Call Number:

Item 0172

Repository:

University of Delaware Library Special Collections

Extent:

1 volume

Language:

English, French, and Latin

Preferred Citation:

MSS 0093 Item 0172, Edith Gerselda Lynch autograph book, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.

Date:

1935

Creator:

Lynch, Edith Gerselda

Form:

Autograph albums

Abstract:

This item is a 1935 autograph book that belonged to Edith Gerselda Lynch, a student in the class of 1937 at Howard High School in Wilmington, Delaware. The book contains signatures and messages from Lynch's friends, acquaintances, and family, including a signature from Howard High School teacher and librarian Pauline A. Young. The pages provide a glimpse of student life at a Delaware-based African American high school prior to desegregation.

Edith Gerselda Lynch (1919-1991) was a Wilmington resident and student at the historically Black Howard High School (now Howard High School of Technology). She lived at 418 Lombard Street and her parents were John H. and Gerselda H. Lynch (née Baxter). Writer and activist Alice Dunbar-Nelson had been a teacher at Howard High School for almost two decades, and her niece, Pauline A. Young, was on the staff at the time Lynch was a student. After high school, Lynch was subsequently known as Edith Gerselda Foster, Edith Lynch Delaney, and Edith G. Walker. Toward the end of her life, she resided in Cheyney, Pennsylvania.

Ancestry Library, 2018, accessed April 11, 2018, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/. "The Morning News from Wilmington, Delaware: Page 20." Newspapers.com, 2018 (first published September 15, 1987), accessed April 11, 2018, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/159742555/.Other biographical information derived from collection.

This item is a 1935 autograph book that belonged to Edith Gerselda Lynch, a student in the class of 1937 at Howard High School in Wilmington, Delaware. The book contains signatures and messages from Lynch's friends, acquaintances, and family, including a signature from Howard High School teacher and librarian Pauline A. Young. The pages provide a glimpse of student life at a Delaware-based African American high school prior to desegregation.

The beginning of the autograph book contains some information about Howard High School at the time of Lynch's attendance. Several other pages are in keeping with the tradition of friendship albums, as they contain messages consisting of poems and quotations written by classmates and others--many of which are humorous, and some of which are more serious or supportive. Most are written in English, several in French, and a few in Latin. In addition to classmates, unspecified individuals, and Pauline Young, there are messages from both of Lynch's parents, as well as janitors "Bip" Maynard Watson and "Bing" Braxton.