The Sullivan Family papers, which date from 1880 to 1994 and measure 2.25 linear feet, document the personal lives of four generations in the Sullivan Family. The papers are comprised of personal correspondence, school materials, legal documents, financial records, clippings, books, posters, and photographs.
Scope and Contents note:
These papers, which date from 1880 to 1994, bulk dates 1920–1960, document the lives of four generations of the Sullivan family. They contain material relating to a great number of Sullivan family members descended from Livinia and Abraham Sullivan. The papers especially offer insight into the family's life and involvement during the Second World War through a particularly abundant collection of correspondence and photographs. The papers also include books, legal documents, financial records, and school materials.
Arrangement note:
The papers are organized into four series. Folders are arranged alphabetically within series, while documents within folders are organized chronologically. Oversized material appears in the series: Biographical Files, Printed Materials and Photographs. Non archival materials associated with the papers are housed in the Collections Department.
Series I: Biographical Files
Series II: Correspondence
Series III: Printed Materials
Series IV: Photographs
Biographical/Historical note:
In 1883 Abraham Sullivan welcomed his wife, Livinia and four children, Charles, Nynetta, Emma, and Theodore to Boston, Massachusetts. Emigrating from New Brunswick, Canada, the family would remain in the Boston area for many generations to come. After the move to Boston, oldest son Charles H. Sullivan would rise to prominence in the New England music scene. He became a skilled craftsman in instrument-making and founded the Boston Victorian Orchestra, a multi-racial orchestra.
Charles Sullivan never married, which perhaps contributes to the lack of information on his life. His brother Theodore married Anne Vann of Nova Scotia, Canada. Together they raised two daughters from Anne's previous marriage, Sadie and Rosa Jones (later Sadie Thompson and Rosa Miller). They also had four children of their own, Theodore M., twins Mary (later Mary Walters) and May, and Frances (later Frances Mendez).
Theodore and Anne's son Theodore M. began his family's military tradition by enlisting in the army in 1917, during the First World War. He spent two years fighting in Europe before being honorably discharged at the end of the conflict in 1919. In the early 1930s Theodore was awarded the Purple Heart by United States Secretary of War George Dern for eleven different wounds sustained in 1918.
Theodore M.'s example was followed by his immediate and extended family members during the Second World War. Many of the women volunteered in war efforts at home and all three of Theodore M.'s sons, Lewis, Earle, and Edwin (Eddy) enlisted for service in the armed forces. In 1943 Earle Sullivan was accepted into the Tuskegee Institution's program for training the first African American military pilots (now famously known as the "Tuskegee Airmen") and was well into his training before his death at the end of 1943.
The Sullivan family continued their tradition of service for many decades through memberships with the Red Cross and American Legion. In 1954 Sadie Thompson, Theodore M. Sullivan's half sister, was honored with an award for forty years of service in her Boston Chapter of the American Red Cross, and again in 1971 for fifty five years of active involvement.
Although the Sullivan family retained ties to the Boston area they originally settled in, several branches have spread throughout the northeastern United States. After his marriage, Theodore M. Sullivan began working for the Bureau of Engraving in Washington D.C. Still connected to his Boston home, Theodore split his time between the two cities until his death in 1969. Upon her marriage to Thomas Mendes, Ethylene Mendez, daughter of Francis Sullivan Mendez moved to Long Island, N.Y. She was eventually followed by her mother and sister, Lillian, where they lived until their deaths in the 1980s and 90s.
Provenance:
The Sullivan Family papers were donated to the Anacostia Community Museum in April 2005 by Savina Martin, Dominga Martin and Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for unrestricted research. Use requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Sullivan Family papers are the physical property of the Anacostia Community Museum. Literary and copyright belong to the author/creator or their legal heirs and assigns. Rights to work produced during the normal course of Museum business resides with the Anacostia Community Museum. For further information, and to obtain permission to publish or reproduce, contact the Museum Archives.
World War, 1939-1945 -- African Americans Search this
Genre/Form:
Autograph albums
Books
Correspondence
Certificates
Tintypes (prints)
Ephemera
Financial records
Negatives (photographic)
Photographic prints
Citation:
The Sullivan Family papers, Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Savina Martin, Dominga Martin and Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper.
No access restrictions. Many of SIA's holdings are located off-site, and advance notice is recommended to consult a collection. Please email the SIA Reference Team at osiaref@si.edu
Tintypes depicting fur trader Robert Meldrum and his wife Medicine Tree [Apsáalooke (Crow/Absaroke); also known as Margaret].
Scope and Contents:
P08166
This collection contains two circular gem tintypes pasted to a mat board. The tintypes depict Robert Meldrum and his wife Medicine Tree [Apsáalooke (Crow/Absaroke); also known as Margaret]. The photographs were shot by an unidentified photographer in St. Louis, Missouri, circa 1858-1865.
According to the original inventory, the tintypes were part of a jewelry locket. At some unknown point in time, the tintypes were removed from the locket and pasted to a mat board.
Arrangement:
The tintypes are arranged on a mat board inside an archival phase box.
Biographical / Historical:
Robert Meldrum (1802-1865) was a fur trader and interpreter for the Apsáalooke (Crow/Absaroke) tribe.
Born in 1802, Meldrum and his family emigrated from Scotland to Canada in 1812 and eventually moved to the United States. By the late 1820s, Meldrum was living in St. Louis, Missouri and working in the Rocky Mountain fur trade industry.
The American Fur Company hired Meldrum in 1833 to act as a liaison between the company and the Crow community in Montana. He was stationed at various American Fur Company trading posts and commercial forts along the Yellowstone and Upper Missouri Rivers including Fort Cass, Fort Alexander, Fort Sharpy, and Fort Sharpy II. At these posts, Northern Plains tribes brought various furs to be traded for guns, ammunition, clothing, beads, and other goods.
Meldrum also learned to speak the Apsáalooke language and served as an interpreter between the tribe and U.S. Government. The tribe conferred Meldrum the status of chief and gave him the name "Round Iron" because of the iron trinkets he gifted. Meldrum reportedly married several Apsáalooke women over the years, including Medicine Tree (Margaret), although very little was written about them.
On July 10, 1865, Meldrum died at the American Fur Company's Fort Union on the Upper Missouri River.
Related Materials:
The Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives also holds a photograph of Robert Meldrum.
Separated Materials:
The National Museum of the American Indian also holds other objects from Jirah Isham Allen's collection (object catalog numbers 147472 to 147486).
Provenance:
Formerly in the collection of Jirah Isham Allen (Colonel Ike Allen, 1839-1929, a Montana prospector, pioneer, and storekeeper) and probably collected by him between 1862 and about 1920; purchased by MAI from Jirah Allen in 1926.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archives Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not modified in any way, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian. For more information please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use and NMAI Archive Center's Digital Image request website.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Tintypes of Robert Meldrum and Medicine Tree, P08166, NMAI.AC.386; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
This tintype shot circa 1875-1885 depicts Bill Shopodock (Potawatomi) sitting for his portrait wearing a jacket with fur trim and a bowler hat with two feathers. The 1910 census for Wabeno, Forest, Wisconsin lists Shopodock's birth date as circa 1840 and his occupation as a foreman on a farm. It also notes that he was married for 45 years. According to the 1926 Indian Census Rolls for Potawatomi at the Laona Agency, William Shopodock was born in 1845 and died on August 22, 1925. The 1880 census for Waupaca, Wisconsin, the family name is spelled Chabodoc. The original museum catalog records for the tintype listed his last name as Schobedock, which may be another alternate spelling.
According to the publication The Shopodocks: a Potawatomi Indian story by Delores Zillmer Miller, Bill Shopodock also went by the name Soc-qua. His father was Che-pau-dack (Sam Wapuka or Chief Waupaca) and his siblings were Kik-a-pa, Che-wan, Joseph and John. They lived in Dupont Township, Waupaca County, Wisconsin in the 1870s, where this tintype may have been shot.
Collection Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archives Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not modified in any way, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian. For more information please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use and NMAI Archive Center's Digital Image request website.
Collection Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Charles G. Schoewe collection of Potawatomi tintypes, image #, NMAI.AC.406; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
This collection consists of 2 tintypes collected by Charles G. Schoewe that depict Potawatomi men from Wisconsin.
Scope and Contents:
This collection consists of 2 tintypes collected by Charles G. Schoewe that depict Potawatomi men from Wisconsin. One tintype depicts Bill Shopodock (1845-1925) circa 1875-1885. The other tintype depicts two men possibly Jim Anishinaba and John Sanko circa 1880-1895. The photographers for these images are unknown.
Arrangement:
Arranged by catalog number. The tintypes are stored in 2 archival phase boxes.
Biographical / Historical:
Charles Gustav Schoewe was born on September 13, 1887 in Milwaukee, Wisconson. He worked for Middleton Manufacturing Company where he served as a salesman and later a manager. His family included his wife Blanche and his children Jean and William. Schoewe died on November 14, 1970.
Provenance:
Gift of Charles Schoewe to the Museum of the American Indian in 1933.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archives Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not modified in any way, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian. For more information please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use and NMAI Archive Center's Digital Image request website.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Charles G. Schoewe collection of Potawatomi tintypes, image #, NMAI.AC.406; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
