Lawson-Merrill Papers

Collection

Identifier: RG 30-157

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The papers consist of copies, both photocopies and typescript, of letters and other documents; notes taken by Lawson and Merrill; correspondence created in search of source material and potential publishing vehicles, and in writing to others doing similar research; articles and drafts of articles; photographs and slides of Oberlin College and town individuals and families; and other records of a like nature. Records created the last two years also reflect additional interests followed by Lawson in such areas as oral history in Oberlin, proposals to investigate Black women at Radcliffe, and to create a dictionary of early women college graduates, an article on Mary E. Johnston, and work concerning the Organization of American Historians/Association of Black Women Historians project.

In this group of papers, collected during the research project, are 58 files of documents and notes on individual students or families. Of these, two noteworthy "firsts" were Lucy Ann Stanton (Day/Sessions), the first Black woman to graduate from an American college (Lit. 1850); and Mary Jane Patterson, the first Black woman to receive the A.B. degree (1862). The collection also includes material on such prominent women as Frances M. Jackson (Coppin), principal of the "Institute for Colored Youth" in Philadelphia for 37 years and a leader in classical (college- preparatory) education; Sarah Jane Woodson, alleged to be the granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson; Rosetta Douglass (Sprague), daughter of Frederick Douglass; Emily and Mary Edmondson, sent to Oberlin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (file includes transcriptions of letters from Stowe); Sarah Margru Kinson (Green), the first African woman to attend college in United States who then returned to Africa as a missionary; Mahala McGuyire (Gray), a Black American missionary to Africa; Caroline M. Wall Langston, who married John Mercer Langston and became prominent in Washington circles; and Mary Church Terrell (who studied at Oberlin after 1865), founding member of the NAACP, suffragist, and the first Black school-board member in Washington, D.C. There are extensive research notes on Sarah M. Kinson (Green).

Subjects covered include race relations at Oberlin, First Church in Oberlin (Congregational), Black communities in Cincinnati and Cleveland, Black women teachers of the American Missionary Association, female preparatory students, and Black women and temperance. Several lists of Black students at Oberlin are included. In addition to the personal papers of individuals, records exist for the American Missionary Association. Finally, there are copies of articles by others on topics related to Black women and education and revisions of papers by Lawson and Merrill.

Note: Entries taken from William E. Bigglestone's unpublished "[preliminary] Guide to the Oberlin College Archives" (which was prepared as individual entry sheets in a three-ring binder during the early 1980s), and Guide to the Women's History Sources in the Oberlin College Archives, pg. 61.

Dates

Creation: 1978 - 1983
Other: Date acquired: 1983 April 25

Creator

Lawson, Ellen NicKenzie (Person)
Merrill, Marlene Deahl (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Unrestricted.

Biographical Sketch

Oberlin residents Ellen NicKenzie Lawson (b. 1944) and Marlene "Marly" Deahl Merrill (1933-2024) determined in late 1977 to research the family backgrounds, Oberlin experience and later lives of Oberlin's black women students prior to 1865. Their work was initially referred to as "The Antebellum Black Coed Project." The main source for documentation were the Oberlin College Archives and the Oberlin College Library, but Lawson and Merrill also drew upon other institutions such as Cleveland's Western Reserve Historical Society, the New York Public Library, and the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans (the non-Oberlin repository documents). A number of published papers and oral presentations resulted from their collaboration which came to be known as the Women's History Project. Examples of publications were "Antebellum Black Coeds at Oberlin College," "The Antebellum 'Talented Thousandeth" Black College Students at Oberlin Before the Civil War," and The Three Sarahs: Antebellum College Educated Black Women Missionaries and Teachers.

For biographical sketches see the finding guides for The Marlene D. Merrill Papers (RG 30/250), and the Ellen Lawson Papers (RG 30/193).

Note written by Roland M. Baumann.