Roots and Remedies: Afro-American Folk Medicine in Rhode Island, Undated

The collection is arranged in six series which document Elmore M. Browne's biographical information, correspondence, professional and personal affiliations, homegoing celebrations and funeral services for friends, family members, and colleagues, as well as miscellaneous periodicals, event programs, and artifacts from 1929 to 2006.

Series I: Biographical Materials, 1947-2006 includes Browne’s daily planners, notes, business cards information about and photographs from family reunions, resume, photographs, funeral service programs for family members including Emma Cecelia Brown Frasier, Mattie M. Brown, Robert Nathaniel Thayer, Sr., and Thomas L. Browne, and real estate records for family properties and properties he rented as a landlord.

Series II: Correspondence, 1955-2006 includes Browne’s letters with friends, family, and colleagues throughout his life.

Series III: Affiliations, 1937-2006 is the largest and documents Browne’s military, educational, religious, civic, and community affiliations. The series is broken into five subseries for each type of affiliation. The military subseries covers his service in the United States Army and includes correspondence, lesson plans, photographs, and memorabilia from his time stationed in Okinawa, Japan. The educational subseries documents Browne’s time as a student and alumni at the Hampton Institute and Case Western University as well as his work as Director of the Paul Robeson Cultural Center at the Pennsylvania State University. The materials covering his student life include his Hampton Institute transcript as well as program information and work submitted as a student at Case Western. The religious subseries covers Browne’s time as a parishioner and a member of the Vestry at Calvary Episcopal Church. The civic subseries documents his involvement with the Board of Directors of the Charleston Housing Services of South Carolina and the Community Owned Federal Credit Union. The community subseries includes his participation in the Avery Institute for Afro-American History and Culture as a member and as a Board member as well as his founding of the Original Islanders and his attempts to preserve the African American Cemetery on Sullivan’s Island.

Series IV: Homegoing Celebration and Funeral Service Programs, 1973-2006 includes programs from friends and colleagues’ homegoing celebrations and funeral services that Browne attended. There are several programs from the passing of Avery classmates and friends including Theordore Jackson Blaney, Ethelyn M. Parker, Mary Lydia Edward Pezant, Paulette Marionette Washington, and William Andrew Wragg, Sr. Any Avery Normal Institute connection is noted on the programs themselves.

Series V: Miscellaneous, 1929-2006 includes a variety of programs, periodicals, newspaper clippings, as well as records and photographs from the St. Andrews Elementary School where his aunt, Emma Frasier, worked as the school’s Principle.

Series VI: Artifacts, 1963 and Undated includes a pin from the March on Washington, an ankh, an Avery Institute platter, a fan from the Gadsen Funeral Home, and a replica Greek bronze pendant.