Dr. William Henry Sheppard

Location: 
20.1
Date from: 
1865
Date to: 
1928
Record Group: 
Extension
Description: 

In earlier days, extension work carried the advantages of the school to people who were not in the immediate area of Hampton Institute.  The objective of extension work was to aid in the progressive improvement of Black rural communities and schools. Extension work at Hampton Institute has been carried out by (1) sending teachers and workers to attend Black school meetings, conventions, and fairs to aid them in accomplishing the missions of their programs, and by systematic informal school visiting; (2) preparing publications, such as Hampton Leaflets; (3) conducting "extension schools" in rural schools of Virginia to aid teachers and school principals in both intra-and extra-mural activities; (4) employing black farm-demstration agents in Elizabeth City County (the county in which Hampton institute is located); (5) providing financial assistance to the supervisor of Negro schools in Virginia for the employment of special supervising teachers; (6) obtaining information about the work of Hampton graduates which would be useful in serving them and their work through the institute's placement bureau; (7) establishing and maintaining close contact with numerous public and private schools in the south; and (8) assisting in the editing and printing of a monthly newsletter known as Negro Progress Record (newsletter for the Negro Organization Society of Virginia). From 1893, the year General Samuel Chapman Armstrong died, thousands of men and women have made pilgrimages to see and study the experiment in American social education which, he, the soldier-educator, had set up. Many of these visitors, and others whom they influenced by their reports and addresses, have attempted to carry into action General Armstrong's ideas of education, both in the United States and in foreign lands. Included are the following:

20.1 African Affairs.

1890-1973.

1890-1973. 90 linear feet and ca. 1,609 items. Includes AID - 1966 - 1969 (Agency for international Development), Washington, D.C. , USAID, contract amendments, correspondence, evaluation reports, memoranda, and miscellaneous reports - ca. 850 items); Africa - 1902 - 1971 (correspondence, Newspaper articles, booklets, applications, memoranda, and pamphlets regarding the Foreign Exchange program, Foreign Study Program, Guggisberg - Sir Frederick Gordon, and Operation Crossroads ca. 210 items) ; African Institute - 1970 (photographs and miscellaneous items ca. 73 items) African Scholarships Program - 1970 (American University - correspondence 5 items); African Students - 1968- 1970 ( Schedule of Outstanding Balance and other information 5 items); Julia and Madikane Cele - 1915 - 1917 (biographical information, correspondence, and miscellaneous items 50 items) ; A.P. Ferguson - 1906 - 1907 (Huguenot College - correspondence - ca. 35 items); Ghana - 1906-1907 (booklets 15 items); Kenya Project - 1906-1907 (photographs - ca. 76 items); Liberia - 1898-1917 (correspondence, information and pamphlets concerning the Consulate of the Republic of Liberia 25 items); Mandingo - 1915-1917 (Development Association - articles, correspondence, minutes, newspaper articles, reports, etc.  ca. 125 items); photographs and pamphlets - 1890-1935 30 items; Resources Book - 1965 (Rural Universities in Developing African Countries, 428 pages); Sierra Leone Project - 1953-1972 (accounts (receipts), budgets, contracts, correspondence (general and administrative), financial data, memoranda, miscellaneous information, pamphlets, photographs, shipping invoices and memoranda, state department correspondence and invoices, student folders (A-Z), training manuals, correspondence with the following individuals: Barkuto, Joseph Gillard, Robert A. Rice, and Richard Spencer 30 linear feet); Mr. and Mrs. K. Simanago - 1922-1960 (West Africa 20 items); South African students - 1922-1960 (correspondence and information concerning tour of Hampton Institute 30 items); student folders - 1890-1971 (arranged alphabetically A-Z, 8 linear feet); and visitors from Africa - 1890-1973 (schedule of visitors, correspondence, and visa information ca. 60 items).

Dr. William Henry Sheppard. 1865-1928.

Dr. Sheppard, Black American missionary for the Presbyterian Church (Southern) from 1890-1910, was born in Waynesboro, Virginia in 1865. He attended Hampton Institute in 1883. Because of his notable achievements regarding Missionary work in Africa, particularly in the Belgian Congo, Dr. Sheppard was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1893. He was an avid collector of African artifacts and over 400 pieces of African art were purchased from him by Hampton Institute, establishing the first extensive African collection in the country. Dr. Sheppard pastored churches in Montgomery, Alabama, Atlanta, Georgia, and Louisville, Kentucky.

Papers. 1883-1928. 4 linear feet.

Includes correspondence, reports, books and articles by Dr. Sheppard, newspaper clippings, speeches, photographs of his family, friends, and associates, articles about Dr. Sheppard in all aspects of his work including national and international coverage of his trial and acquittal on charges by the Compagnie du Kasai of 'calumnious denunciation' (the missionary exposed the injustices against the natives) - Dr. Sheppard was credited with having furnished most of the ammunition used in the International Peace Conference in Boston against King Leopold for his policy in the Congo Free State; copies of all Sheppard materials located at the Historical Foundation of the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches in Montreal, North Carolina, miscellaneous items, handbills announcing public appearances, newspaper reports on Dr. Sheppard's lectures, on social events in honor, on the Presbyterian Church's homeland missionary work among Blacks in several southern cities, and politics and culture among the Bakuba and other peoples in West Central Africa.

Subjects: 
Dr. William Henry Sheppard, Extension