Marion Fisher Stevenson papers

The Marion Fisher Stevenson Papers document aspects of Stevenson's personal and church life, as well as the history of Union Bethel A.M.E. Church in New Orleans, Louisiana, where Stevenson attended. The collection contains a photograph scrapbook (circa 1900s-1970s) containing pictures of friends, family, and acquaintances of Stevenson. Photographs are both candid and portrait shots. Highlights include an image of two women on board the S.S. Catalina, which carried passengers between Los Angeles and Santa Catalina Island from 1924-1975; images of women at the Los Angeles Airdome; graduation photogrpahs; African American servicemen; First A.M.E. Church in Los Angeles, and Union Bethel A.M.E. Church in New Orleans. A small number of printed items are also present, including an invitation to the wedding of Marion Fisher and John B. Stevenson in 1971. One page contains a 1952 pennant for the A.M.E. Church General Conference in Chicago, Illinois.

Loose photographs (circa 1880s-1960s) include some formerly housed in the scrapbook. Highlights include a photograph of group at the Robin Hood Club in New Orleans and a group at Club DeLisa in the Bronzeville section of Chicago, circa 1940s. Paper documents primarily relate to Union Bethel A.M.E. Church. They include a booklet entitled "The Book of Acts, 1944" about Union Bethel, a booklet for the church's mortgage burning ceremony (1977), and a photocopy of a history of the church by Audrey Carr Robertson (1980). Also included are a marriage announcement for Adressie Camille and Theodore E. Prophet (1942) in Baton Rouge, LA, and a certificate of completion of evening school in New Orleans awarded to Marion Norman Fisher (1940). Additional materials include a program for a performance (possibly held at Union Bethel) by African American tenor Roland Hayes, circa 1948, signed by Hayes. Lastly, the collection contains three letters to Stevenson, dated 1962. Two are from Louise W. Jackson and pertain to local church affairs; the third is from a cousin, Wilma White, in Los Angeles.