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This collection contains twenty black and white photographs, approximately 9 x 7 inches, depicting African American life, presumably in a segregated area in rural Virginia. The pictures have no annotations on the back, and the photographer is unknown. The location is also unclear; however, it may be somewhere near or in Fauquier County, Virginia. This location possibility is based on a photograph that depicts several storefronts, including a beauty salon which has two names painted on the window, Green & [ ] Beauty Salon. Juline Turner and Helen Blackwell, are presumably the proprietors of the salon.

This collection contains a panoramic photograph depicting the graduating class of Army Nurses Basic Course, No. 2, Third Platoon, photographed at the Quarter Master School, Camp Lee, Virginia, on April 10, 1945. The photograph shows 52 white female students and six male students arranged in three rows, flanked by five male officers. The women wear uniforms with ties, caps, and badges. Captioned text appears at the bottom center of the image, stating "Army Nurses Basic Course No 2 The QM School Camp Lee, Va., 10 April 1945 Third Platoon." The photograph was captured during the final months of World War II. The Quarter Master school had recently relocated from Schuykill, New York, to Camp Lee, Virginia, as part of an expansion of its operations during the war. By April 1945, over 57,000 women were serving in the US Army Nurse Corps. The photograph was taken from DeSouza Studio based in Petersburg, VA.

This collection contains thirty-one photographs of young Black women in Chicago in 1940s-1950s.

This collection contains nine press photographs from Hiroshima and a signed type script from Thomas W. Ferebee, a bombardier of the first atomic bomb. Six of the press photos of Hiroshima are aerial views before and after the nuclear bomb, two are on-the-ground shots of buildings and buses destroyed, and one photograph of United States General MacArthur accepting the Japanese surrender in September 1945. Press captions are taped or glued to the back for all but one image. The typescript, dated August 7th, details the dropping of the bomb and its aftermath in Hiroshima.

This collection contains the photograph album of Ernest Butler, a United States Army soldier who served in Germany during the Second World War. Butler was among the one million African American men and women who served during the war.

This collection contains letters and paper ephemera written to Jeanie Schroeder, a young, white woman who fell in love, got pregnant during her pre-med studies at Northwestern University, and secretly married a young Black musician identified as Keith "Tiny" Leighton in the letters. The bulk of the collection dates from the 1940s to the 1950s. The content centers Jeanie Schroeder's courage in facing the difficulties of being seen as an unwed mother in the 1940's; young men going off to World War II, and women obtaining new careers and exploring the work place that was previously unavailable to them.