Charles Turner Scrapbooks

Collection

Identifier: A1657

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The six scrapbooks in this collection contain newspaper clippings, programs, and handbills collected and mounted by Charles Turner, which reflect his interest in the status and affairs of African Americans in the St. Louis region and across the nation. The scrapbooks all contain overlapping dates and items from assorted sources. Some of the dominant themes in the scrapbooks include lynching, African American Republicans, the A.M.E. Church, Booker T. Washington, fraternal orders (especially the Colored Knights of Pythias), the prize fighter Jack Johnson, Sumner High School, segregation, and Black soldiers in World War I. The scrapbooks also contain concert and dance notices and programs. The collection also includes a book, A Brief Report of the Meeting Commemorative of the Early Saint Louis Movement in Philosophy, Psychology, Literature, Art, and Education and Centennial Appendix Illustrated, with a note on the title page that reads, “Compliments of D.H. Harris.” Copies of this book may also be found in the Missouri Historical Society Library. The book is filed in Box 1. This collection was formerly known as the Saint Louis African American Newsclippings Collection. Researchers should be aware that items found in this collection contain outdated and offensive racist language and images.

Dates

1882-1918

Creator

Turner, Charles, approximately 1861-1924 (Compiler, Person)

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for research use.

Conditions Governing Use

For permission to publish, quote from, or reproduce material in this collection, please contact the Archives Reference Desk at archives@mohistory.org. Copyright restrictions may apply. The researcher assumes full responsibility for conforming to the laws of copyright.

Biographical Sketch

Charles Turner was born in Sterling, Kentucky, circa 1861. His mother’s name was Anna. He married a woman named Sarah circa 1879, and the couple had two children: Augusta (“Gussie”) Turner and Ralph Turner. The family lived in St. Louis where Mr. Turner was active in the local Republican Party in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was also active in many local civic organizations, the A.M.E. Church, and the African American community. Mr. Turner worked as a clerk for various St. Louis companies before being appointed sergeant at arms by the St. Louis City Council during a Republican administration, a title he held from approximately 1894-1901. While sergeant at arms, his duties included overseeing police department supplies. His son Ralph Turner was later also appointed to serve as sergeant at arms for the City Council in 1913. In 1903 Charles Turner was employed as a clerk for the World’s Fair, and by 1910 he was working as an express driver. Around 1915, he began working as a sanitation inspector, first for the Municipal Courts Building and later for the St. Louis Health Department. He died in Chicago, Ill., on August 30, 1924, and he was buried in St. Louis on September 2, 1924. The St. Louis Globe-Democrat published his obituary on September 3.

Extent

2.4 Cubic Feet ( (8 boxes))

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Arrangement

Before processing, all but one of the scrapbooks had been completely disbound, causing the original page order to be lost. Scrapbooks A, C, D, and E consist of items that Mr. Turner pasted into bound, published volumes of city reports. Because the books are all the same size and typeface, it was difficult for the processor to determine which scrapbook the loose pages filed in the boxes came from. Therefore, the loose pages and programs were placed at the end of the scrapbook with the largest number of similar dates. Scrapbooks A, C, and D are stored disbound in folders, and scrapbooks B, E, and F are stored in boxes. The loose pages from scrapbooks B and E are stored separately in folders. The scrapbook pages were photocopied for preservation in the order in which they were stored and then numbered. Scrapbook A: 1894-1896 (original in Box 1, 6 folders; preservation copy in Box 7, 6 folders, 271 pages). This scrapbook has been disbound and laminated. The pages are arranged using the page numbers added in blue pen (presumably by Mr. Turner), but there are irregularities due to missing pages and duplicate page numbers. The scrapbook contains primarily newspaper clippings compiled by Charles Turner from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the St. Louis Republic, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, the St. Louis Star-Sayings, the Western Optic, the St. Louis Chronicle, the Daily Picayune (New Orleans, La.), the Vicksburg Evening Post, the Washington Post, the St. Joseph Mirror, the American Eagle, and others. Other ephemeral items in the scrapbook include a charity report of the St. Louis Colored Orphans’ Home, an advertisement for the Alabama Afro-American Jubilee Singers (with an image of the group), entertainment programs, tickets (including to the 1896 Republican National Convention), invitations, political ribbons, and circulars. Topics covered include George Newsome (also known as Sam Fowler), African American educators, the St. Louis Colored Orphans’ Home, Owen Lovejoy, African American fire companies, African American Baptists, cake walks, lynching, murders in St. Louis and Chicago, Masonic lodges, Cleretta Nora Avery, boxers and fighters including Joe Walcott, Anna E. Filley, African American barbers, Col. Perry Carson, the Frederick Douglass monument, and African American women. Scrapbook B: 1901-1914 (bulk 1909-1911) (original volume in Box 4, loose items in Box 1; preservation copy in Box 8). This is the only scrapbook created in a blank book. The pages in the scrapbook are stacked loosely inside their cover, from which they are all detached. A later hand added page numbers in pen to the lower corner of some pages, but there are missing numbers. Loose clippings and programs from the scrapbook are filed in two folders. Scrapbook B is the only volume that contains photographs, mostly 8” x 10” black-and-white prints showing Elliot Ave., A.M.E. Church, Banneker School, Central Baptist Church, Wheatley School, Dessalines School, Garnett[?] School, Delaney School, a residence owned by Mr. Joseph Smith (2819 St. Louis Avenue), and the residence of Miss Stella Hackman on the corner of Keokuk and Texas Avenues. There is also a smaller, faded group photograph of African American women identified only as “Board of Directors,” which is filed with the loose newspaper clippings in Folder 1. Newspaper articles are included from the Chicago Chronicle, the Chicago News, the Louisville Times, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, the St. Louis Palladium, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the St. Louis Republic, the St. Louis Star, and the St. Louis Times. Topics covered include opposition to integration, census protests, Charles Turpin, fighters Sam Langford and Joe Gans, concert and play programs, Handlan’s Park, William H. Taft, Prohibition, voting, motion pictures, the Negro League, tuberculosis, Bishop Abraham Grant (A.M.E. Church), and Charles and Ralph Turner. Scrapbook C: 1889-1917 (bulk 1898-1916) (original volume in Box 2; preservation copy in Box 7, 609 pages). This scrapbook was disbound during processing and still retains most of its original order. Scrapbook C contains the most newspaper clippings from African American publications. Newspapers represented include the St. Louis Argus, the Central Afro-American (published in St. Louis), the St. Louis Palladium, the St. Louis Advance, the Broad Ax (published in Chicago), and the Freedman, a National Illustrated Colored Newspaper (published in Indianapolis). Topics covered include segregation, Charles and Ralph Turner, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and a monument to him, African American entertainment and entertainers, World War I and the return of African American troops from war, Mme. Sissieretta Jones of the “Black Patti” troubadours, fraternal lodges, Dr. Charles Henry Phillips Jr., education, J.W. “Blind” Boone, J.W. Wheeler, William H. Taft, Mme. C.J. Walker, society news, Louise Training School for Colored Boys, tuberculosis and hygiene, E. Azalia Hackley, the NAACP, Edward Cooper, a pamphlet by Thomas Nelson Baker titled “The Negro Woman,” drawings of elected African Americans, John Langston, the East St. Louis race riots, exodus of African Americans from the South to the North in the United States and to Africa, baseball, the YMCA, African American unions, and the Jack Johnson and Lucille Cameron case. Scrapbook D: 1897-1919 (bulk 1910-1914) (original volume in Box 3; preservation copy in Box 7, 482 pages). Prior to processing, this volume had been disbound and was not in its original order. Scrapbook D contains a printed Guide to Negro Enterprises, listing St. Louis businesses owned and operated by the Black community. It also includes numerous programs and handbills for plays, parties, magic acts, and orations. Newspapers represented include the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, the St. Louis Republic, the St. Louis Star, the St. Louis Times, the Censor, the St. Louis Afro-American, the St. Louis Advance, the American Eagle, the Chicago News, the Chicago Tribune, the St. Louis Argus, the St. Louis Independent, the Chicago Defender, the Freedman’s Journal, the Louisiana Press Journal, and the Chicago Daily Journal. Topics covered include boxers, Jim Crow laws, the St. Louis Giants baseball team, interracial marriages, the “Back to Africa” movement, William H. Taft, Charles H. Turpin, elections, African American education, Methodist churches, African American soldiers in France during World War I, Theodore Roosevelt, Cora Clamorgan Collins, the Negro Democratic Club, George B. Vashon, Charles and Ralph Turner, the Progressive Party, Miss Frances Galloway, Prohibition, Williams’ Jubilee Singers, African American hospitals, the Dionysius Literary Debating and Social Club, roller skating, the Episcopal Church, Baptists, the National Association of Colored Women convention, a brochure for Allensworth (in California), the Pekin Theater, and the Booker T. Washington Theater. Scrapbook E: 1882-1918 (bulk 1896-1898, 1917-1918) (original volume in Box 5; original loose items in Box 3; preservation copy in Box 7, 312 pages). The pages of Scrapbook E are disbound, but the cover and the rest of the book, which did not have articles pasted in it, are intact. Scrapbook E includes business advertisements, programs for dinners and concerts, fliers for patriotic meetings, and an NAACP brochure. Newspapers represented include the Freedman’s Journal, the Expositor (published in St. Louis), the St. Louis Sun, the Kansas City Son, the St. Louis Palladium, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the State Street Herald (published in Chicago), the Chicago Defender, the Chicago News, the Courier Journal (published in Louisville), the Louisville News, the St. Louis Argus, the St. Louis Star, the Kansas City Times, Reedy’s Mirror, the Chicago Tribune, the St. Louis Times, the St. Louis Defender, and the Detroit Informer. Topics covered include segregation, society news, the East St. Louis race riots, Black soldiers returning from World War I and protesting Jim Crow laws, Texas riots and courts-martial, Leroy N. Bundy and voter fraud in East St. Louis, Charles Turner, teachers, migration to the North, Republicans, Lilly Whites, Oscar DePriest, Wheatley High School, and new kinds of employment for African American women. Scrapbook F: circa 1889-1912 (original in Box 6, preservation copy in Box 7). This volume contains a collection of business cards mounted on a small, unbound, graph paper notebook. The scrapbook includes name cards and business cards for people in St. Louis, Chicago, and the nation; admission tickets to events, including the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition; membership cards to clubs; and short newspaper clippings on politics.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

The preservation photocopies or digital images of the scrapbooks must be consulted before the originals. Should the originals need to be consulted, they are arranged in the same order as the photocopies.

Donor Information

Not available.

Existence and Location of Copies

Scrapbooks A, B, C, D, and E were digitized by Jaime Bourassa in 2021. The images may be viewed online by clicking the links beside each item in the inventory.