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Volume Two of Phillis Wheatley's Poems of Various Subjects, Moral and Entertaining

Phillis Wheatley Peters (c. 1753 – 1784) was born in West Africa and captured by slave traders as a child, whereupon she was sold to John and Susanna Wheatley of Boston, Massachusetts. She was named after the slave ship on which she was transported to the Americas and the name of her enslavers, but her surname of Peters is that of the man she married in 1778—John Peters, a free man of color.  The story of the discovery of her talent by the Wheatley family is oft told—they taught her to read and write, and by age fourteen, she had begun to write poetry that was soon published and circulated amongst the elites of late eighteenth century America and Great Britain. Her first and only volume of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), was published in London with the assistance of wealthy abolitionists. Peters’ poetry brought her renown in abolitionist circles as proof of the humanity of those of African descent and the inhumanity of the institution of slavery.  The Wheatleys manumitted Peters in 1773 under pressure from critics who saw the hypocrisy in praising Peters’ talent while keeping her enslaved. They died within a few years of this decision, and Peters soon met and married grocer John Peters. Her life afterwards was indicative of the troubled freedom of African Americans of the period, who were emancipated but not fully integrated into the promise of American citizenship. Peters was also affected by the loss of all three of her children—the birth of the last of whom caused her premature death at age 31 In 1784. Despite being feted as a prodigy while enslaved, the emancipated Peters struggled to find the support necessary for producing a second volume of poetry and her husband’s financial struggles forced her to find work as a scullery maid—the lowest position of domestic help. Posthumous publications of Peters’ poetry in various anthologies and periodicals solidified her image as a child poet for the benefit of abolitionist activism and African American cultural pride in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the twenty-first century, the accumulation of this collection is a restoration of Peters the woman and the influence of her poetry and activism today.

Scrapbook owned by Lt. Louise Lomax, Army Nurse Corps

Louise Lomax joined the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) as a 2nd Lieutenant in March 1943 with the help of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses. While in the ANC, she trained as a psychiatric nurse at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C. By September 1943 she was stationed at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama, home of the Tuskegee Airmen, where she was eventually promoted to 1st Lieutenant. She served at Tuskegee until 1946 when the airfield was inactivated after the end of the war. For her service in World War II, she was awarded a World War II Victory Medal and an American Campaign Medal. This scrapbook compiled by Lomax and later annotated by her daughter, Pia Winters Jordan, contains photographs, invitations, programs, and newspaper clippings, accompanied by stickers and handwritten labels relating to Lomax's career, friends, colleagues, patients, Tuskegee Airmen and wives of Tuskegee Airmen, and social life during her time stationed at Tuskegee Army Air Field (1943-1946) and then at Lockbourne Army Air Base.

For additional information about African American Nurses during World War Two please For additional information about African American Nurses during World War Two please read this Collection Story about Lomax and her fellow nurses. 

Scrapbook of Major Della Hayden Raney

Della Hayden Raney Jackson was born in Suffolk, Virginia on January 10, 1912 to George H and Willie V. Raney. Raney graduated from Durham’s Lincoln Hospital School of Nursing in 1937. After graduation, she worked as the operating room supervisor at Lincoln Hospital. When the United States entered World War II, Raney applied to the Army Nurse Corps but was denied because she was an African American. Until 1941, the US Army did not allow African American women to enlist as nurses. In 1941, the Army partially lifted the ban on African American nurses and enlisted fifty-six African American women. Raney became the first African American nurse enlisted in the US Army Nurse Corps, at the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. Due to segregation in the Army, Raney and other African American nurses could only care for African American service men. She was sent to Fort Bragg and chosen to lead the Fort Bragg nurses. After serving six months at Fort Bragg, Raney passed the chief nursing examination and was promoted to First Lieutenant. In 1942, Raney moved to lead the nurses assigned to the Tuskegee Army Air, becoming the first African American appointed as a Chief Nurse in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. Raney was promoted to Captain in 1945 and in 1946 Raney was promoted again to the rank of Major and served an extensive tour of duty with the occupation force in Japan. Raney retired from the Army in 1978. This scrapbook, compiled by Raney, contains photographs, clippings, an Association of Military Surgeons' Certificate, and other ephemera connected with the Tuskegee Flying School.

For additional information about African American Nurses during World War Two please read this Collection Story about Raney and her fellow nurses.

James Baldwin Archive, Series 2: "The Negro Writer's Vision of America," additional handwritten notes

James Baldwin (1924–1987) spent most of his life speaking out on the issues of race relations and racial discrimination in America. Through numerous bestselling novels, plays, and essays written during the 1950s through the 1970s, Baldwin addressed themes of racial and sexual oppression by connecting many of his personal experiences to national and international issues. Although Baldwin spent the bulk of his career living and working in Europe, mainly France and Turkey, he often returned to the United States to take part in events surrounding the American Civil Rights Movement. These materials are from the James Baldwin Collection Archive. The collection comes from Baldwin’s sister, Paula Baldwin Whaley, offering a wide range of material from Baldwin’s life including educational materials, personal letters, newspaper clippings, and an invitation from President John F. Kennedy to a luncheon at the White House. Included in the correspondence is a letter from Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. praising Baldwin’s work. Help us transcribe this important archival collection that documents Baldwin’s life from childhood through his illustrious career.

Victoria West, 1993 April 11, Side 1

Please view the instructions for transcribing audio collections before beginning. Pearl Bowser (b. 1931) is a renowned African American film scholar, filmmaker, author, and film/conference programmer. She is widely recognized as an expert on the works of Oscar Micheaux, who is considered the first major African American filmmaker. Working as a researcher from the 1960s through the early 2000s, Bowser travelled the world interviewing actors, actresses, filmmakers, and scholars, including Lorenzo Tucker, Gordon Parks, Arthur Jafa, Edna Mae Harris, Toni Cade Bambara, and many others. As a programmer (1971-2012), she organized conferences and film festivals that focused on the rich, yet often obscure, history of African Americans in film. The audio in this project is from unique recordings of the interviews, conferences, and film festivals captured by Pearl Bowser. Some of the recordings may have lower quality and require close attention to understand the content, and some speakers may not be identified, or the recordings may not include the beginning of their remarks. If a speaker cannot be identified either by context in the recording or by notes from the project team, please list them as “unidentified speaker” in the transcription. Some of the recordings may contain sensitive or offensive language. For historical accuracy, our policy is to transcribe the language as it is presented in the recordings. See TC’s FAQ page for more information on transcribing sensitive language. All recordings are in the English language. The transcriptions created by TC volunteers will be used to make these unique and important recordings accessible to researchers, scholars, and the general public.

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral By Phillis Wheatley, Negro Servant to Mr. John Wheatley of Boston, in New-England

Phillis Wheatley Peters (c. 1753 – 1784) was born in West Africa and captured by slave traders as a child, whereupon she was sold to John and Susanna Wheatley of Boston, Massachusetts. She was named after the slave ship on which she was transported to the Americas and the name of her enslavers, but her surname of Peters is that of the man she married in 1778—John Peters, a free man of color.  The story of the discovery of her talent by the Wheatley family is oft told—they taught her to read and write, and by age fourteen, she had begun to write poetry that was soon published and circulated amongst the elites of late eighteenth century America and Great Britain. Her first and only volume of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), was published in London with the assistance of wealthy abolitionists. Peters’ poetry brought her renown in abolitionist circles as proof of the humanity of those of African descent and the inhumanity of the institution of slavery.  The Wheatleys manumitted Peters in 1773 under pressure from critics who saw the hypocrisy in praising Peters’ talent while keeping her enslaved. They died within a few years of this decision, and Peters soon met and married grocer John Peters. Her life afterwards was indicative of the troubled freedom of African Americans of the period, who were emancipated but not fully integrated into the promise of American citizenship. Peters was also affected by the loss of all three of her children—the birth of the last of whom caused her premature death at age 31 In 1784. Despite being feted as a prodigy while enslaved, the emancipated Peters struggled to find the support necessary for producing a second volume of poetry and her husband’s financial struggles forced her to find work as a scullery maid—the lowest position of domestic help. Posthumous publications of Peters’ poetry in various anthologies and periodicals solidified her image as a child poet for the benefit of abolitionist activism and African American cultural pride in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the twenty-first century, the accumulation of this collection is a restoration of Peters the woman and the influence of her poetry and activism today.

"Ode to the Evening" in Juvenile Letters: Being a Correspondence Between Children, from Eight to Fifteen Years of Age

Phillis Wheatley Peters (c. 1753 – 1784) was born in West Africa and captured by slave traders as a child, whereupon she was sold to John and Susanna Wheatley of Boston, Massachusetts. She was named after the slave ship on which she was transported to the Americas and the name of her enslavers, but her surname of Peters is that of the man she married in 1778—John Peters, a free man of color.  The story of the discovery of her talent by the Wheatley family is oft told—they taught her to read and write, and by age fourteen, she had begun to write poetry that was soon published and circulated amongst the elites of late eighteenth century America and Great Britain. Her first and only volume of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), was published in London with the assistance of wealthy abolitionists. Peters’ poetry brought her renown in abolitionist circles as proof of the humanity of those of African descent and the inhumanity of the institution of slavery.  The Wheatleys manumitted Peters in 1773 under pressure from critics who saw the hypocrisy in praising Peters’ talent while keeping her enslaved. They died within a few years of this decision, and Peters soon met and married grocer John Peters. Her life afterwards was indicative of the troubled freedom of African Americans of the period, who were emancipated but not fully integrated into the promise of American citizenship. Peters was also affected by the loss of all three of her children—the birth of the last of whom caused her premature death at age 31 In 1784. Despite being feted as a prodigy while enslaved, the emancipated Peters struggled to find the support necessary for producing a second volume of poetry and her husband’s financial struggles forced her to find work as a scullery maid—the lowest position of domestic help. Posthumous publications of Peters’ poetry in various anthologies and periodicals solidified her image as a child poet for the benefit of abolitionist activism and African American cultural pride in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the twenty-first century, the accumulation of this collection is a restoration of Peters the woman and the influence of her poetry and activism today.

Victoria West, 1993 April 11, Side 2

Please view the instructions for transcribing audio collections before beginning. Pearl Bowser (b. 1931) is a renowned African American film scholar, filmmaker, author, and film/conference programmer. She is widely recognized as an expert on the works of Oscar Micheaux, who is considered the first major African American filmmaker. Working as a researcher from the 1960s through the early 2000s, Bowser travelled the world interviewing actors, actresses, filmmakers, and scholars, including Lorenzo Tucker, Gordon Parks, Arthur Jafa, Edna Mae Harris, Toni Cade Bambara, and many others. As a programmer (1971-2012), she organized conferences and film festivals that focused on the rich, yet often obscure, history of African Americans in film. The audio in this project is from unique recordings of the interviews, conferences, and film festivals captured by Pearl Bowser. Some of the recordings may have lower quality and require close attention to understand the content, and some speakers may not be identified, or the recordings may not include the beginning of their remarks. If a speaker cannot be identified either by context in the recording or by notes from the project team, please list them as “unidentified speaker” in the transcription. Some of the recordings may contain sensitive or offensive language. For historical accuracy, our policy is to transcribe the language as it is presented in the recordings. See TC’s FAQ page for more information on transcribing sensitive language. All recordings are in the English language. The transcriptions created by TC volunteers will be used to make these unique and important recordings accessible to researchers, scholars, and the general public.

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral By Phillis Wheatley, Negro Servant to Mr. John Wheatley of New-England, 1793

Phillis Wheatley Peters (c. 1753 – 1784) was born in West Africa and captured by slave traders as a child, whereupon she was sold to John and Susanna Wheatley of Boston, Massachusetts. She was named after the slave ship on which she was transported to the Americas and the name of her enslavers, but her surname of Peters is that of the man she married in 1778—John Peters, a free man of color.

 The story of the discovery of her talent by the Wheatley family is oft told—they taught her to read and write, and by age fourteen, she had begun to write poetry that was soon published and circulated amongst the elites of late eighteenth century America and Great Britain. Her first and only volume of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), was published in London with the assistance of wealthy abolitionists. Peters’ poetry brought her renown in abolitionist circles as proof of the humanity of those of African descent and the inhumanity of the institution of slavery.

 The Wheatleys manumitted Peters in 1773 under pressure from critics who saw the hypocrisy in praising Peters’ talent while keeping her enslaved. They died within a few years of this decision, and Peters soon met and married grocer John Peters. Her life afterwards was indicative of the troubled freedom of African Americans of the period, who were emancipated but not fully integrated into the promise of American citizenship. Peters was also affected by the loss of all three of her children—the birth of the last of whom caused her premature death at age 31 In 1784. Despite being feted as a prodigy while enslaved, the emancipated Peters struggled to find the support necessary for producing a second volume of poetry and her husband’s financial struggles forced her to find work as a scullery maid—the lowest position of domestic help. Posthumous publications of Peters’ poetry in various anthologies and periodicals solidified her image as a child poet for the benefit of abolitionist activism and African American cultural pride in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the twenty-first century, the accumulation of this collection is a restoration of Peters the woman and the influence of her poetry and activism today.

"Recollection" in The Annual Register, Or a View of the History, Politics, and Literature, For the Year 1772 The Annual Register

Phillis Wheatley Peters (c. 1753 – 1784) was born in West Africa and captured by slave traders as a child, whereupon she was sold to John and Susanna Wheatley of Boston, Massachusetts. She was named after the slave ship on which she was transported to the Americas and the name of her enslavers, but her surname of Peters is that of the man she married in 1778—John Peters, a free man of color.

 The story of the discovery of her talent by the Wheatley family is oft told—they taught her to read and write, and by age fourteen, she had begun to write poetry that was soon published and circulated amongst the elites of late eighteenth century America and Great Britain. Her first and only volume of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), was published in London with the assistance of wealthy abolitionists. Peters’ poetry brought her renown in abolitionist circles as proof of the humanity of those of African descent and the inhumanity of the institution of slavery.

 The Wheatleys manumitted Peters in 1773 under pressure from critics who saw the hypocrisy in praising Peters’ talent while keeping her enslaved. They died within a few years of this decision, and Peters soon met and married grocer John Peters. Her life afterwards was indicative of the troubled freedom of African Americans of the period, who were emancipated but not fully integrated into the promise of American citizenship. Peters was also affected by the loss of all three of her children—the birth of the last of whom caused her premature death at age 31 In 1784. Despite being feted as a prodigy while enslaved, the emancipated Peters struggled to find the support necessary for producing a second volume of poetry and her husband’s financial struggles forced her to find work as a scullery maid—the lowest position of domestic help. Posthumous publications of Peters’ poetry in various anthologies and periodicals solidified her image as a child poet for the benefit of abolitionist activism and African American cultural pride in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the twenty-first century, the accumulation of this collection is a restoration of Peters the woman and the influence of her poetry and activism today.

"On Recollection," in The Gentleman's Magazine

Phillis Wheatley Peters (c. 1753 – 1784) was born in West Africa and captured by slave traders as a child, whereupon she was sold to John and Susanna Wheatley of Boston, Massachusetts. She was named after the slave ship on which she was transported to the Americas and the name of her enslavers, but her surname of Peters is that of the man she married in 1778—John Peters, a free man of color.

 The story of the discovery of her talent by the Wheatley family is oft told—they taught her to read and write, and by age fourteen, she had begun to write poetry that was soon published and circulated amongst the elites of late eighteenth century America and Great Britain. Her first and only volume of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), was published in London with the assistance of wealthy abolitionists. Peters’ poetry brought her renown in abolitionist circles as proof of the humanity of those of African descent and the inhumanity of the institution of slavery.

 The Wheatleys manumitted Peters in 1773 under pressure from critics who saw the hypocrisy in praising Peters’ talent while keeping her enslaved. They died within a few years of this decision, and Peters soon met and married grocer John Peters. Her life afterwards was indicative of the troubled freedom of African Americans of the period, who were emancipated but not fully integrated into the promise of American citizenship. Peters was also affected by the loss of all three of her children—the birth of the last of whom caused her premature death at age 31 In 1784. Despite being feted as a prodigy while enslaved, the emancipated Peters struggled to find the support necessary for producing a second volume of poetry and her husband’s financial struggles forced her to find work as a scullery maid—the lowest position of domestic help. Posthumous publications of Peters’ poetry in various anthologies and periodicals solidified her image as a child poet for the benefit of abolitionist activism and African American cultural pride in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the twenty-first century, the accumulation of this collection is a restoration of Peters the woman and the influence of her poetry and activism today.

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley, Negro Servant to Mr. John Wheatley, of Boston, New-England

Phillis Wheatley Peters (c. 1753 – 1784) was born in West Africa and captured by slave traders as a child, whereupon she was sold to John and Susanna Wheatley of Boston, Massachusetts. She was named after the slave ship on which she was transported to the Americas and the name of her enslavers, but her surname of Peters is that of the man she married in 1778—John Peters, a free man of color.

 The story of the discovery of her talent by the Wheatley family is oft told—they taught her to read and write, and by age fourteen, she had begun to write poetry that was soon published and circulated amongst the elites of late eighteenth century America and Great Britain. Her first and only volume of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), was published in London with the assistance of wealthy abolitionists. Peters’ poetry brought her renown in abolitionist circles as proof of the humanity of those of African descent and the inhumanity of the institution of slavery.

 The Wheatleys manumitted Peters in 1773 under pressure from critics who saw the hypocrisy in praising Peters’ talent while keeping her enslaved. They died within a few years of this decision, and Peters soon met and married grocer John Peters. Her life afterwards was indicative of the troubled freedom of African Americans of the period, who were emancipated but not fully integrated into the promise of American citizenship. Peters was also affected by the loss of all three of her children—the birth of the last of whom caused her premature death at age 31 In 1784. Despite being feted as a prodigy while enslaved, the emancipated Peters struggled to find the support necessary for producing a second volume of poetry and her husband’s financial struggles forced her to find work as a scullery maid—the lowest position of domestic help. Posthumous publications of Peters’ poetry in various anthologies and periodicals solidified her image as a child poet for the benefit of abolitionist activism and African American cultural pride in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the twenty-first century, the accumulation of this collection is a restoration of Peters the woman and the influence of her poetry and activism today.