Scrapbooks and scrapbook pages, 1910-1981

Williams was an inveterate scrapbooker and kept personal and professional materials in scrapbooks documenting her entire life, throughout her life. Common document types include photographs, clippings, correspondence, ephemera, and press releases. Notable items include documentation of early photographs of family and friends, telegrams from David Stone Martin, Billy Strayhorn, James P. Johnson, Oscar Pettiford, and others, session logs from Nola recording sessions, and ephemera from Williams’s appearances with “Williams’ Six Struttin Syncopators,” her early 1950s European tour, and her Carnegie Hall performances in 1946 ( Zodiac Suite) and 1977 (Embraced), with Cecil Taylor, as well as materials related to religious concerns. Please see individual, scrapbook-level, scope and contents notes for additional information on most scrapbooks.