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Guide to the Mayme C. Netherland Collection
MS 41
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Title: Netherland (Mayme C.) collection
Dates: circa 1870s-1912
Collection number: MS 41
Creator:
Netherland, Mayme C.
Collection Size:
1.25 linear feet
(2 boxes + 1 oversize)
Repository:
African American Museum & Library at Oakland (Oakland, Calif.)
Oakland, CA 94612
Abstract: The Mayme C. Netherland Photograph Collection includes 41 photographs of friends and family of Mayme C. Netherland. Included
in the collection are circa 1880s-1900s tin-type portraits and cabinet card portraits of African American women and men, as
well as photographs of Netherland’s grandfather, father and husbands.
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 Mayme C. Netherland Collection must be obtained from the African American Museum and Library
at Oakland.
Netherland (Mayme C.) collection, MS 41, African American Museum & Library at Oakland, Oakland Public Library. Oakland, California.
Processed Mia Jaeggli, Volunteer, October, 2013.
Biography / Administrative History
Mayme (Mary) C. Netherland (1877-1973) was born to Oscar Thomas Jackson and Mary Ellen Jackson (née Scott) in Oakland, California.
Her maternal grandfather, John Scott (1815-1916), was born a slave in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. At the age of
23, he escaped and joined a band of Cherokee Indians. During this time, he helped other slaves escape along the Underground
Railroad. After two years of freedom, Scott was caught and sold to Lieutenant Hoskins of the U.S. Army. Scott served alongside
Hoskins in the Mexican-American War and was a member of John C. Fremont’s 1844 expedition to California. At the end of the
expedition, Scott escaped again and found a rich gold mine in Calaveras County. However, Scott as an African American could
not hold the property under existing laws in the 1850s. Two gamblers fought Scott for the property, during which he killed
one of them. He fled to Oregon and Utah with a reward on his head, finally returning to California in 1859 to establish a
home in Tehama County. There he married and had three children, one of whom was Netherland’s mother, Mary Ellen Jackson. Scott
successfully advocated that African American children be allowed to attend public schools in Tehama County. He died in 1916
just before turning 101.
Netherland’s father, Oscar Thomas Jackson (1846-1909), trained and worked as a barber in San Francisco on Montgomery Street
before establishing his own shop in Watsonville, California. After marrying Mary Ellen Jackson in 1871, the couple moved to
Oakland, California where they had three children. Mayme C. Netherland was the only surviving child. Soon after, Jackson left
to tour as a lead tenor with the Hicks Sawyer Minstrels and later with other minstrel groups. He resettled back in Oakland
in 1898 and returned to barbering. He died in 1909 at the age of 63.
Mayme C. Netherland married her first husband Tom Grischott in 1896 at the age of 19. In 1910 Grischott died leaving Netherland
a widow. Netherland married her second husband John Divine Netherland in 1909 at the age of 32. The Netherland’s established
a home in Oakland, California near Grove St. now named Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, which at that time was the dividing
line between where African Americans and whites could buy property.
As one of California’s prominent first African American families, Netherland was a member of the California Native Daughters
and was an active member of multiple clubs under the auspices of the Colored Women’s Clubs Association, as well as an officer
of CWCA.
In 1971, the Oakland Tribune recognized her as one of Oakland’s oldest native daughters. She died in 1973 at the age of 96.
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection contains 41 photographs, primarily portraits, with some in the form of cabinet cards or tin types. A few photographs
are of family members, but most are of unidentified persons. The photographs are arranged by identification number, with the
exception of a few contained within the album.
Series I. Photographs
Series II. Marriage certificates
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
the library's online public access catalog.
African Americans--California--History.
African Americans--California—East Bay--History.
African Americans—Families.
Photographs
“Most Unique Man of Tehama County Is Dead at Age of 101.” Red Bluff Daily News 20 May 1916 : n. pag.
Reader, Phil. “Oscar Thomas ‘O.T.’ Jackson.” Santa Cruz Public Library. 1996.
Colored Women's Clubs Associations collection, MS 1, African American Museum and Library at Oakland, Oakland Public Library.
Oakland, California.
This collection was originally part of the California Native Daughters Club Collection at the African American Museum and
Library at Oakland. The items were separated into individual collections in October 2013.