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Guide to the Nettie J. Asberry Papers
1912-1967

Biographical Note

Nettie J. Asberry was a music teacher who was born Nettie J. Craig on July 15, 1865, in Leavenworth, Kansas. She earned a degree from the Kansas State Conservatory of Music and later earned her Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. She moved to Seattle in 1890 and relocated to Tacoma in 1893. Following her marriage to Albert J. Jones, who died three years after their move to Seattle, she married Henry Joseph Asberry. In 1908 Nettie Asberry helped found the Clover Leaf Art Club, one of the first African American Women’s clubs in the state. She became a leader in the Washington State Federation of Colored Women’s Organizations and served as its president. The organization was founded in 1917 and was known by various names, including the Washington State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, the Colored Women’s Federation of Washington and Jurisdiction and, in later years, the Washington State Association of Colored Women (and ... Colored Women's Clubs). Asberry was also a founder of the Tacoma Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and a member of the Progressive Mothers' Club of Tacoma and the Tacoma Inter-Racial Council. Nettie J. Asberry died in 1968.

Scope and Content

The Nettie J. Asberry Papers consist largely of photocopied correspondence, bulletins, notes, minutes, and agendas that document the Washington State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs.

Restrictions on Access

Collection is open to the public.

Restrictions on Use

The creator's literary rights were not transferred to the University of Washington Libraries.

Acquisition Info

Photocopies were made from papers loaned by Eliza McCabe in 1969. Additional papers, including the minute book of the Progressive Mothers' Club, certificates, photographs and other material, were donated later in 1969.

Processing Info

Recopying and processing was completed in 1997.

Photographs in the Asberry papers were relocated to the Nettie J. Asberry Photograph Collection, PH Coll. 663, in the repository in 2004.

Separated Material

A copy of Brown's Prismatic Charts, 1886, was transferred to the Music Library in 1989.

Other Finding Aids

The photographs that form part of this collection are described and indexed in A Guide to the Nettie J. Asberry Photograph Collection.

Related Material

Papers of Nettie J. Asberry are also located at the African American Museum in Tacoma, Washington.

Inventory