This collection contains material produced during the 2017-2018 academic year, which celebrated and commemorated 50 years of African American students in residence at William & Mary. Included are printed material and artifacts, the event's website, as well as email correspondence between committee members and digital files sent as email attachments. Digital material requires at least 72 hours advanced notice for access.
Letters, 1863-1865, received by Etta Adee of Barrington , N. Y. from "brother John" with [29th Iowa Infantry Regiment] in Arkansas and Louisiana; and from John S. Miller of 29th Iowa Infantry stationed as provost guard at St. Louis, Mo. One letter describes Battle of Jenkins Ferry in which the Iowa unit stormed a Confederate battery along with troops from 2nd Kansas Infantry (later 83rd United States Colored Troops.)
Ninety-eight photos with no captions of soldiers in Vietnam and West Germany. The majority of the pictures are of leisure activities such as card games, smoking, writing letters, playing pool, and drinking. Some of the subjects posed with cash, others with raised fists, or by pin-ups on the wall. Twenty-two of the photos are of the town near the barracks.
Content warnings for drug use, underage drinking.
91 photos of African Americans during World War II. Many of the photos are labeled Wissmar (captured by Ally forces May 2, 1945) and Frankfurt, Germany. Some names of the soldiers are printed on the back of the photographs. Most of the photos are not dated and depict men in their uniforms near military vehicles and in a casual setting. Some photographs are of the men with local (civilian dress) women.
This collection contains numerous stereograms taken throughout the Jim Crow Era. The stereograms portray the racist attitudes of the time period. Stereograms are an early form of photography which was often used for educational purposes. When a view finder is used to look at the stereograms, the images appear to be three dimensional.
The collection includes fliers, catalogs, and other material created by the Africana Studies Program at the College of William and Mary. The collection also contains records concerning the Black Studies Program, from which Africana Studies grew out of.
This collection includes posters, fliers, programs, cards, memorabilia, letters sent to alumni, membership interest forms, issues of The Sphinx, and other material from the Kappa Pi Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. at the College of William and Mary. The records include material from both the College of William and Mary chapter as well as information from the national chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha.
The John Newton Bell papers includes personal and professional correspondence from relatives, business associates and religious figures throughout Virginia and the greater Appalachia. Letters document subject areas including the Civil War, the hospitalization of women in mental health facilities, agricultural issues, and religious matters related to the Presbyterian Church.
This collection contains one bound album of 18 photographs of African Americans, including children, women, as well as men in military uniforms. Photographs were taken by multiple studios in Virginia including the E.C. Leath Photograph Gallery in Petersburg and the Virginia, Evans and Son Gallery in Norfolk, virginia. Other photographs were produced by New York based studios including Adams Studio and Richard Ward Studio. The photographs include carte de visites, tintypes and postcards.
A report sponsored by the Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, "Black Education in Williamsburg-James City County, 1619-1984" by Philip D. Morgan, 1985. 1 item. 76 pp.
Letter from Captain George Bouton to his seven-year-old daughter Mollie from Yorktown, Virginia during the American Civil War. He describes the condition of Yorktown as "an old and dilapidated town", General Daniel Harvey Hill as a commander, describing some of the local families in Yorktown including the Fry family, and having a "free Negro from Madison County for a servant, a very indifferent cook & indifferent servant [in] everyday."
Negative photostats of papers, 1730-1817, of the Bray Associates, a division of the Society of the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, which was instrumental in providing libraries for the churches in America and setting up schools for the Christian education of free and enslaved Black children.