?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
(MEDICINE.) Papers of Dr. Benjamin Harrison Lawrence, a leading physician of Cleveland. Approximately 200 items (0.3 linear feet) in one box; various conditions. Vp, 1900-1962
Benjamin Harrison Lawrence (1885-1970) was raised in Georgia, and attended the Tuskegee Institute and the Shaw University medical school before establishing a private medical practice in Cleveland in 1910. There he attended to a very rapidly growing African-American population for the next 54 years. This archive includes his original 1900-01 manuscript Tuskegee notebook from the course which apparently began his medical career: "Lectures in Nursetraining" by A.H. Kennibrew, M.D. The collection is rich in photographs, including a pair of early photo albums and 64 loose photographs. One shows five robed "Tuskegeeites" clutching their diplomas at their medical school graduation in 1908. Another shows Lawrence and 6 classmates (most named) dissecting a cadaver, and one shows Dr. Lawrence at "my first desk" in 1910 (both illustrated). Dr. Lawrence's wife Edwina also features prominently. 4 sweet love letters from Benjamin to Edwina are dated August and October 1921, shortly before their marriage. His flowery romantic prose was interrupted on one occasion: "At this instance, I had to stop writing again to cauterize a wart upon a little patient's forehead." Correspondence shows that Edwina was employed as a payroll worker with various relief agencies during the Great Depression, and suffered an extended illness before her death in 1954. A pink hand-stitched blouse is presumably hers. The Harrisons appear to have been comfortably middle-class; their household receipts note a grand piano and a fur coat for Edwina. However, one disturbing mimeographed letter from 1925 shows that they were not exempt from the forces of racism. It reads simply "Get off E-117th St. and back where you belong, or..." followed by a crude drawing of a man named Dominic being paid $50 to stab Lawrence to death.
