Finding Aid
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Dina Rees Evans Papers Access and Restrictions: This collection is open for research. Digital Surrogates: Except where indicated, this document describes but does not reproduce the actual text, images and objects which make up this collection. Materials are available only in the Special Collections Department. Copyright: Please read The University of Iowa Libraries' statement on Property Rights, Copyright Law, and Permissions to Use Unpublished Materials. Use of Collections: The University of Iowa Libraries supports access to the materials, published and unpublished, in its collections. Nonetheless, access to some items may be restricted by their fragile condition or by contractual agreement with donors, and it may not be possible at all times to provide appropriate machinery for reading, viewing or accessing non-paper-based materials. Please read our Use of Manuscripts Statement. Acquisition and Processing Information: These materials were transferred to the University Archives prior to 1970. Finding aid created February 2008. Photographs: None |
Dina Rees Evans, ca. 1950 |
Scope and Contents
The Dina Rees Evans papers include correspondence, speeches, and photocopies of articles authored by her and dated 1942 to 1955. This material documents the career of Ms. Evans as a research assistant at the University of Iowa and as the high school drama educator in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
Biographical Note
Dina Rees Evans was born June 19, 1891 in Chicago, Illinois. She graduated from high school in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1908. She received her B.A. degree from the University of South Dakota in 1913. She took her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the State University of Iowa in 1929 and 1932. She received the first doctorate in dramatic art from an American university. Her research for the doctorate involved her instruction of troubled young people in dramatic study.
Evans was an educator and high school principal
in South Dakota, Illinois, Minnesota, and Montana from 1916 to 1928.
She joined the faculty at the State University of Iowa in 1928 as a research assistant in the Department of Speech. After receiving her Ph.D. in 1932 she taught drama at Heights High School in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
In Ohio, Dr. Evans co-founded Cain Park in 1938, an outdoor theatre in Cleveland Heights. While its director, she mentored many students who became well-known in entertainment, including Norman Felton, Joel Rubin, Hal Holbrook, Dom DeLuise, Robert Freyer and Joel Grey. In 1980 she authored Cain Park Theatre: The Halcyon Years about the amphitheater that was renamed for her in 1989. In addition to her work with Cain Park productions, she became president of the American Educational Theatre Association in 1940 and was the founder of Secondary School Theatre Association (SSTA).
Dr. Evans retired in 1958 and moved to Youngtown, Arizona, where she organized a theatre group and reviewed books for Educational Theatre Journal. She married Harvey Shaw in 1963. Dina Rees Evans died January 20, 1989.
[D. Anderson; 02/2008]
Related Materials
Folder, "Evans, Dina Rees," in Faculty and Staff Vertical Files Collection (RG 01.15.03)
Evans, Dina Rees. "A Preliminary Study of Play Production in Secondary Schools." M.A. thesis, University of Iowa, 1929
Evans, Dina Rees. "Influence of Dramatic Training Upon the Personality." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iowa, 1932
Felton, Norman. "Best of Luck: The Education of Norman Felton." Books at Iowa 43 (November 1985): 3-14
Papers of Norman Felton (MsC265)
Folder, "Mabie, Edward Charles," in Faculty and Staff Vertical Files Collection (RG 01.15.03)
Papers of Edward Charles Mabie (RG 99.0188)
Box Contents List
Box 1
Biographical
---. Curriculum vitae; reviews
---. "The Life of Dina Rees Evans," paper by Shirley H. Foster, 1943
---. "Selected Women in Educational Theatre: A Biographical Study of the Careers of Four Educators," thesis by Judy Bea Ledoux, 1974
Clippings, 1950-1973
Correspondence, 1946-1973
Speeches
---. "Problems of Teaching Drama in the High School," December 1937
---. "Values of Dramatic Art to the Secondary School Student," [1949?]
---. "Twenty Years Later," [1949?]
---. "Fifty Years in the High School Theatre," December 1950
---. "Dramatics: A Human Relations Laboratory," August 1951
---. "Problems of Dramatic Production in Various Media at the High School Level," August 1954
---. "It's Time to Swap Horses," August 1960
---. "December 30, 1936: The Day E.C. Mabie Invented AETA," December 1956
---. "Cain Park Theatre," n.d.
---. "A Message to SSTA," 1969
