The collection consists of material related to Morton J. Netzorg's 1980-1982 National Endowment for Humanities (NEH) research study of children's literature in the Philippine Islands and includes research material, or annotated copies of children's literature works (or copies of portions of works) that Netzorg studied; Netzorg's 1980 NEH research proposal, which includes the curriculum vitaes of both Netzorg (the project's Principal Investigator) and Karl L. Hutterer (the project's Project Director); and Netzorg's unpublished monograph on the subject.
Morton J. ("Jock") Netzorg (1912-1995) was co-owner of the Cellar Book Shop of Detroit (Mich.) as well as a scholar who published a number of important works related to the Philippines and Filipiniana. Netzorg was born in Naga City (Philippines) in 1912 to Morton I. Netzorg (1884-1946)—a 1910 graduate University of Michigan—and Katherine S. Netzorg (1884-1949; Proposal, Box 5). Morton J.'s parents had come to the Philippines in 1911 to teach in the public schools as part of the Tomasites teacher corps. Morton J. completed his primary and secondary education in Manila (Philippines) and, in 1931, took undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of the Philippines Manila (Proposal, Box 5).
Morton J. Netzorg arrived in the United States in 1940. There he met Hannelore "Floh" Fuld (1923-2008), a Jewish emigrant from Berlin, Germany. Hannelore subsequently changed her name to Petra and was known as Petra or Pete for the rest of her life. Morton J. and Petra married in 1941 and had two children, Susan and David.
In the 1950s the Netzorgs settled in Detroit, Michigan, and opened the Cellar Book Shop, which specialized in material published in and about the Southeast Asia region--the Philippines and the Pacific Islands in particular, as well as East Asia, South Asia, and Africa. Their business became the essential source of material dedicated to these regions in North America. Morton J. acquired warehouses of books, maps, and other Filipiniana material, and shipped them to Detroit. He built the largest collection of Philippine children's book and textbooks.
Morton J. himself became one of the most important bibliographers of the Philippines. He published extensively in Kinaadman (Wisdom), a journal published in the Philippines, as well as other scholarly journals. He also authored a number of important Filipiniana bibliographies and bibliographical essays, notably about children's literature and about the World War II period in the Philippines, as well as memoirs. In addition, Morton J. participated in the University of Michigan's American-Philippine Interactions Seminar and, by 1980, served as an Associate of the University of Michigan's Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies (Proposal, Box 5).
Between 1980 and 1982, Morton J. completed a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) research project, the focus of which was "the collection and analysis of children's literature about the Philippines as depicted to western (i.e. American) children, and the literature that has been written for Filipino children in the Philippines (both in English and vernacular languages)" (Proposal, Box 5).
Morton J. Netzorg died in 1995.
