Guide to the Derek Winans Papers 1862-2004 MG 1673

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Descriptive Summary
Biographical Note:
Scope and Content Note
Access Points
Administrative Information

Container List

Winans documents

Biographical Note:

This collection contains various materials from the life of Derek Torrey Winans. He was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Elizabeth Carrington and James Dusenberry Winans on September 4th, 1938. Throughout his childhood, Derek lived in New York and Washington D.C. and attended Harvard University. In 1974, he returned to Newark. Throughout his adult life, he held many positions, working as a journalist, both writing and editing for the Herald Advance, Plainfield-Courier News and Wall Street Journal. According to his close personal friends, his work in journalism did not satisfy him completely, and he turned to full time activism. He worked in various Newark related activist organizations, including the International Youth Organization. He was also a fixture in many other activist circles, including being the director of the United Community Corporation (an anti-poverty program). He worked with Newark Councilman Donald Tucker on education and housing issues and co-founded the Newark Community Project for People with AIDS. He also dealt with such issues such as welfare and tenants rights in the 1970s and 1980s. Until his last days, he worked as an activist for the people of Newark. He died on June 19th, 2004.

Also featured prominently in the collection is Derek’s father, engineer and community leader James Dusenberry Winans. He was the son of Carlton George Winans (1869-1925). James was founder of the Newark Boys’ Club and was once chairman of the Newark Chapter of the Red Cross. He married Elizaberth Carrington in 1928 and had two children Peter Torrey Winans and Derek Torrey Winans. He seems to have remarried later to a Polly Winans. Being a descendant of a Revolutionary War veteran John Winans, he has an American genealogy that stretches back to the Colonial era. He was a Dusenberry on his mother’s side. Her ancestor Augustus Dusenberry was a noted Civil War veteran whose papers are also featured in this collection.

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Scope and Content Note

This collection contains materials from all aspects of Derek Winans’s life, both professional and personal. There are a series of photographs that chronicle Mr. Winans’s life, particularly his later years. Many of these photographs are of his partner of 15 years, Al Jordan, and of family and friends. There is correspondence and publication articles that he either wrote or is mentioned in. There are a number of different issues of various magazines, which were of interest to Mr. Winans. There is also a lot of miscellaneous documents, which are from the various activist programs that Mr. Winans took part in during his life, including the International Youth Organization.

The papers Derek’s father James Dusenberry Winans consist of correspondence, genealogical information and notes tracing the Winans family back many generations. There is a personality test given by his employer “C.G. Winans Co.” of Newark and his passport. There is also his wife, Polly Winans’s, schedule book.

In addition, there are items pertaining to ancestor Augustus Dusenberry, mostly military related documents pertaining to his service in the Civil War.

There are also three issues of Socialist magazines from the early 1920s, including “The Clarion : Organ of New Jersey” and “The Young Socialists’ Magazine. It is unknown which family member these belonged to.

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Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

This collection should be cited as: Manuscript Group 1673, Derek Winans Papers, The New Jersey Historical Society.

Acquisition Information

Donated by Gail Malmgreen, 2006.

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