[African Americana]: Williams, Georgia Blakemore:

[Autograph Letter, Signed, from Georgia Blakemore Williams, a Pioneering African-American Pharmacist, While Still a Student at Meharry Medical School, to Rev. A.T. Stewart of Tyler, Texas].

Nashville: February 29, 1920. 6pp., on plain paper, with original transmittal envelope. Original mailing folds, light wear. Very good plus. Item #5516

A friendly and informative correspondence written by Georgia Blakemore (later Georgia Blakemore Williams), while studying at the famed Meharry Medical College in Nashville. Georgia Blakemore Williams was born in Tennessee in 1883. She graduated from Tuskegee Institute at the turn of the century, and worked as a teacher in the East Texas Baptist Academy and in the public schools around Tyler, Texas in her early career. Georgia graduated from Meharry two years after the present letter was written, and opened her own pharmacy in Tyler in 1923 called the People's Pharmacy. By 1930, Georgia married a laborer named E.Z. Williams; she was noted in the 1930 census as the owner/manager of a retail drug store. Her correspondent in the present letter was Rev. A.T. Stewart, a distinguished pastor, educator, and author in Tyler in the first half of the 20th century, who was apparently a mentor to Georgia.

In the present letter, Georgia reports on her life at Meharry in Nashville. She details the harsh winter weather ("I am 'snow bound' as Whittier wrote"), her recent illness ("I had a dreadful cold and cough but have rid myself of both"), missing a local public lecture but avoiding disease ("I'm sorry as I wanted to hear Dr. Ellington at Ryman auditorium this P.M. on his famous annual sermon 'The Prodigal Son' but the flu and pneumonia are raging and I am taking no chances"), joining a church ("You speak about the minister and the church I joined. It is exactly the one on Spruce & Cedar below the capital"), reporting on visitors ("Prof. A.M. Moore was here Xmas visiting his sons in Rodger Williams"), and more. In her most interesting passage, Georgia reports on her studies and the atmosphere at Meharry: "I went over the top in one exam in pharmaceutical arith[metic]. Made 100%, does that sound like I'm working? I hope so. The passing mark is 80 and so one has to work hard to even make that as these old instructors are so hard, expect so much and explain so little." She reiterates that "I don't go out so much. Have to study too hard. Went to the theater once this year to see the Smarter set. Everybody here dances. My dept. will give a big ball in March, but that leaves me out.... I just go to school and back home." A rare letter from an important and hard-working African-American pharmacy student in the years before she worked in this monumentally challenging field, especially for a Black woman in Jim Crow Texas.

Georgia's letter is accompanied by a typed letter of recommendation from Reverend Stewart dated September 28, 1919. In his recommendation, Stewart describes Blakemore as "a young woman of sterling worth" who has "as a student, distinguished herself for her diligence, accuracy, integrity, and conscientious discharge of every duty." Stewart closes by writing: "I hereby cordially recommend her to all good people every where, and especially to those to whom she may offer her service."

A unique correspondence from an educated African-American woman getting even more professional education for her pharmacy career at the outset of the Roaring Twenties.

Price: $850