Dorothy Hazard Witherby Hunt was born in Solvay, N.Y. on May 21, 1887 to Frederick R. Hazard and Dora G. (Sedgwick) Hazard. Granddaughter of Rowland Hazard II of Peace Dale, R.I. and niece of Caroline Hazard. In 1908, she attended Wellesley College where her aunt Caroline was President. After graduating, in 1912 she married Edwin C. Witherby and lived in Syracuse, N.Y. until his death in 1919. In 1923, she married S. Foster Hunt and moved to Rhode Island.
In 1939, Hunt helped organize the Urban League of Rhode Island which she later served as president of for five years. In 1947, she was appointed to the Mayor’s Recreation Advisory Committee to help create a year-round juvenile recreation program for the City of Providence. After her death in 1970, she left $50,000 to the Urban League for the development of inter-racial relationships.
The Dorothy Hunt records of the Mayor’s Recreation Advisory Committee details the creation of year-round recreation programs and buildings for the youth of Providence under Providence Mayor Dennis J. Roberts. There is correspondence between Dorothy Hunt and Providence Journal reporter Dorothy Pratt regarding the implementation of the fulltime recreation program for the City of Providence’s juvenile population as well as correspondence between Hunt and James Cronin, the city’s recreation department director.
Researchers are advised to contact Rhode Island College Special Collections for questions regarding permissions to reproduce, distribute, or otherwise publish material from this collection. Although Rhode Island College has physical ownership of the collection, it does not necessarily hold literary rights to all materials in this collection. It is up to the researcher to determine the owners of the literary rights and to obtain any necessary permissions from them.
The collection is open for research.
Dorothy Hunt records of the Mayor’s Recreation Advisory Committee, MSS-0086, Special Collections, James P. Adams Library, Rhode Island College.
This collection is arranged in the order it was received.
The collection was donated in 1977 by James N. Williams and a donation agreement was signed at the time.
The collection was inventoried by Michael Kohl, assistant librarian at Rhode Island College Special Collection, in 1977. The collection was rehoused, described, and finding aid was converted to current archival standards by Erica Florenz, Special Collections Assistant, under the supervision of Veronica Denison, Digital Archivist and Special Collections Librarian, in 2022.
Works used in preparation of inventory: "Mrs. S.F. Hunt Dies; Urban League Leader," Providence Journal, July 4, 1970, p.11.
Rhode Island College, Adams Library Special Collections also holds
The Rhode Island Historical Society holds records relating to Dorothy Hunt’s family:
Phillips Memorial Library, Archives and Special Collections at Providence Collection holds the records of the Urban League:
Publications were removed from the collection and added to the Adams Library Special Collections book collections. Please ask the Special Collections for further information.
This collection has not been digitized. For information about obtaining digital copies, please contact Adams Library Special Collections at Rhode Island College.