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These are the papers of high school principal William Henry Fouse and his wife, Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beatrice Cooke Fouse. The papers reflect the Fouses efforts on behalf of black education in Lexington during the first half of the 20th century. Family letters, notebooks, printed materials, pamphlets, financial records, broadsides, receipts and mementos comprise a large portion of the collection. Correspondence relating to Dunbar High School and Dr. Fouse's other educational concerns are included, as is Mrs. Fouse's correspondence which reflects her involvement with educational, social, religious and temperance organizations. A journal contains records of various activities at Dunbar High School, including sports events. A ledger (dated 1910-1918) includes addresses and expense account records. There is also information on the Henry Hughes Educational Fund and a radio script by Dr. Fouse for a broadcast on WLAP radio (April 30, 1939) on the history of blacks in Lexington. There is a notebook containing clippings on a variety of topics, especially black education. A few photographs are among the papers.

The Fouses of Lexington, Ky. were actively involved in the education of blacks in the area.

A prominent form of voluntary organization in the United States from the nineteenth century through the mid–twentieth century, fraternal associations are self-selecting brotherhoods and sisterhoods that provide mutual aid to members, enact group rituals, and engage in community service.

Synthesizing primary and secondary evidence, this article documents that African Americans historically organized large numbers of translocal fraternal voluntary federations. Some black fraternal associations paralleled white groups, while others were distinctive to African Americans.

In regions where blacks lived in significant numbers, African Americans often created more fraternal lodges per capita than whites; and women played a much more prominent role in African American fraternalism than they did in white fraternalism.

To work for the economic, moral, religous and social welfare of women and youth. To protect the rights of women and youth. To raise the standard and quality of life in home and family. To secure and use our influence for the enforcement of civil and political rights for African Americans and all citizens. To promote the education of women and youth through the work of the departments. To obtain for African American women the opportunity of reaching the highest levels in all fields of human endeavor. To promote effective interaction with the male auxiliary. To promote inter-racial understanding so that justice and good will may prevail among all people. To hold educational workshops biennially at the Convention.  

The economic and social circumstances of their community affected black women and their perceptions of the world. The informal networks that characterized much of their nineteenth-century efforts remained important, but the increasing population compelled them to give way to new formal, structured groups designed to improve their status and that of their community. African American women in Buffalo had keen notions of the meaning of community and they were deeply involved in the creation of their twentieth-century Buffalo. These women persistently had struggled to improve the lives of their people.