Guide to the Zenas Kevorkian photographs and other material, 1923-1988

(bulk 1930-1950)

Special Collections, James P. Adams Library
Rhode Island College
600 Mount Pleasant Ave
Providence, RI, 02908
Tel: 401-456-8380
email:digitalcommons@ric.edu

Published in 2022

Collection Overview

Title:	Zenas Kevorkian photographs and other material
Date range:	1923-1988, (bulk 1930-1950)
Creator:	Kevorkian, Zenas
Extent:	2.33 linear feet (3 boxes)
Abstract:	Zenas Kevorkian (1910-1991) was a career educator, a United States Naval Officer during World War II, and a hobbyist photographer in Rhode Island. The bulk of this collection consists of Kevorkian’s personal photographs, which document his life, family, and community mostly in and around Providence and Cranston, Rhode Island from the 1920s through about 1960. The collection also includes correspondence while Kevorkian was in naval training in 1942, as well as publications of Providence Technical High School and Roger Williams Junior High School.
Language of materials:	English
Repository:	Special Collections, James P. Adams Library
Collection number:	MSS.42

Scope & content

The bulk of this collection consists of Zenas Kevorkian’s personal photographs, which document his life, family, and community mostly in and around Providence and Cranston, Rhode Island from the 1920s through about 1960. Highlights include photographs of damage left in the wake of the Hurricane of 1938; the U.S. Agricultural Experiment Station grounds in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico in 1939, likely taken by his brother Arthur Kevorkian, who worked for the US Department of Agriculture; trips to New Hampshire, Quebec, Maine, and Washington, D.C. in the 1930s-40s; and scenes from Rhode Island schools where Kevorkian worked, including a National Defense Drive at Roger Williams Junior High School circa early 1940s.

The collection also includes correspondence from Kevorkian to students and teachers at Roger Williams Junior High School during his naval indoctrination at the Amphibious Training Base in Solomons, Maryland in 1942. Additionally, there are several issues of The Tech Review, the yearbook of Providence Technical High School, which Kevorkian attended in the late 1920s; issues of the Roger Williams Junior High School newsletter, What Cheer, Netop from 1940-1942; and a 1988 revision of the constitution of the Barnard Club, a social and pedagogical association of Rhode Island teachers first established in 1878.

Access Points

Subject Names

• Kevorkian, Arthur G.
• Kevorkian, Zenas

Subject Organizations

• Barnard Club (Providence, R.I.)
• Providence Technical High School (R.I.)
• Roger Williams Middle School (Providence, R.I.)
• United States. Navy
• U.S. Naval Amphibious Training Base (Md.)

Subject Topics

• Education
• Military training camps
• Schools
• Travel
• World War, 1939-1945

Geographical Names

• Maine
• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• Providence (R.I.)
• Rhode Island

Occupations

• Photographers 
• School administrators 
• Soldiers 
• Students 
• Teachers 
• Veterans

Document Types

• clippings
• correspondence
• newsletters
• photographs
• school yearbooks

Arrangement

This collection is divided into 2 series:

• Series 1. Photographs (arranged chronologically, with undated photographs at the end)
• Series 2. Other materials (arranged chronologically, with biographical material at the beginning)

Biographical/Historical Note

Zenas Kevorkian (1910-1991) was a career educator, a United States Naval Officer during World War II, and a hobbyist photographer in Rhode Island. In 1934 he graduated from Brown University with a major in history and a minor in education. He attended Brown Graduate School and worked as a student teacher in history at Central High School in Providence from 1934-35. After this he took numerous extension courses at Rhode Island College of Education and taught general science, mathematics, and journalism at Roger Williams Junior High School.

In 1942, Kevorkian left Rhode Island and his teaching job to join the United States Navy. He was commissioned as an ensign. He served as an executive officer, and then commanding officer, in the Mediterranean for seventeen months, taking part in twelve invasions in North Africa and southern parts of Italy. After further training in the United States, he served as a commanding officer in the South Pacific for twenty-two months, where he was in the initial invasion of Okinawa. Kevorkian was released to inactive duty as a senior grade lieutenant.

After returning from active military duty, Kevorkian worked as a personnel manager for industry in Woonsocket from 1946 until 1949, when he returned to education to work as a guidance counselor and history teacher at Cranston High School East. In 1958, he became Chairman of the Social Studies Department at Cranston High School West, where we worked for over ten years. While working in the Cranston high schools, he also established and directed adult education programs in Cranston. In 1955 he became Director of the Cranston Adult Education Program, and in 1966 he became Director of the Cranston Adult Basic Education Program. In 1970 he left Cranston High School West to serve as the full-time Director of Adult and Continuing Education for the Cranston School Department until his retirement in 1974.

Throughout his career, Kevorkian was active in over a dozen local, regional, and national educational professional associations. Among them, he served as President of the Barnard Club (1962-63), President of the Rhode Island Association of Public School Adult Education (1966-68), and Chairman of the State Membership Committee of the National Association of Public Continuing Education’s for fourteen years. Kevorkian was also deeply committed to numerous community, fraternal, religious, and Armenian organizations. He served on the boards of the Cranston Committee for Better Schools, the Cranston Historical Society, and the International Institute of Providence. He was active in the Armenian Missionary Association of America, and he served as communicant and deacon of the Armenian Euphrates Evangelical Church of Providence.

Access & Use

Access to the collection:	The collection is open for research by appointment.
Use of the materials:	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. It is up to the researcher to determine the owners of the literary rights and to obtain any necessary permissions from them.
Preferred citation:	Zenas Kevorkian photographs and other material, MSS.42, Special Collections, James P. Adams Library, Rhode Island College
Contact information:	Special Collections, James P. Adams Library Rhode Island College 600 Mount Pleasant Ave Providence, RI, 02908 Tel: 401-456-8380 email:digitalcommons@ric.edu

Administrative Information

ABOUT THE COLLECTION
Acquisition:	Donated by Esther R. Kalajian and John Kevorkian in August, 2021.
Processing information:	When the collection was donated to Adams Library Special Collections, some photographs were grouped together in envelopes and others were loose and disorganized. During processing, whenever possible, photographs were kept in original groupings when placed in folders. Loose photographs were organized by topic according to discretion of the processor. Folder titles are derived from original labels on photographs when possible.
ABOUT THE FINDING AID
Author:	Finding aid prepared by Molly Bruce Patterson.
Encoding:	This finding aid was encoded by Molly Bruce Patterson, 2022
Descriptive rules:	Finding aid based on Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)

Additional Information

Inventory

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