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COLLECTION Identifier: 89-M139

Papers of Ozeline Wise, 1853-1988

Overview

Correspondence, financial documents, photographs, etc., of Ozeline Barret Wise and Satyra Pearson Bennett, active members of St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church (Cambridge, Massachusetts).

Dates

  • Creation: 1853-1988

Creator

Language of Materials

Materials in English.

Access Restrictions:

Access. Unavailable for research while being digitized.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright. Copyright in the papers created by Ozeline Wise is held by the President and Fellows of Harvard College for the Schlesinger Library. Copyright in other papers in the collection may be held by their authors, or the authors' heirs or assigns.

Copying. Papers may be copied in accordance with the library's usual procedures.

Extent

4.42 linear feet ((4 cartons, 1 file box) plus 1 folio+ folder, 1 oversize folder, 2 objects)

This collection mainly documents the activities of Ozeline Wise and Satyra Pearson Bennett in St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church and other African Methodist Episcopal Church organizations; there are few family and personal papers. The collection is divided into five series: Family, Satyra Pearson Bennett, Ozeline Barrett Wise, African Methodist Episcopal Church, and Black history.

Series I, Family, 1854-1947 (#1-7), includes correspondence and legal documents of William Barrett Pearson and Frances Lavina (Gale) Pearson, and a diary of William Barrett Pearson detailing his work as a minister.

Series II, Satyra Pearson Bennett, 1905-1985 (#8-31), consists of personal correspondence; Wilberforce University programs, notebooks, and diplomas; correspondence, and programs and tickets for fund raising activities relating to St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Citizens' Charitable Health Association; certificates and awards; and a photograph.

Series III, Ozeline Barrett Wise, 1853-1988, undated (#32-48), consists of personal correspondence, tax records, wills, other legal and financial documents, and photographs.

Series IV, African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1930-1988, undated (#49-94), consists of correspondence, annual reports, programs, account books, bills, and receipts from St. Paul; programs and souvenir booklets from other African Methodist Episcopal churches; correspondence, conference programs, reports, etc. from various African Methodist Episcopal lay organizations; and Christian publications.

Series V, Black history, 1937-1985 (#95-100), consists of photographs, articles, programs, clippings, and directories concerning people, places, and events in black culture and history.

BIOGRAPHY

Satyra (Pearson) Bennett and Ozeline Barrett (Pearson) Wise and their two brothers were the children of Frances Lavina (Gale) and William B. Pearson; their father was for many years pastor of St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the oldest black church in the city (established in 1873).

Satyra Pearson Bennett was born in 1892, in Rock Hill, Jamaica. After the family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, Satyra Pearson Bennett graduated from Cambridge Latin School, and Wilberforce University (1913) in Wilberforce, Ohio. She then taught at McKinley Institute in Lynchburg, Virginia, before her marriage in 1919, to Cyril George Bennett. Their son, George Barrett Bennett, was born a year later. Satyra Pearson Bennett returned to Massachusetts and for more than thirty years worked as a linotype operator for a number of newspapers in the Boston area.

A member of St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church for over seventy years, Satyra Pearson Bennett served as treasurer, trustee, superintendent of the Sunday School, and member of the Board of Christian Education. She was co-founder (1949) and president of the Citizens' Charitable Health Association, co-founder of the Cambridge Community Center, trustee of the Massachusetts chapter of the Arthritis Foundation, and vice-president of the Boston chapter of the NAACP. She died in June 1977.

Ozeline Wise was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1903. She completed high school in Cambridge, and held clerical jobs until she married John Wise in 1931. They adopted a son, Hubert Smith, in 1961. Ozeline Wise worked for the Navy during World War II, and after the war was the first black woman employed by the banking department of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where she worked for nearly twenty years.

During the 1950s, the Wises lived in Billerica, Massachusetts, in a house named Galehurst, which they ran as an inn. Some time after John Wise's death in 1963, Ozeline Wise returned to Cambridge to live with her sister, Satyra Pearson Bennett. Wise devoted herself to St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church, serving as Sunday School teacher, trustee, and chair of the building fund. Satyra Pearson Bennett was a charter member of the Citizens' Charitable Health Association; she and Ozeline Wise worked with many of the same community organizations.

After 1965, Ozeline Wise lived with Satyra Pearson Bennett, who had suffered a series of strokes, and cared for Bennett until the latter's death in 1977. Ozeline Wise died in May 1988.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Accession number: 89-M139

The papers of Ozeline Barrett Wise were given to the Schlesinger Library by her estate, via Kenneth Reeves, Esq., executor, in July 1989.

Related Material:

There is related material at the Schlesinger Library; see Interviews of the Black Women Oral History Project, 1976-1981 (OH-31: T-32)

CONTAINER LIST

  1. Carton 1: Folders 1-30
  2. Carton 2: Folders 31-53
  3. Carton 3: Folders 54-74
  4. Carton 4: Folders 75-90
  5. Box 5: Folders 91-100

Processing Information

Preliminary inventory: December 1990

By: Jessica Gill

The Schlesinger Library attempts to provide a basic level of preservation and access for all collections, and does more extensive processing of higher priority collections as time and resources permit.  Finding aids may be updated periodically to account for new acquisitions to the collection and/or revisions in arrangement and description.

Creator

Title
Wise, Ozeline. Papers of Ozeline Wise, 1853-1988: A Finding Aid
Author
Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America
Language of description
eng
EAD ID
sch00298

Repository Details

Part of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute Repository

The preeminent research library on the history of women in the United States, the Schlesinger Library documents women's lives from the past and present for the future. In addition to its traditional strengths in the history of feminisms, women’s health, and women’s activism, the Schlesinger collections document the intersectional workings of race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class in American history.

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