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THBAnita Bolden Fitts, Pioneering African-American Missionary to Africa, Personal Correspondence and Photographs
About Seller
6270 Este Ave.
Cincinnati , OH 45232
United States
With offices in Cincinnati, Cleveland and Denver, Cowan’s holds over 40 auctions each year, with annual sales exceeding $16M. We reach buyers around the globe, and take pride in our reputation for integrity, customer service and great results. A full-service house, Cowan’s Auctions specializes in Am...Read more
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About Auction
LiveJun 22, 2018
Cowan’s American History: Premier Auction, scheduled for June 22, 2018 is comprised of early photographs, documents, manuscripts, broadsides, flags, and more dating from the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, Late Indian Wars, World War I and II and beyond. Cowan's Auctions dawnie@cowans.com
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- Lot Description
Lot of photographs, letters, and other documents related to the life and work of pioneering African American missionary Anita Bolden (1898-1996). Bolden was one of the first female missionaries to French West Africa and Sierra Leone, and one of just a small number of African Americans serving as missionaries there in the 1920s. She is credited with translating the Gospels into the Kuranko language of the Mende people and ministering to them in their native tongue.
Born in 1898 in Cleveland, Ohio, to George and Kitty Bolden, Anita Bolden was immersed at an early age in evangelism and preaching. Her mother was closely involved in the Christian and Missionary Alliance, an evangelical Protestant denomination, and Anita was strongly influenced by her association with the church. In particular, the CMA's summer missionary conventions would help lead Anita down a path towards missionary work and evangelicalism. It was at a summer meeting that Anita became acquainted with an African American minister, Rev. E. M. Collette of North Carolina, who would invite her to join him in the South working on a revival campaign. She soon found that she not only was passionate about the ministry, but that she excelled at it as well. In 1920, Anita graduated from Nyack College, a CMA educational institution in New York City which was founded to train men and women for missionary work around the world. Three years later on November 17, 1923, a twenty-five year old Anita Bolden sailed for Africa.
The majority of documents in this collection date from approximately 1920s through 1930s. Four letters are in the archive, two of which were written by Bolden while in Sierra Leone. Writing to her mother in 1928, just prior to her departure from Africa, Bolden's letters discuss plans for her departure, family matters back home, and finances. She discusses a missing allowance which she suspects was stolen by a corrupt postal agent in Kaballa, and a fellow missionary who has given birth to her third child while in Africa. Bolden's letters paint a portrait of a loving, devoted, and deeply religious young woman. Though she is clearly excited to come home, Bolden is simultaneously anxious about the transition as well. "Pray much for me," she tells her mother in October 1928 as she prepares for the voyage home, "as I'll be alone on sea & in a strange land after 5 year's of bush." Of the remaining two letters in the collection, one was written to her mother by a relative, and the final letter was written to Anita in 1930 by a friend and includes mention of Anita's improving health, likely a reference to the malaria that she contracted while in Africa.
Other documents in the collection include the following: a copy of the French West Africa Quarterly News containing news from missionaries in the field; a 1931 program from the Better Homes and Goodwill Mass Meeting; a letter from the Foreign Mission Board of the National Baptist Convention inviting Bolden to speak about "...this African situation"; a 1936 imprint from the 44th Annual Session of the Allegheny General Baptist Association & Auxiliaries; and several other miscellaneous ephemera.
Highlighting the collection are approximately 50 photographs. Photographs come in a wide variety of sizes, and include several Real Photo postcards. The images in the collection include the following: depictions of African villagers and village life; images of revival conventions (or some other type of assembly) as well as smaller groups of unidentified individuals; several images of Anita and friends on board a vessel; and professional studio portraits of Anita and her family dating from the late 1800s through approximately the 1920s.
Bolden spent a total of five years as a missionary in Africa before returning home in December of 1928. Thereafter she resided with her parents in Cleveland before marrying William S. Fitts in 1933 and settling in Pittsburgh. Bolden was never ever able to return to Africa as she had contracted malaria during her initial mission. She spent the remainder of her life living in Pittsburgh and serving her community through work with the church, the Salvation Army, the YWCA, and other organizations.
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