Mary Elizabeth Johnston Papers, 1882-1981, n.d.
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Administrative/Biographical History
Mary Elizabeth Johnston, black educator and librarian, was born in Sandusky, Ohio on August 22, 1890 to David Henry (1852-99) and Mary (Phillips) Johnston (1857-1932; enr. Oberlin 1878-81). Her siblings were Byron B. Johnston (1887-1952), a Colgate University graduate and porter with the Pullman Company, and Ruth Johnston Freeman (1895-1966; Oberlin Kindergarten Training School, 1915), a kindergarten teacher. The family moved from Sandusky to Oberlin, Ohio in 1900 following the death of David Johnston. Mary Elizabeth graduated from Oberlin High School in 1908, beginning her undergraduate studies in English literature at Oberlin College in 1910. Unable to maintain good academic standing while supporting herself as a maid, she left Oberlin in 1912 with the intention of returning to complete her degree. On the recommendation of Julia Finney Monroe (1837-1930), Johnston was appointed as an English teacher at St. Augustine's College, an Episcopal boarding school for blacks near Raleigh, North Carolina. She held the post from 1912 to 1938. Johnston received the A.B. from Oberlin College in 1937 and the M.A. in Library Science from Kent State University in 1952 after twenty-two summers of study.
In 1938, Johnston resigned her post at St. Augustine's College and moved to Asbury Park, New Jersey, to the home of her sister, Ruth. In 1944, after several years of working as a domestic and teaching kindergarten, she found permanent employment at the Bordentown (New Jersey) Manual Training School for Negroes where she served as matron, teacher, and Dean of Girls (1952-55). In the aftermath of the 1954 ruling in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, the Bordentown school was converted to a facility for mentally retarded boys. Unemployed as a result, Johnston accepted the position of public school librarian in Elizabeth, New Jersey in January 1956, working until July of that year before retiring and moving to Cleveland to be with her deceased niece's husband. There, she was active in support of Karamu House, the multi-ethnic community arts project, the Cleveland Public Library, and the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio. In 1964, she was a delegate to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church.
During the last twenty years of her life, she was especially devoted to financing black education at Oberlin College. In a gesture of philanthropy rare among those of modest income, Johnston signed her financial resources over into a reversible trust with the college, drawing only a small monthly amount to meet expenses. Mary Johnston died on January 30, 1982. She was survived by her niece, Pauline Mary Johnston (1918-1957), her niece's family, and the family of her cousin, Theodore D. Phillips (Mus. B., Oberlin Conservatory of Music, 1924).
Sources Consulted
Lee, Catherine M., "Mary Elizabeth Johnston", student paper, 1988 in Student Papers (RG 19/5).
Oberlin Kindergarten Primary Training School Records (RG 24).
Student file (RG 28) of Mary Elizabeth Johnston.
Subjects (links to similar collections) Forms of Material (links to similar genres) Administrative Information
The papers of Mary Elizabeth Johnston consist largely of scrapbooks assembled between 1910 and 1972 by Miss Johnston as a record of her family life in Oberlin, her teaching career and travels, and activities in retirement. Overall, the collection offers little research potential to the biographer, since the correspondence is almost entirely incoming and the diaries are, on the whole, unrevealing. Nevertheless, the papers may interest researchers studying educational opportunities for blacks in the South prior to desegregation.
The collection is arranged into five records series: Series I. Correspondence; II. Diaries and Memoranda Books; III. Biographical Miscellany; IV. Scrapbooks; and V. Photographs. Within series, files are typically arranged alphabetically by topic or type of material or chronologically. The present arrangement maintains the foldering established by the archivist in 1984.
Mary Elizabeth Johnston's close ties with her family are revealed in correspondence (1925-66) from her sister, Ruth Phillips Freeman (1895-1966), and from her niece, Pauline Johnston Webb (1918-57). There are a few letters written by her mother, Mary Phillips Johnston, during the two years prior to her death in 1932. Letters from her cousin, Theodore D. Phillips, a former Head of the Music Department at West Virginia State College, describe his family life and activities in retirement. Miscellaneous family papers provide biographical information on Miss Johnston's brother, Byron B. Johnston, his first wife, Rose Lowry Johnston (d. 1920), and his children, Pauline Mary and Byron, Jr. (d. 1922). Files include wills, deeds, birth and marriage certificates, and Mary Johnston's grade reports from Oberlin High School (1905-07) and Oberlin College (1910-12). Photographs of the Johnston family are housed in Series V.
Lecture notes, scrapbooks, photographs, and miscellaneous printed material document Miss Johnston's teaching career in North Carolina and New Jersey (1912-55) during the period prior to desegregation. These materials may constitute among the richest documentation in the collection. Scrapbooks assembled during her twenty six-year career at St. Augustine's College in Raleigh contain newspaper clippings relating to the prominent evangelicals, Gypsy Rodney Smith and Billy Graham (b. 1918). Later scrapbooks document the controversy surrounding the conversion in 1955 of the Bordentown (New Jersey) Manual Training School for Negroes into a school for mentally retarded boys, a move that cost Miss Johnston her teaching position there.
Five of eleven scrapbooks pertain to Miss Johnston's activities in Cleveland during her retirement (1955-82). Johnston collected clippings, church bulletins, conference programs, notes, cards, invitations, brochures, and other ephemera for her scrapbooks, each of which was devoted to a particular interest. These interests included her work as a successful United Thank Offering fund raiser for the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio, as a member of the Cleveland Public Library's "Live Long and Like It" Club, the "Karamu House", the Phyllis Wheatley Association, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer Senior Club. Two scrapbooks contain clippings relating to the family of Oberlin College President William E. Stevenson (1900-85) and Robert Kenneth Carr (1908-79). It was during the end of Stevenson's administration in 1958 that Miss Johnston began donating money to the college. Correspondence from Annual Fund Director Edward S. Tobias (b. 1928), and from other Oberlin College Development Office personnel, relating to the management of Johnston's reversible trust, is housed in Series I.
SERIES DESCRIPTIONS
Series I. Correspondence, 1908, 1918-81, n.d. (0.4 1.f.)
Correspondence of Mary E. Johnston organized into two subseries: 1. Correspondence (alphabetically arranged); and 2. Correspondence (chronologically arranged).
Series II. Diaries and Memoranda Books, 1937-46, 1962-66, 1968-69, n.d. (6 vols.)
Diaries in the five-year format, chronologically arranged. Also includes two memoranda books containing poems and sayings.
Series III. Biographical Miscellany, 1882-1981, n.d. (0.4 I.f.)
Wills; birth and marriage certificates; cemetery, property, and warranty deeds; telegrams; grade reports; tax bills; commencement programs; and other miscellaneous printed materials. Arranged alphabetically by type of material.
Series IV. Scrapbooks, 1910-72, 1979, n.d. (11 vols.)
Bound and disbound scrapbooks, containing newspaper clippings, photographs, and printed memorabilia. Arranged under the following headings: Early Career; Cleveland Years; and Oberlin College. Scrapbooks under "Early Career" are chronologically arranged. Those under "Cleveland Years" and "Oberlin College" are alphabetically arranged by the album title supplied by the archivist in 1992.
Series V. Photographs, 1899-1978, n.d. (0.4 I.f.)
Loose photographs and portions of disbound albums, arranged alphabetically by subject. Most photographs are undated and unidentified.
INVENTORY
Series I. Correspondence, 1908, 1918-81, n.d.
Subseries 1. Correspondence (alphabetically arranged), 1918-81, n.d.
Box 1
Freeman, Ruth Phillips, 1931-66, n.d.
Johnston, Pauline Mary, 1925-49, n.d.
Oberlin College (Office of Development),
1958-81
Subseries 2. Correspondence (chronologically arranged), 1908, 1921-81, n.d.
Box 2
Correspondence, 1908, 1921-58, 1960-69,
1971-79, 1981, n.d. (5f)
Series II. Diaries and Memoranda Book, 1937-46, 1962-66, 1968-69, n.d.
Box 2 (cont.)
Diary, 1937-41
Diary, 1942-46
Diary, 1962-66
Diary, 1968-69
Memoranda books, n.d.
Series III. Biographical Miscellany, 1882-1981, n.d.
Box 3
"Across A Stage: the Extra Clap", a biographical
sketch of Mary Elizabeth
Johnston by Ellen N. Lawson (Oberlin College, 1981)
Address book, 1923
Appointment calendars, 1961-64, 1973, 1976, 1982
Johnston family miscellany, 1882-1965 (5f)
Financial papers: tax bills, 1928-29, n.d.
Meditations (ms.), 1967, n.d.
St. Augustine's College: miscellaneous papers,
1916-65, n.d.
Box 4
St. Augustine's College: lecture notes for English
literature classes, n.d. (2f)
Series IV. Scrapbooks, 1910-72, 1979, n.d.
Box 5 (oversize)
Early Career
[Travels in the United States], 1910-36, n.d.
[St. Augustine School, Raleigh, North
Carolina], 1916-38 2 vols.
[Bordentown, New Jersey], 1938-55
[Kent State University, Western Reserve
University], 1952, n.d.
Box 6
Cleveland Years
[Cleveland Public Library Club], 1958-68, n.d.
Box 7 (oversize)
[Episcopal Church activities], ca. 1955-66, n.d.
[Karamu House], ca. 1955-65, n.d.
Box 8
[Phyllis Wheatley Association], 1956-65, n.d.
[Plain Dealer Senior Club], 1958-65, n.d.
Box 9 (oversize)
Oberlin College
[Stevenson, Carr, and Fuller presidencies]: clippings
mainly re: social events], 1949-72
[Oberlin Miscellany], 1953-66
Box 10
Loose scrapbook material, 1955-79, n.d.
Series V. Photographs, ca. 1899-1978, n.d.
Box 11
Cleveland pictures, 1912-24, n.d.
Johnston, Mary Ellen Phillips, ca. 1899-1928
Johnston, Pauline Mary, 1918-49, n.d.
Oberlin College graduation, 1937
Oberlin High School, 1908, n.d.
Miscellaneous family pictures, ca. 1918-78, n.d. (3f)