Olive "Polly" Matthews Stone (13 January 1897 – 8 November 1977) was a sociologist whose interests focused on human welfare,

race relations Race relations is a sociological concept that emerged in Chicago in connection with the work of sociologist Robert E. Park and the Chicago race riot of 1919. Race relations designates a paradigm or field in sociology and a legal concept in the ...

, and southern American

farmers A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer mi ...

. Throughout her life, she was actively involved in several Marxist reading groups and financially contributed to union organizing in the black belt region.

Biography

Stone was born in Dadeville, Alabama, and attended

Huntingdon College Huntingdon College is a private Methodist college in Montgomery, Alabama. It was founded in 1854 as a women's college. History Huntingdon College was chartered on February 2, 1854, as " Tuskegee Female College" by the Alabama State Legislature ...

in Montgomery, Alabama. She taught at various schools before earning her Ph.D. in sociology from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1939, including

Alabama College The University of Montevallo is a public university in Montevallo, Alabama. Founded on October 12, 1896, the university is Alabama's only public liberal arts college and a member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. The University of M ...

, Brookings Institution, UNC-Chapel Hill, College of William and Mary, and Richmond School of Social Work. She later worked as a professor of sociology at Georgia State College for Women, a professor of sociology and dean at University of Montevallo and as an associate professor at the School of Social Welfare, University of California at Los Angeles. Stone also traveled throughout India,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

for the Fellowship of Reconciliation during 1931–1932 to observe group relations and tensions. Stone's involvement in radical politics and civil rights, especially in the 1930s, brought her to several race relations conferences, including the Swarthmore Institute of Race Relations in 1934; the Negro-White Conference at

Shaw University Shaw University is a private Baptist historically black university in Raleigh, North Carolina. It is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA. Founded on December 1, 1865, Shaw University is the oldest HBCU to begin offering courses in ...

in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1934; and the Southern Conference for Human Welfare in Birmingham, Alabama, 1938.Gilmore, Glenda, ''Defying Dixie''. p. 217-221 She also helped establish the Southern Committee for People's Rights, was involved with the Southern Negro Youth Congress, advocated for the rights of farmers and sharecroppers, and worked with a Montgomery hospitality group for those involved in sharecroppers' union, peace, and civil rights work.

References

External links

Southern Sources entries
related to Olive M. Stone

in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Oral History Interview with Olive Stone
fro
Oral Histories of the American South
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stone, Olive 1897 births 1977 deaths People from Dadeville, Alabama Huntingdon College alumni University of Montevallo faculty University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs faculty American sociologists American women sociologists 20th-century American women writers Activists from Alabama Activists from California