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Guide to the Bernice Middleton Papers
MS 55
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Table of contents
Title: Bernice Middleton papers
Dates: 1938-1994
Collection number: MS 55
Creator:
Middleton, Bernice.
Collection Size:
.5 linear feet
(1 box)
Repository:
African American Museum & Library at Oakland (Oakland, Calif.)
Oakland, CA 94612
Abstract: The Bernice Middleton papers include certificates, correspondence, photographs, meeting minutes, funeral programs, newspaper
clippings, and a handwritten autobiography documenting the life and career of Bernice Middleton.
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
No access restrictions. Collection is open to the public.
Materials are for use in-library only, non-circulating.
Permission to publish from the Bernice Middleton Papers must be obtained from the African American Museum & Library at Oakland.
Bernice Middleton papers, MS 55, African American Museum & Library at Oakland, Oakland Public Library. Oakland, California.
Processed by Sean Heyliger, 09/07/2013.
Biography / Administrative History
Bernice Middleton (1915-2002) was born in 1915 in Arkansas to Rev. T.J. and Pearline Middleton. The family moved to Idabel,
Oklahoma, where T.J. Middleton was a pastor of the A.M.E. church until 1929, when the family moved to Rosston, Arkansas to
live with members of Pearline Middleton’s family after the death of her father. Though the family was of limited means, Bernice
Middleton was able to graduate high school as class valedictorian and earned a scholarship to attend nursing school at the
University of Arkansas in Little Rock. She eventually graduated with an R.N. license from the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps
and moved to California where she worked as a nurse in the armed forces. Following the outbreak of World War II, she moved
to San Francisco to work at a veterans’ hospital in 1943.
After working as a nurse at various hospitals and private practices in San Francisco in the 1940s, she returned to school
at Wilberforce University in Ohio, graduating with a B.S. in 1952 and a B.D. in Divinity from Payne Theological Seminary.
While at Wilberforce University, she earned a certificate in teaching and after graduation took a position as Assistant Dean
of Women at Morris Brown University in Atlanta, Georgia in 1953. Returning to California, she was appointed Dean of Girls
at the California School for the Deaf in Berkeley, where she taught for the next seven years, before teaching at Ceres Unified
School District (1960-1967) and Modesto Junior College.
Scope and Content of Collection
The Bernice Middleton papers include certificates, correspondence, photographs, meeting minutes, funeral programs, newspaper
clippings, and a handwritten autobiography documenting the life and career of Bernice Middleton. The papers are organized
into six series: teaching, religious activities, civic organizations, autobiography, photographs, and assorted printed materials.
Teaching material includes Middleton’s resume, diplomas, certificates, her performance evaluation at the California Institution
for the Deaf and the Blind, and correspondence related to various teaching positions and letters of congratulations for teaching
awards received by Middleton. Religious material includes meeting minutes, programs, and certificates related to her involvement
in the African Methodist Episcopal church. The civic organizations series includes programs, membership rosters, correspondence,
and certificates related to her participation in the Over 60 Health Center, National Council of Negro Woman, Inc., and masonic
organizations.
The papers also include Bernice Middleton’s 94 pp. handwritten autobiography describing her experiences as child growing up
in Rosston, Arkansas from 1929-1937. In the autobiography, she describes her family's move from Idabel, Oklahoma to Rosston,
Arkansas following her father's stroke and subsequent death, their financial struggles in Arkansas, her intermittent schooling
and work picking cotton and as a domestic in a boardinghouse, and her later academic success in high school. Photographs
in the collection are mostly portraits of Bernice Middleton and photographs of students at the California Institution for
the Deaf and the Blind, and WAC servicemembers during World War II. Assorted printed material includes funeral programs of
Bernice Middleton’s mother and brother, 1953 college yearbook at Morris Brown College, and an eleven page essay written on
her life and career by Francine Elane Marsh.
Series I. Teaching
Series II. Religious activities
Series III. Civic organizations
Series IV. Autobiography
Series V. Photographs
Series VI. Printed materials
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
the library's online public access catalog.
Middleton, Bernice.
Autobiography--African American authors.
African Americans--Arkansas--History.
African Americans--Arkansas--Social conditions.
African Americans--Arkansas--History--Sources.