I have this thing for old documents. I can’t explain it, but whenever I see paper and other ephemera on tables at my auction houses, I instinctively head over and flip through them. I find that looking back into other people’s lives is intriguing.
Or maybe it simply reminds me of all the paper documents I’ve accumulated: old high school awards, diplomas, newspaper stories I’ve written, yearbooks. You have them, too, I’m sure. So what’ll happen to them when we’re gone? Will they be thrown out with the trash or left on a table at some auction house for people like me to rifle through?
Some time ago, I came across some documents belonging to a female student who attended Cheyney University in the 1930s. Founded in 1832 as a teachers training school, Cheyney is located about 25 miles west of Philadelphia.
The most interesting item in the lot was a small 50-page booklet: Student’s Handbook. Cheyney Training School for Teachers (A State Teachers College). Cheyney, Pennsylvania. It belonged to a student named Velvin Campbell, who wrote her name inside along with the curriculum (EL. ED. I), Class (FR. II) and the date (Sept. 11, 1936).
Tucked inside the booklet was a Pennsylvania Railroad Weekly Ticket from Philadelphia to Cheyney. The ticket was good through 5-1-1938. On the back was a stamp, apparently showing when and where she purchased the ticket: April 25, ’38, Broad St. Subway, Philadelphia.
I was able to find a bit of information about Campbell via Google. The August 1940 issue of Crisis magazine published its 29th annual report on how many black students had graduated from black and white colleges and universities (3,913). It also identified some of the more distinguished students. E. Velvin Campbell was one of them:
“Esteral Velvin Campbell, highest ranking graduate of Cheyney State Teachers College, Pa., was adjudged first scholar for the year 1939-1940, led eight student prize winners and was awarded the Cheyney alumni scholarship gold key.”
The key was awarded to the top graduate to “inspire scholarship,” according to the handbook. The magazine also included a photo of Campbell, along with a picture of Cheyney’s campus.
The handbook contains lots of nuggets about the school:
Bells ring throughout the day denoting class changes, along with rise-and-shine (6:30 a.m.), breakfast (7 a.m.), lunch (12.30 p.m.), Supper (6 p.m.) and bedtime (10:30 p.m.).
Tuition: Elementary Education (apparently this was Campbell’s field of study), $336 annually. Since she was riding the train, she may have been a day student, and her tuition would’ve been $84. The costs did not include books and supplies, about $30; gym equipment (green romper suit, tan cotton or lisle stockings and white gymnasium shoes) $2.25, and room or locker key, $1.00 ( refunded when key was returned).
Students were allowed 10 pieces of laundry to be cleaned each week (by someone else, not them).
The rules for manners and courtesy at Cheyney were very explicit:
Never forget to say “Please” and “Thank you.”
Keep your hair well combed and brushed. Be careful to have clean finger nails, eyes, ears, teeth and nose.
Whatsoever a teacher tells you to do, do it promptly and cheerfully and thoroughly.
Wear nothing flashy, or startling, or extreme. If you have so much make-up on your face that it is decidedly noticeable, you may be sure that you are not making a good impression. The obviously powdered and painted lady is out of place at Cheyney.
A gentleman will avoid any irritating or disagreeable conversation with a woman. It is more profitable, even if the woman is wrong, for a man to grant her the last word in all good humor and politely retreat.
Along with the handbook was a faded 17-page paper (with bibliography) that Campbell completed in May 1941 on “Books About the Negro for Children and Young People of High School Age, ” written for the Society of Friends’ Committee on Race Relations.
Her aim was to find books that portrayed blacks “in normal and desirable states. The Negro must be presented not as alien and different, but as an American living the type of life an American is expected to enjoy. Intelligent children in clean and diverse environments who live normal child-lives must replace the too common, ignorant, unschooled child characterized in the great number of stories set in poor rural backgrounds.”
The documents included 13 copies of a bibliography of books about black children. At the top of the list was a 1939 book called Tobe by Stella Gentry Sharpe with “beautiful full-page photographs,” Campbell wrote. It is the story of a black boy who lived on a farm in North Carolina, and was photographed by Charles Anderson Farrell. Among the documents is a flyer for the book but no book.
According to the University of North Carolina Press, which published the book, it was “one of the first attempts to break free of racial stereotypes (and portray) the life of a rural black family in a positive and realistic manner.”
