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Charles W. Chesnutt to Ruth McConnell, 25 April 1932

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  Miss Ruth McConnell, 149 Beech Street, Greensboro, N. C. My dear Miss McConnell:

I have your letter of April 19th, asking me for a picture for your booklet of "Great Negroes." I have n't a spare copy of a good photograph, but I send you under another cover a copy of "The Clevelander", the organ of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, which contains an article from my pen on "The Negro in Cleveland," illustrated by a very good photograph of myself.1

I hope this will serve your purpose, and remain,

Sincerely yours, CWC:ES2



Correspondent: Ruth Rebecca Elizabeth McConnell Cousins (1920–1986) was a Black woman who lived and died in Greensboro, North Carolina. She graduated from Dudley High School in 1937, taught adult-education night classes, and became a schoolteacher (retiring in 1976).



1. Chesnutt's 1930 essay "The Negro in Cleveland" was published in The Clevelander 5, no. 7 (November 1930): 3–4, 24–27. It was accompanied by a portrait. [back]

2. Emilie Skarabotta (1908–1990), the daughter of Hungarian immigrants, was a stenographer and notary public who worked for Chesnutt's and Helen Moore's stenography business in the early 1930s. She was eventually listed on the firm's letterhead. [back]