Nellie B. Nicholson scrapbook (OF.1ZP.2025.004)

This collection contains a scrapbook compiled by Nellie B. Nicholson, Brown University class of 1911. Nicholson is believed to be the fifth Black woman graduate from Pembroke College, the women's college in Brown University, and was a leading advocate for Black women's right to vote. She was an educator in Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, for over 40 years. Materials in this scrapbook date from 1906 to 1917.

Photographs include portraits of fellow students, a few campus views, images taken during a summer vacation to Maine, a "Baby Page" containing photos of children, a couple of images of Nicholson dressed to play tennis (Nicholson was a student athlete while at Brown), and many images of Black friends and students, some of whom were studying elsewhere as indicated by the handwritten notes. Nicholson and other Black students were barred from living in campus dormitories, and instead lived in Working Women's Houses - a boarding house for single women working or attending college - in Providence. 13 photos are present in the album, headed "45 East Transit," the address of the local home where Nicholson lived. These consist mainly of portraits of residents, five of whom are identified. Towards the end of the album, there is also a page titled "Transit Street Colloquialisms," containing numerous phrases used by residents of the home such as "the midianite" and "oh! you dirty orange." Another page, containing seven photos, is headed "Beuzard Cottage & Inmates," likely a reference to the home of a local Black family (the Beuzards), where Nicholson may have boarded. Ephemera within the scrapbook includes Nicholson's student handbook, a lengthy manuscript poem relating to education signed by "A.D. Bayard," programs from various groups and organizations including the Alpha Beta Sorority, The Komians (a dramatic society at Pembroke College), The Dekadelphians (a secret society at Pembroke College), the Athletic Association, the Debate Team, the Rhode Island Society for the Collegiate Education of Women, and the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. Ribbons of various colors are also included as each class at Pembroke College had designated colors represented at various events including commencement and masques. Dried flowers and stems are also present.

Additional images date from 1912-1917, after Nicholson graduated from Brown, and are only accompanied by a few captions. In 1912, Nicholson joined the faculty of the Colored Training School in Baltimore, and there are a series of images of students in uniform, a group of photos of an "Annapolis spring vacation," and a couple of photos of Nicholson playing tennis. The next series of images date from Nicholson's time at Howard High School, a school for Black students in Wilmington, Delaware, prefaced by a page captioned "En Route to Howard High Feb. 1914." Nicholson joined Howard in that year and formed close bonds with the other faculty there, together founding the Equal Suffrage Study Club and marching in the city's first suffrage parade. Nicholson lived at the home of Caroline B. Williams, the geography teacher at Howard, on East 10th Street. This album contains a group of photographs of life in this Black neighborhood, including tennis, women in costume, and women and children posed in gardens and backyards.