African American Advertising — Funeral Home Ephemera — Women in Business.

Item Details

[African American Advertising — Funeral Home Ephemera — Women in Business.]

Williams & Herring Funeral Home / Kelly & Williams Funeral Home, Mississippi, ca. 1963–68 (?)

Two lithographed church fans, each approx. 12 × 7½ in. (including handle). Color recto with domestic mother-and-child image; text verso advertises multiple Mississippi locations and prominently credits women proprietors and managers: Mrs. Vetrene Williams (Owner), Mrs. Yvonne Mosley (Co-owner/Chapel Services), among others. Wood handles stapled as issued; minor handling, overall very good.

These fans are notable primary evidence of women’s leadership in Black funeral service, a sector that anchored economic life and mutual-aid networks in African American communities. While many funeral homes were family concerns, women frequently ran day-to-day operations, handled community relations and grief care, and—often—held licenses in embalming or restorative art. In rural Mississippi, such women-led businesses carried particular civic weight; the Philadelphia, Miss. imprint places them squarely in a community central to 1960s Civil Rights history. The absence of area codes and the photographic style support a mid-1960s date.