Hello friends! This is Irene and Alexandra with a third update about the Sterling A. Brown papers. We’ve hit the ground running after our winter break, and we now have two additional series available for use in the Weber reading room.
The Photographs series is a diverse visual representation of Sterling A. Brown’s personal and professional life with family, friends, and colleagues. The bulk of the items date from the early 20th century to the mid-1980s with outliers extended as early as the mid-1800s and as late as 1997. Photographs are primarily in black-and-white though color photographs are also present. Given the expansive date range, the Photographs series provides a history of photographic processes from the mid-1800s to the late 20th century, and includes numerous photographic formats such as tintypes, gelatin silver, albumen (several cartes de visite), various color photography processes, and one cyanotype.
The Personal and Family Papers series shows strong relationships in the Brown family and reveals their shared dedication to education, faith, and racial uplift. From personal notebooks and childhood poetry to sermons and scholarly articles, these documents offer an intimate look into the inner life of a prominent African American family. This series was compelling in many ways, and I connected deeply with all of the material, but I came to see the sermons, lectures, notes, and letters of Sterling Nelson Brown, Sterling Allen Brown’s father, to be of particular significance. Reverend Brown was tireless in his effort to usher his children, students, and congregations to find their authentic selves through secular study and prayer. For those who focus on African American history and religion, I think his notebooks and letters are an invaluable resource. They show the thinking of an individual pastor and important institutional developments, as Reverend Brown was a professor in the Department of Religion at Howard University and, for many years, served as director of Howard’s Extension School. This series unfolds the inner life of an intellectually engaged and highly motivated family and offers important references and context for understanding Sterling Allen Brown’s poetry, scholarship, and professional relationships.
The Photographs, and Personal and Family series of the Sterling A. Brown papers are available through our finding aid. Please contact us for more information. Please note that the finding aid (including arrangement and description) will change while processing is in progress. Additional blog posts will be published to keep the Williams community and the public informed.