Items

• Letter, Rebecca Johnson to Miss Anderson, May 19, 1945
  This letter was sent by Miss Rebecca Mary Johnson (July 10, 1905-October 4, 1991) to Miss Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897-April 8, 1993) on May 19, 1945. This letter was sent to share details about “a project for… intercultural advancement” that will feature famous Black Americans, like Marian Anderson (p. 1). Johnson asks Anderson questions about herself to be used in the exhibit for the benefit of the Springfield, Massachusetts community and youth.
• Letter, Ronia Barmas to the greatest singer, April 17, 1951
  This letter was sent by Ronia Barnas presumably of Brooklyn, New York to Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897-April 8, 1993) on April 17th, 1951. The letter was written to complement Anderson on the remarkable beauty of her voice that reaches “never before reached heights” (p. 2). Signing the letter off as Anderson’s “admirer,” Barnas expresses her desire to hear her in person and say: “‘You Marian Anderson - are the greatest singer of them all.’”
• Letter, Helen Good to Marian Anderson, December 20, 1957
  This letter was sent by Helen Marie Good (March 15, 1939-) of Elkhart, Indiana to Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897-April 8, 1993) on April 17th, 1951. The letter was written by Good to introduce herself to Anderson, and to express her and her mother’s excitement to see her in concert at Goshen College in the summer of 1957.
• Letter, Mary Emma Jones to Miss Anderson, 1945
  This letter was sent by Mary Emma Jones (1928-) of Trappe, Collegeville, Pennsylvania to Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897-April 8, 1993) in 1945, presumably towards the end of Mary’s junior year at Collegeville Trappe High School. The purpose of this letter is to request compelling information from Anderson so that her junior year term paper would be impressive, and make her parents proud (page 2). Jones repeatedly offers compliments, gratitude, and appreciation to Anderson. She notes that she has attended Anderson’s concerts in Philadelphia, which would be about an hour (roughly 32 miles) from Collegeville, PA.
• Letter, Barlana Bates to Miss Anderson
  This letter was sent by Barlana Bates (c. 1942) to Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897-April 8, 1993) sometime after December 30th, 1957. The letter appears to have been drawn on tracing paper. The front of the card is very colorful, with an illustration drawn with crayon of two people in parkas above an American flag, and below text that reads “A Salute to Alaska!”
• [Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Chicken Bone Beach]
  Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rev. Russell A. Roberts posed for a snapshot while relaxing on segregated Chicken Bone Beach in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
• Mrs. Christine Moore Howell presents Paul Robeson in a Program of Negro Spirituals for the Benefit of the Witherspoon Y.M.C.A. 1932 January 28.
  The January 1932 Paul Robeson concert program was hosted by the Witherspoon Y.M.C.A. It was Princeton’s all-Black YMCA branch that served as a social, recreational, educational, and civic hub for nearby Black neighborhoods through the 1930s. It occupied the building at (now) 102 Witherspoon Street (earlier locations at Jackson & Green/Witherspoon) and employed local Black leaders as directors by the 1920s, and is documented in Princeton archives and local histories (Hsp-Admin 2017). 
• Mrs. Gene Upshur Willis news clippings
  This collection of news clippings are about Upshur family achievements, including: Georgine Upshur and a Y.W.C.A. baby contest, her Philadelphia High School for Girls graduation and coming out parties, and passing of the state mortician’s exam circa 1949.