W. Sherman Savage Collection

The papers concern Savage's writing and research on African American history, especially in the California and trans-Mississippi West, his retirement from Lincoln University in 1960 and his subsequent teaching at Cal State LA. There is also material about his efforts to secure a publisher for his major study, Blacks in the West. The papers in this collection represent only the latter portion of Savage's career as an historian and educator. Unfortunately, according to Savage himself, his earlier papers were destroyed by a tenant who was leasing the Savages' home after his retirement from Lincoln University (carbon copy of letter to Dr. Michael R. Winston, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, July 14, 1974, Box 7, folder 10).

Some notable items include correspondence in 1969 and 1970 between Sherman Savage and various representatives of the University of Nebraska's educational television station in the course of developing a television series on African-Americans in the West (see Savage to Larry Long, Box 6, folder 53 and University of Nebraska, University Television to Sherman Savage, Box 7, folder 42); multiple drafts of Sherman Savage's major publication, Blacks in the West (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976), Boxes 1 through 3.

Note: Many of the materials are in rather poor physical condition because of the deteriorating paper upon which the letters or manuscripts were produced or because of previous circumstances of storage.