Little Family Papers

Collection

Identifier: RG 30-007

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The Little collection spans several generations of Oberlin residents. The correspondence series, comprising the bulk of the collection, contains letters demonstrating the interest in missionary work by members of the Cowles-Little and Dart-Leonard families, and the correspondence relates to the activities of Class 1888 members. The remainder of the collection provides glimpses into the educational and activist lives of members of the Little family via school notes, talks, and published and printed works.

Dates

Creation: 1853-1956
Other: Date acquired: 12/05/1967

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

One file restricted, see inventory for details.

Biographical Sketch

Alice Cowles Little (1865-1958) and Elizabeth Howard Little (1863-1944) were granddaughters of Henry (1803-1881) and Alice Welch Cowles (1804-1843), Oberlin College professor of theology and second principal of the Ladies Department, respectively. Alice, the primary subject of this collection, received a literary degree from Oberlin in 1888. After graduation, she taught for five years in a missionary school on Kusaie in Micronesia. The maps she collected and the detailed notes she took on trips to the surrounding islands were later used by the United States Navy in World War II. Upon her return to the United States, Alice worked for seven years for the Woman’s Board of Missions of the Interior (WBMI) in Chicago. In 1907, she moved back to Oberlin to live with her sister Elizabeth (“Bessie”), although she remained active in missionary work as treasurer and trustee of the WBMI. She also was a trustee of the Ohio Congregational Conference for nine years.

Elizabeth studied at Oberlin in the preparatory department in 1886-87 and in the Conservatory in 1898-99. Aside from some letters to “Bessie,” this collection contains no other information related to her. Alice and Elizabeth had two other sisters as well, Clara Helen (1869-1926) and Martha P (1871-1951).

Sarah Cowles Little (1838-1912, A.B. 1859), their mother, was a teacher and then superintendent of the State School for the Blind in Janesville, Wisconsin, from 1861 to 1891. She married Thomas Henry Little (1832-1875) there in 1862, but was widowed in 1875. Upon returning to Oberlin, she supported the establishment of the Tank Home for missionary children.

In addition to the papers of the Little family, the file includes correspondence of the Dart-Leonard family. Like Alice Little, Clara Isabel Miller (1881-1975, Mt. Holyoke 1904) and Francis Sidney Dart (1882-1952, AB 1910) were missionaries, devoting 25 years to working in Angola and other parts of Africa, 1911-1936. They had four children - Ruth Maretta (1912-2001), Francis Elliot (1914-1977), Sidney Leonard (1918-2004), and John Northrop (1925-2003). Sidney’s parents, Francis Henry Dart (1845-1935) and Mary Tryphena Leonard Dart (1856-1919), attended Oberlin in the 1860s and 1870s but did not graduate.

Sources Consulted

The biographical sketch was taken from the Guide to the Women’s History Sources in the Oberlin College Archives.