institute of Architects, American Institute of Planners, American Jewish Congress, Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Ekistico-Delos, Federal Public Housing Authority, Ford Foundation, and the Housing and Home Finance Agency.

Correspondence also concerns the International Federation for Housing and Town Planning, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing, National Committee on the Housing Emergency, National Public Housing Conference, New York State Commission Against Discrimination, Southeast Asia Development Advisory Group; Abrams' affiliations with Columbia University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New School for Social Research, Princeton University, United Nations International School, and the University of Pennsylvania. There are studies pertaining to Abrams' principal work in planning domestic and foreign housing, prepared while on United Nations missions to Kenya, Pakistan, India, the Philippines, Ireland, Japan, Jamaica, Singapore, and other places. Also available are published and unpublished articles on housing and a list of articles written by Abrams while affiliated with the NEW YORK POST; drafts, galley notes, and reviews of "Housing Programs for America," and "Squatter Settlements"; a manuscript for "The City is the Frontier"; and unfinished manuscripts for "Democracy in Crisis," and "Housing for the People." Also, family correspondence and personal financial materials.