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This collection contains a brown faux leather photo album (7.25" X 11.25") belonging to Bessie Emanuel. Bessie (1902-1984) was raised in White Plains, New York. She was the first Black woman in her town to attend college, entering the Hampton Institute in Virginia in 1922. The photographs are dated from 1922 to 1924 and capture daily life at the Institute, sports events, friends, and family. Captions are found throughout the album. A picture of Bessie with her family in the Hampton Institute dining room features a poem dedicated to her parents on its reverse. The album was compiled by Black students at Hampton Institute.

The six letterbooks of Dr. Charles P. Wertenbakerin this collection contain approximately nine hundred items of correspondence, 1889-1913, while Wertenbaker was Medical Officer in Command of the United States Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, based in Wilmington, North Carolinaand Norfolk, Virginia, and concern his efforts in combatting yellow fever, small pox, and tuberculosis, and in improving general sanitation practices in the South. Included in some of the letterbooks, primarily as loose papers, are clippings, reports, speeches, and articles.

This collection contains a photograph album of a student from Hampton Institute. The original photo album, measuring 7' x 10' with 24 pages, contains 44 black and white photographs of an unidentified young Black woman, approximately 20 years old, as well as cut newspaper images and a photo postcard. She is seen at Hampton Institute, a historically Black University, in Hampton, Virginia, posing in front of school buildings, clowning around with friends, and preparing for graduation. Also included are scenic photographs of places she visited such as a dam, a church, and a parade. The last few pages contain family photographs; a couple photographs show her with an elderly woman. Some of the baby photographs are inscribed "To Grandma" and "To Grand Dad" and another is labeled "Me". The identification of the Hampton Institute as the locale comes from a real photo postcard with the title "The Hampton Institute Creative Dance Group" and a newspaper cutout of the Hampton Institute Choir along with the news caption, "They Keep Spiritual Values High at Hampton." It is possible that this album was kept by the grandparent of the young women.

This collection contains the college scrapbook of Louise Boyer who attended the School of Education at the Hampton Institute, now Hampton University, in Hampton, Virginia. Hampton Institute, a historically Black college, was founded in 1868 as the Hampton Agricultural and Industrial School by the American Missionary Association for the education of the formerly enslaved. Also included is an earlier collection of one scrapbook titled "Scrapbook of Louise Boyer at Hampton Institute. This scrapbook has more information about Hampton Institute included with Boyer's own scrapbook pages. There are pressed flowers, progams for music events and track meets, autographs, greeting cards, poetry, photographs, and newspaper clippings. There is also a poem dedicated to the memory of Hampton administrator Albert Howe.