Allen Family

Beautiful family portrait of Henry W. Allen, his daughter Catherine B. Allen, and his wife Minta B. Allen.

Henry W. Allen (1870-1903) was a Fisk University graduate and worked as a railway mail clerk. He was killed in a train accident near Morris, Alabama, on December 23, 1903. He married Minta G. Bosley (1875-1949) in 1894. The couple had three children: Catherine Bosley Allen Latimer (1896-1948), Marian M. Allen Thompson (1899-?), and Henry B. Allen (ca. 1902-?).

Minta Allen was also a Fisk University graduate. After the death of her husband, she moved with her children to Europe for several years. In 1909, the family settled in Brooklyn, New York, and later married W. Frederick Trotman in 1911. While living in New York, she became acquainted with W. E. B. Du Bois, and he was a frequent guest in her home.

Catherine Latimer earned a degree in library science from Howard University and did graduate work at Columbia University. In 1920, she became the first African American librarian hired by the New York Public Library (NYPL). She would later become assistant curator of the Schomburg Collection of Negro History and Literature at NYPL. She retired for health reasons in 1946. She married Benton R. Latimer sometime in the 1920s. Their son, Bosley Latimer, studied art at Bard College and became an artist and painter in New York.

Calvert Brothers Studio, Nashville, Tennessee; Tennessee State Library and Archives