Size: 2 linear feet

Provenance: received from Ella P. Stewart in 1987 and 1988.

Access: Open

Copyright: The literary rights to this collection are assumed to rest with the person(s) responsible for the production of the particular items within the collection, or with their heirs or assigns.  Researchers bear full legal responsibility for the acquisition to publish from any part of said collection per Title 17, United States Code.  The Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections may reserve the right to intervene as intermediary at its own discretion.

Completed by: April S. Dougal, 1990

 

Introduction

The Ella P. Stewart collection includes scrapbooks and other papers dating from 1922 to 1987.  The material relates to Mrs. Stewart’s activity as a civic leader in Toledo.  She was involved in many social welfare clubs both locally and nationally, and served as a representative of the United States to the United Nations.  This collection documents some of the honors and activities of Mrs. Stewart while she lived in Toledo.

 

There are no restrictions on the use of the Ella P. Stewart Collection.

 

Biographical Sketch

Ella Nora Phillips Stewart was born March 6, 1893 in Berryville, Virginia.  She attended grade school there and went on to attend Storer College near Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia.  Mrs. Stewart was the first African-American woman to graduate from the University of Pittsburgh’s College of Pharmacy.

 

After her second marriage, to William Wyatt (“Doc”) Stewart (also a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh), the couple moved to Toledo, Ohio and opened a pharmacy on Indiana Avenue.  Mrs. Stewart became active in such community-service organizations as the League of Women Voters, Red Cross, Community Chest, The Toledo Museum of Art, and the Young Women’s Christian Association.  Her work with the Indiana Avenue Day Nursery and the Pan-pacific and South East Asia Women’s Association is briefly documented in this collection.

 

In 1948, Ella Stewart was elected president of the National Association of Colored Women and served a four-year term as head of the organization.  Other national assignments and honors included:  an appointment to the Women’s Advisory Committee on Defense Manpower by the U.S. Department of Labor (1951), selection as a delegate to the International Conference of Women of the World by the National Council of Women of the U.S.A. (1952), a grant from the International Education Exchange Service of the State Department of the U.S. for a four month goodwill tour in the Far East (19540, the dedication of the “Ella P. Stewart School” (1961), and an appointment to the United States Commission of UNESCO, along with many other honors and awards.

 

Mrs. Stewart died in November 1987 in Toledo.

 

Scope and Content Note

The material in the Ella P. Stewart Collection documents her activities in civic and social welfare groups on the local, national, and international levels. Most of the material in the collection consists of scrapbooks created by Mrs. Stewart throughout her lifetime.

 

The collection is separated into four series:  correspondence, club materials, literary productions, and scrapbooks.  The series containing correspondence is by far the weakest, having little content and consisting primarily of greeting cards.  The loosely described “club materials” series includes pamphlets and some notes on the Berea in Korea Foundation, the Pan-Pacific and South East Asia Women’s Association (PPSEAWA), and other clubs in which Mrs. Stewart was involved.  Literary productions in the collection include pamphlets on Ohio women of distinction, and exhibition honoring Mrs. Stewart, a series of pamphlets on famous figures in African-American history, and two excerpts on slavery.

 

Scrapbooks comprise the bulk of this collection.  Many were contained in non-archival scrapbooks, and were removed from that media.  The materials retain their original order within the folders.  Mrs. Stewart created scrapbooks about the Stewart Pharmacy and the Indiana Avenue Nursery project, which was carried out through cooperation between the Works Progress Administration and the Delta Sigma Theta sorority.  Other scrapbooks contain memorabilia about Stewart’s participation in the Pan-Pacific and South East Asia Women’s Association, and her contacts with the Ward M. Canaday Center.  Two scrapbooks are oversized, and are boxed separately.

 

Folder List

Box	Folder	Series	Item
1	1	Correspondence	Greeting cards, 25 January 1965, n.d.
	2	Club Materials	Berea in Korea Foundation, [1955?]
	3	Club Materials	PPSEAWA, 1961-1987, n.d.
	4	Club Materials	Miscellaneous Club Materials, July 1946, Nov 1956, n.d.
	5	Literary Productions	“Ohio Women,” Women’s Services Division, Ohio Bureau of Employment Services, 1978
	6	Literary Productions	“Black Women Against the Odds,” A Salute to Ella P. Stewart (Ohio Humanities council), 18 Feb 1984
	7	Literary Productions	“Black History,” vols.. I, III, and IV, 1984-1987
	8	Literary Productions	“Remarks on the Slavery Question, in a Letter to Johnathan Philips, Esq., n.d.
	9	Literary Productions	“Town Hall of Geneva: History of the Plow and Pruning- Hook,” n.d.
	10	Literary Productions	Ohio Senior citizens Hall of Fame (program), n.d.
	11	Literary Productions	Religious/Inspirational pamphlets (includes program for funeral services of Marshall E. Brooks), 15 Sept 1970, n.d.
	12	Scrapbooks	“Ella P. Stewart, Stewart’s Pharmacy Special Book,” 1922-1983
	13	Scrapbooks	“Indiana [Avenue] Nursery W.P.A. Project, in name of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority,” 1939-1941
	14	Scrapbooks	“Ella P. Stewart - Personal,” 1945-1985
	15	Scrapbooks	“Ella P. Stewart at Pan-Pacific Conference, Manila, Philippines,” 1955
	16	Scrapbooks	“Toledo Universary [sic] Ward Canaday Center Private Papers T.U. by Ella Stewart, 8-24-87”
	17	Scrapbooks	Exhibit photos from Women’s History Month 2009 honoring Ella P. Stewart
3	^	Scrapbooks	“Around the World With Ella P. Stewart,” 1951-1986
2	2^	Scrapbooks	Exhibition display screen containing photos, news clippings, and miscellaneous ephemera