Lincoln University’s Archives – a resource for genealogical researchers

It should not be surprising to anyone that I am often contacted by African Americans doing genealogical research who want to learn more about an ancestor who, they know or believe, graduated from Lincoln University. It is always a pleasure to talk to or correspond with them and to alert them to the resources that we have digitized and made available from our website – alumni directories, college catalogues (which in past years included lists of students and information about their class rank and awards at graduation), alumni newsletters, student newspapers, etc. – that allow individuals to do their own research, without even visiting our campus.

Two genealogical researchers who have contacted me over the course of my nine years working in the Lincoln University Archives stand out as unusual, in that their genealogical search for an African-American ancestor came about after learning in middle age that they even had such an ancestor; in short, both these individuals had grown up assuming that their ancestry was strictly European.

In the first case, the individual learned in late middle age that his father had “passed” into the white community as a young man. It was only after his father’s death that he tracked down other members of his father’s family and discovered for the first time the reason for the total estrangement between his own nuclear family and his father’s extended family all the while he was growing up. He contacted Lincoln after learning that his grandfather, whom he had never known, was a Lincoln University graduate (class of 1888).

The second case occurred just last week, when an individual contacted me looking for information – and if possible, a photograph – of his grandfather, an 1897 graduate of Lincoln. This gentleman had no knowledge of his own African roots until he met his African American father for the first time about seven years ago. He described the experience of meeting and getting to know his father as wonderful, and declared his strong interest in finding more about his grandfather. Amazingly, it turned out that one of our online resources, the 1893-1901 Student Record Book that is part of our HBCU Library Alliance digital collection, contained a “thumbnail” size black and white photo of his grandfather!

We are very pleased to be able to help all descendants of Lincoln University graduates in their quest for information about their ancestors, and we continue to “grow” our collection of digitized resources that are available from our website. Our latest PHMC grant is funding the microfilming and digitization of yearbooks, Garnet Literary Society materials, and faculty and board of trustee minutes up to the mid-twentieth century and will result in significant contributions to our online archival collections, once they are complete in 2010.

Albert Einstein photos and letter now online

Albert Einstein's letter to Lincoln University of January 1946, accepting an invitation to visit campus, is now accessible online, as are several images of the event. The letter is in German, and for those of us who do not understand German, we have also posted a translation that Lincoln University registrar and language professor Dr. Paul Kuehner rendered at the time, along with a letter from Dean Joseph Newton Hill to Marianne Grubb, the wife of Lincoln Univerisity language professor Armistead Otey Grubb (who was to become the Acting President of Lincoln after Horace Mann Bond's departure), transmitting the other two letters. Mrs. Grubb, according to correspondence that I have had with her daughter Susan, was instrumental in arranging the visit, and also provided hospitality in her home to Dr. Einstein on the day of his visit.

That visit, on May 3, 1946, was chronicled by several black and white pictures that we have in the archives. The pictures that we have posted online include two of Bond and Einstein in their academic robes, posing for pictures after the conferring of an honorary (Doctor of Laws)on the great physicist; one of Einstein and Bond with other black robed men, one of whom is former LU president William Hallock Johnson; one of Einstein at a blackboard in a University Hall classroom; and one of him, also in University Hall surrounded by children -- the children of faculty members, according to the student newspaper, The Lincolnian, in which this photo also appears, along with a very brief article describing the event of Einstein's visit.

These various items relating to Dr. Einstein's visit to Lincoln University on May 3, 1946 are posted on the HBCU Library Alliance's Digital Collection Celebrating the Founding of the Historically Black College and University, in Lincoln University's collection.

To go directly to that collection, in which we have posted items chronologically (so look for 1946 for the Einstein materials)...CLICK HERE:

It should be noted that Albert Einstein's visit to Lincoln University coincided with a conference on "Objectives and Curriculum" that occurred on May 3rd and 4th and included a session with W.E.B. DuBois as guest speaker -- written up in the same issue of the Lincolnian as the brief article about Einstein's visit (June 4, 1946).

And of course the Lincolnian is available as well, from our website, or by following this direct link...CLICK HERE.

19th Century Ashmun Institute and Lincoln University Newspaper Clippings Now Online

Thanks to the Chester County Historical Society, which has a clipping file of old newspaper articles about Lincoln University; to community resident Hersey Grey, a long-time collector of local history who provided us with the digital files; and to the HBCU Library Alliance's Digital Collection Celebrating the Founding of the Black College and University, which has provided a venue on its CONTENTdm server for Lincoln University to host digital files, we have been able to share some old newspaper clippings, going back to 1853, when the Presbytery of New Castle organized the Ashmun Institute.

These clippings are from the American Republican, the Daily Local News, the Jeffersonian, the Oxford Press, and the Village Recorder, and span the years 1853-1874. They are posted on the website as a compound object, under the title, "1853-1874 Newspaper Clippings of Ashmun Institute and Lincoln University (PA)," appearing second in the list, which is arranged chronologically.

Click here for a direct link to our collection.

New digital projects in the works, thanks to PHMC grant

A recent grant to Lincoln University by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) will fund the microfilming and digitization of additional holdings in the Lincoln University Archives. These holdings are the yearbooks from 1900-1980; the faculty minutes from 1872-1971; the board of trustee minutes from 1909-1959; and Garnet Literary Society materials from 1867-1917.

The yearbooks are a particularly popular resource, not only for Lincoln University students and alumni, but also for outside researchers seeking images and information about Lincoln University alumni, as they contain not only the senior class portraits, but also group photos of student organizations and sports teams.

Our yearbook collection is incomplete, particularly pre-1940, so anyone with a yearbook to donate is urged to contact me as quickly as possible. Any that we receive before July 15 can benefit our microfilming and digitization project and thus contribute to the collection that we make available online.

The earliest yearbook in our possession is the “Lincoln University Class Book, 1900,” published by the Senior Class of 1900. Next is “The Paw,” published in 1923 by the Senior Class. Yearbooks apparently became the responsibility of the student newspaper, the Lincoln News sometime after it started publication in 1925; our next yearbook is from 1928, described on the cover as “Lincoln: Pi Lambda Psi News 1928” and on the title page as the “Commencement Number” of the “Lincoln News.” The following year, the cover title was “Lincoln: Phi Delta Theta News 1929” but the title page remained “Commencement Number, Lincoln News”. Our 1930 yearbook may have lost its original cover, or perhaps never had one other than the title page: “Commencement Issue, Lincoln News, 1930.” Another hiatus in our collection appears, until 1937, by which time the yearbook has become The Lion, which it remained for many years (virtually every yearbook for the remainder of the 20th century retained some variant of the name, although the name Lion did not survive into the 21st century as the title of the yearbook). This particular year – 1937 – is unique in having a soft leather cover.

Our earliest faculty minutes are handwritten, contained in two leather-bound record books. The older of these is titled, “Lincoln University Minutes of Faculty of the University,” spanning the years 1872-1916, and the second is titled, “Lincoln University Minutes of Faculty of the Arts,” and spans the years 1883-1921.

Each of these two sets of minutes has successor volumes. The Faculty of the University has one additional volume, dating from 1916-1943, that contains handwritten minutes until the mid 1930s, when typed minute pages began to be pasted into the book. No additional minute books labeled “Faculty of the University” exist in our collection. The typed minutes of the Lincoln University Faculty of the Arts from 1921-1938 are contained in a three-ring binder. From 1938 on there are five faculty minute books, all but one three-ring loose-leaf binders, containing typed minutes and bearing various titles:
“College Faculty Minutes,” “Faculty Minutes,” and “College Minutes.” They cover the following date ranges: 1941-47; 1947-58; 1958-65; 1965-71 and 1971-76.

We have already microfilmed and digitized our earliest Trustees’ minute books with a previous grant from PHMC, and these are available via the HBCU Library Alliance’s Digital Collection Celebrating the Founding of the Black College and University at the following link:
http://contentdm.auctr.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=%2Flupa

This new grant is allowing us to make five additional Board of Trustee minute books available online, spanning the dates 1909-1959. Only the earliest of these (also known as Lincoln University Book 6) is handwritten; the remainder are typed, with original handwritten signatures by the various secretaries of the Board of Trustees. These minutes are for general Board meetings, as well as meetings of the Executive Committee and the Financial Committee of the Lincoln University Board.

The Garnet Literary Society materials are of special interest, because they represent the oldest student organization on campus, dating back to 1867. The Garnet (sometimes spelled Garnett), named for the African American orator and Presbyterian minister Henry Highland Garnet, was the older of two literary societies (or lyceums) that provided the opportunity for students to practice oratory and debate on campus. These societies are documented in the college catalogues (which are already online, thanks to previous PHMC grants), but now for the first time a hand-written minute book spanning the years 1899-1917 will be available, along two printed documents – the society’s constitutions from 1867 and 1893 – and a letter to the Editor from Lincoln University student Archibald Grimke, clipped from the New Era newspaper on or after May 5, 1870 describing that year’s annual celebration of the founding of the society.

We hope to have the microfilming and digitization complete by the end of the summer. Microfilms will then go to the Pennsylvania Archives, a service copy for viewing and a print master for offsite, longterm storage. DVDs will be available for viewing at our library until the digital files are posted for viewing online via our website and/or the HBCU Library Alliance website.

Albert Einstein at Lincoln University

Two images from the Lincoln University Archives are featured in a recent publication by the Teaching Company, the DVD set of video lectures, Albert Einstein: Physicist, Philosopher, Humanitarian, taught by Professor Don Howard, University of Notre Dame. These are two black and white images of Albert Einstein's visit to Lincoln University on May 3, 1946, and they appear in Lecture 21, "A Lifelong Commitment to Social Justice," on the 2nd DVD, about six minutes in. One shows Albert Einstein at the blackboard in a classroom full of Lincoln University students and the other shows Lincoln University President Horace Mann Bond giving Einstein an honorary degree.

The student newspaper, The Lincolnian, June 4, 1946 has another charming image: Einstein mingling with with a group of group of faculty children during his visit, as well as a brief article about the visit. This image and accompanying article are accessible, along with all the student newspapers, at www.lincoln.edu/library/specialcollections/lincolnnewslincolnian.html

LU Archival materials contribute to new book by Andrew Billingsley

Yearning to Breathe Free: Robert Smalls of South Carolina and His Families (University of South Carolina, 2007) is the title of a recently published book by Andrew Billingsley, professor of sociology and African American studies and senior scholar in residence at the Institute for Families in Society at the University of South Carolina.

Robert Smalls was an African American slave, known as "the first black hero of the Civil War" because of his sensational escape to the Union troops with the confederate ship Planter in 1862, who rose to prominence after his combat service in the Civil War, becoming a political leader -- a founding member of the South Carolina Republican party, a delegate to the South Carolina Constitutional Conventions of 1868 and 1895, and between those two pivotal events, one of which granted blacks the right to vote, and the other of which took that right away, he served as state legislator, state senator, and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Lincoln University connection to Robert Smalls is via Samuel J. Bampfield, an 1872 graduate of Lincoln University. Bampfield married into the Smalls family on April 24, 1877, when the nineteen-year-old daughter of Robert Smalls, Elizabeth Lydia, became his wife. Another Lincoln University alumnus in the same graduating class who appears in the book is Thomas E. Miller, another black delegate at the 1895 South Carolina Constitutional Convention, who along with Robert Smalls lobbied for an independent state college for blacks and eventually became the first president of the "Normal, Industrial, Agricultural and Mechanical College for the colored race."

At the time that Andrew Billingsley contacted me for information about Samuel Bampfield we were in early stages of our digitization efforts. By now, however, all of the materials that were helpful to him in his research are actually available online via our digital collections website, www.lincoln.edu/library/specialcollections/digitalcollections.html.

James O. Horton to deliver keynote at exhibit opening

“Abraham Lincoln and Slavery in American History and Memory” will be the topic of the keynote address delivered by renowned historian and author Dr. James Oliver Horton at the opening of the exhibit, “Forever Free: Abraham Lincoln’s Journey to Emancipation” on Thursday, October 2, 2008, at 4:30 PM in the Mary Dod Brown Chapel. Doors to the exhibit will open at 3:45 PM, and light refreshments will be served.

Dr. Horton is widely known and respected as the editor and author – often in collaboration with his wife, Dr. Lois E. Horton – of numerous books, the most recent being Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory (New Press, 2006). Members of the campus and surrounding communities may remember his previous visit to Lincoln University in the late 1990s, shortly after the publication of the Hortons’ book, In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community and protest Among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860 (Oxford University Press, 1997), which was a nominee for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize in History. Another Horton collaboration, Hard Road to Freedom: The Story of African America (Rutgers University Press, 2001) was a Choice Outstanding Academic Book for 2001.

The Hortons also co-authored the book Slavery and the Making of American History (Oxford University Press 2004), the companion book for the WNET PBS series of the same name which aired in February, 2005.

Dr. Horton, who is the Benjamin Banneker Professor Emeritus of American Studies and History at The George Washington University (Washington, D.C.), is also a member of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, appointed by the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.

Organized by the Huntington Library, San Marino, California, and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York City, in cooperation with the American Library Association (ALA), the traveling panel exhibition, which will remain on Lincoln University’s campus through November 14, 2008, has been made possible through major grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, created by Congress and charged with planning the national celebration of Lincoln’s 200th birthday. “Forever Free” draws upon original documents in the collections of the Huntington Library and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. It was curated by John Rhodehamel, Norris Foundation Curator of American historical manuscripts at the Huntington Library. The large panels that make up the exhibit feature facsimile copies and enlargements of these original documents.

Lincoln University of Pennsylvania’s Langston Hughes Memorial Library was selected as one of 63 libraries nationwide to host the exhibit for six weeks during the period between 2006-2009 (with 2009 marking Abraham Lincoln’s bicentennial). Because of the closure of the library for renovations, the exhibit will instead be mounted in the Fellowship Hall of the Mary Dod Brown Memorial Chapel, which is across the street from the library’s current temporary quarters. In addition to Dr. Horton’s keynote address, the opening program will also feature the performance of Civil War era music by the Lincoln University concert choir. The public is warmly invited to attend this event and is urged to contact Special Collections Librarian Susan Pevar (484-365-7266, spevar@lincoln.edu) for more information, or to schedule a visit to the exhibit at another time.