Research in the Alice Dunbar-Nelson Papers

On Friday, March 18, 2022, Professor Jean Lutes took English & Humanities major Cynthia Choo (Class of '23), and Peace and Justice major Trinity Rogers (Class of '24) to do research in the Alice Dunbar-Nelson Papers in the Special Collections Department of the University of Delaware Library.  

Cynthia and Trin -- along with  English & Criminology Major Kashae Garland (Class of '22) -- were recently named Idol Family Affiliate Fellows for 2022. They are working on the 'Steenth Street Project, a collaborative initiative that aims to develop curriculum resources for K-12 teachers on Black women writers and to produce a digital edition of a short story collection Dunbar-Nelson wrote based on her experience teaching Black kindergarteners at the White Rose Mission in New York City in the 1890s. 

Dunbar-Nelson, who had a long career as an author, activist, and educator, left behind one of the most extensive archives of any Black woman of her era. The archive in Delaware includes literary, professional, and personal papers: an extensive collection of correspondence, a comprehensive collection of manuscripts of her writing, including novels, stories, poetry, drama, and essays, her diary, and family papers, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, ephemera, and memorabilia.