- unitid
-
{"value"=>"30016", "type"=>"local_mss"}
{"value"=>"Sc MG 943", "type"=>"local_call"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1861-1930", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1861/1930"}
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"Thomas family papers"}
- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"2 boxes", "unit"=>"containers"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"0.63 linear feet", "unit"=>"linear_feet"}]}
- repository
-
{"value"=>"<span class=\"corpname\">Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division</span>"}
- abstract
-
{"value"=>"The Thomas family--Clara and Henry Thomas and their children Alice, Leroy, Mabel, Marguerite, Percival, and Rosa--was a Black family who lived in Western New York then Washington, DC in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The Thomas family papers consists of correspondence and ephemera, mostly belonging to Rosa Thomas."}
- langmaterial
-
{"value"=>"English"}
- origination
-
{"value"=>"Thomas family", "type"=>"famname"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>The Thomas family--Clara and Henry Thomas and their children Alice, Leroy, Mabel, Marguerite, Percival, and Rosa--was a Black family who lived in Western New York then Washington, DC, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.</p> <p>Henry Thomas (1840-1914) was born into slavery in Canton, Mississippi. He left the state at the end of the Civil War and moved to Perry, New York, where he was educated at Perry Academy. He married Clara E. Henry, a Buffalo native, and the couple had six children. At some point they moved to Washington, DC.</p> <p>Alice Victoria Thomas (later Weston) attended Howard University, where she met her husband, William Julius Weston, who was studying medicine. The two moved to Kentucky, where William set up a practice and Alice continued her education at Kentucky State College. After graduating, she taught at Lincoln High School in Paducah, Kentucky, for twenty-four years, and was active with the Kentucky State Association of Colored Women (serving as president), the Kentucky Negro Educational Association, and the Association of Negro Life and History. She had three children, Clara Elizabeth Bush, Alice V. Weston, and William Julius Weston, Jr. (who died in 1945). Alice died in 1948.</p> <p>Leroy P. Thomas became the postmaster and a founding member of the village of Robbins, Illinois, which was established in 1917 as an all-Black enclave outside Chicago. He married Esther V. Johnson in 1903.</p> <p>Mabel C. Thomas (later Sutherland) attended Howard University and did graduate work in education at the University of Chicago and the University of Arizona. She was a teacher at the Willard School in Chicago for over twenty years. In 1951, she married W. H. Sutherland, a New Jersey dentist.</p> <p>Marguerite Thomas (later Williams), born 1895, was the first African American to receive a PhD in geology in the United States. She earned a bachelor's degree at Howard in 1923, a master's at Columbia in 1930, and her doctorate at Catholic University in 1942. She taught geography and geology at Miner Teachers College in Washington, DC, from 1923 to her retirement in 1955. She was married to Otis James Williams.</p> <p>Percival \"Percy\" Clinton Thomas (1879-1956) attended Wayland Seminary in Washington DC, then moved to New York. He served on the USS Resolute during the Spanish-American War of 1898, then returned to New York where he pursued a career as an artist, exhibiting at the Society of Independent Artists from 1934 to 1937. In 1925, he married a woman named Shirley. He is buried in Long Island National Cemetery.</p> <p>Rosetta \"Rosa\" Louise Thomas (later Frazier) was born in 1874. She married Olmstead Joseph Frazier in 1906. They had a daughter, Ruth.</p> <p> Sources: Beniest, Anouk. \"Marguerite Thomas Williams.\" EGU blog, August 26, 2020. https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/ts/2020/08/26/marguerite-thomas-williams-the-us-first-black-person-to-obtain-a-doctorate-in-geology/</p> <p>\"Chicago Teacher Weds Prominent NJ Medic.\" <span class=\"title\">The Chicago Defender</span>, May 12, 1951.</p> <p>Thomas, Mabel C. \"A Significant Letter.\" <span class=\"title\">Negro History Bulletin</span> 12 no. 2 (November 1948): 28.</p> <p>Warren, Winni. \"Marguerite Thomas Williams.\" In <span class=\"title\">Black Women Scientists in the United States</span>. Indiana University Press, 1999.</p> <p>Woodson, Carter G. \"Alice Victoria Weston and Her Family.\" <span class=\"title\">Negro History Bulletin</span> 11 no. 9 (June 1948): 195-198.</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>The Thomas family papers consists of correspondence and ephemera, mostly belonging to Rosa Thomas. The correspondence, mostly addressed to Rosa, includes letters written by her close and extended family (including parents, siblings, aunts, cousins, and grandmother) and friends. The letters typically concern day-to-day matters and family news. Letters from Percival Thomas and William Martin include accounts of their experience on board the USS Resolute during the Spanish-American War. The ephemera includes invitations, receipts, programs, notes, and two photos.</p>"}
- acqinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Purchase, Swann Galleries, 2017</p>"}
- processinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Processed by <span class=\"name\">Allison Hughes</span> in <span class=\"date\">2022</span>.</p>"}
- sponsor
-
{"value"=>"Home to Harlem Project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation"}
- date_start
-
1861
- keydate
-
1861
- date_end
-
1930
- date_inclusive_start
-
1861
- date_inclusive_end
-
1930
- extent_statement
-
0.63 linear feet (2 boxes)
- prefercite
-
{"value"=>"[Item], Thomas family papers, Sc MG 943, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library"}