Mar 29, 2018 - Sale 2471

Sale 2471 - Lot 201

Price Realized: $ 1,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(EDUCATION.) Hubert, Willis J. Scrapbook kept as a student at the Hampton Institute. Hundreds of clippings, photographs, programs, manuscripts, and other ephemera mounted on 39 scrapbook pages. Oblong folio album, 12 x 18 inches, post binder with decorative wooden boards reading "Hampton Inst., W.H." and illustrated with a campus building, minor wear and front board partially detached; contents mostly affixed with rubber cement and coming detached in places, some items already missing or laid in front, but condition otherwise generally sound. Hampton, VA, 1936-40

Additional Details

Willis Jones Hubert (1919-2007) was raised in Savannah, GA, where his father was principal of Beach Cuyler High School. This scrapbook covers his time at the Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) through his graduation in 1940. The Hampton student from this period who probably went on the greatest fame was Mary Winston Jackson of the class of 1942, who went on to a distinguished engineering career at NASA and was the central figure in the recent film Hidden Figures. Hubert's scrapbook offers a rich portrait of campus life, including his report cards, campus newspapers, theater and musical programs (opera singer Marian Anderson appeared on campus), athletic programs, party invitations, and more than 50 photographs of classmates, many of them humorously captioned. Hubert studied agriculture at Hampton, so his horticultural club prizes and programs are also included, as well as by-laws of the college Poultry Producers Association. Also included are a few items from other historically black colleges which Hubert visited, either for athletic events or to see family members, such as Fisk, Howard, and Tennessee State. After graduation, Jones did some graduate work at the Tuskegee Institute; his 1941 report card is the latest item in this scrapbook. He later served as a Tuskegee Airman during the war, reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel during a long military career, and then served as a vice president at Morehouse College.