Finding aid for the Edward L. and Cynthia Moultrie Holloway Papers and Photographs

Biography of Edward L. Holloway and Cynthia Moultrie Holloway

Cynthia Moultrie Holloway (1912-1994) was an African American public school teacher in Cleveland, Ohio, for over 30 years during the mid-to-late twentieth century. She was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, and both of her parents were graduates of the Tuskegee Institute. Her father, John C. Moultrie taught tailoring at the Tuskegee Institute and her mother, Laura Redden, was a teacher. Orphaned by the age of fifteen, Cynthia Moultrie Holloway moved to Cleveland, Ohio, to live with Charles and Theresa Casterman, her uncle and aunt. She attended Central High School and was the valedictorian of the class of 1931. She received a full scholarship to Western Reserve University's School of Education and graduated in 1935. She earned her master's degree from the Teachers' College of Columbia University in New York. She met her husband, Edward L. Holloway, while attending Columbia in the 1940s. The couple married in New York in 1946 and returned to Cleveland to pursue their teaching careers in 1947.

Cynthia Moultrie Holloway taught in the Cleveland Public Schools for over thirty years. She was a teacher at Rutherford B. Hayes, Kinsman, and Anton Grdina schools. She traveled throughout the world as a delegate to conferences of the World Confederation of the Teaching Profession, including Australia, England, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Brazil. She held leadership positions in thirty Ohio Education assemblies and served for eight years on the Ohio Education Association's Human Relations Committee. She was presented with the ceremonial key to the city by Cleveland Mayor Carl B. Stokes, and she and her husband were the first recipients of the Holloways/Human Relations Commission Award. After her retirement from teaching, she was the president of the Cleveland chapter of the Ohio Retired Teachers Association. She was also a member of the American Association of University Women. She was a member of Antioch Baptist Church for over sixty years. She moved to Judson Manor in 1992 and died there in 1994.

Edward L. Holloway (1910-1985) was born in Meridian, Mississippi, to Charles and Katie Bush Holloway. He moved to St. Louis, Missouri, with his family when he was seven years old. He earned his bachelor of education degree at Illinois State Normal University in 1942 and his master of arts degree at the Teachers College of Columbia University. From 1935-1937, Holloway was a caseworker with the McLean County Relief Commission in Bloomington, Illinois, and from 1937-1940 he was a route salesman for the Whites Baking Company in St. Louis, Missouri. From 1942-1947 he was an industrial arts teacher in the Venice Public Schools in Illinois while working towards his masters degree in New York during the summers. He moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1947 when he accepted a teaching position in the industrial arts department of Rawlings Junior High School. Holloway then served as the Maintenance Chief for the Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority from 1949-1958. He returned to teaching in 1958 as an industrial arts teacher at Audubon Junior High School in Cleveland, a position he held until his retirement in 1975.

Edward Holloway was active in the North Eastern Ohio Teacher's Association and was the first African American to serve in a leadership position in the Ohio Education Association. As a member of the OEA Legislative Committee, he appeared before the Ohio Senate and House of Representatives Education Committees to lobby for bills to advance education in Ohio. He was also active in the Cleveland Education Association, serving as a delegate to the Council of Nine, vice president of the Junior High Section, and chairman of the Legislative Committee. He was the Cleveland delegate to the National Education Association for six years. Holloway was active in the lobbying efforts to establish the Department of Education and creating a cabinet level post for education within the federal government, and after his retirement he served as a senior citizen intern in the office of United States Representative Louis Stokes. In 1982, Illinois State University honored Holloway with its outstanding service award.

The Holloways traveled extensively as a result of their activities with various local, state, national, and international teachers associations. As members of the National Education Association, they attended 25 consecutive conventions, often as official delegates. They developed an enormous network of friends throughout the world within the teaching profession. They were also close friends with Cleveland mayor Carl Stokes and his family. They hosted annual "Holloway Friendship Weekend" events where they invited groups of teachers to Cleveland and treated them to a weekend of structured activities, informal parties, and formal dinners. The Holloways were members of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, and both served as Sunday School and Bible Study teachers. They were active supporters of the Clarke School of Dressmaking in Cleveland, Ohio, serving on the school's board and advising its faculty and staff. The couple had no children.

Scope and Content

The Edward L. and Cynthia Moultrie Holloway Papers and Photographs, 1907-1993 and undated, consist of scrapbooks that contain biographies, certificates, correspondence, memoranda, newsletters, newspaper clippings, pamphlets, photographs, and ephemera.

This collection will be useful to researchers studying the history of the teaching profession in Cleveland, Ohio, in the mid-to-late twentieth century. Those studying the progression of the local, state, and national teaching associations from organizations that advocated on behalf of the teaching profession to powerful political lobbying organizations will find this collection useful. Those interested in the activities of Cynthia Moultrie Holloway and Edward Holloway as members and leaders in the Cleveland Education Association, North Eastern Ohio Education Association, Ohio Education Association, the National Education Association, and the World Confederation of Organizations of the Teaching Profession will also find this collection useful. Those studying the history of the African American community, particularly public school teachers, will also find this collection useful. The collection includes a small number of photographs of the Moultrie and Holloway families that span multiple generations in the twentieth century.

The collection consists primarily of scrapbooks that were presumably created and maintained by Cynthia and Edward Holloway to document their professional and personal activities and accomplishments. The scrapbooks contain thousands of photographs that can be attributed to specific conferences and personal events, but virtually none are specifically identified or labeled. Many of the scrapbooks were identified as to their specific theme or event documented therein; however, many were not identified in any way. The Holloways placed photocopies of newspaper articles within multiple scrapbooks, so the researcher should expect some duplication within the collection. The researcher should also be aware that original order has been maintained for each scrapbook; no attempt has been made to place the content of any scrapbook in chronological or subject order.

The scrapbooks primarily offer the researcher visual images of professional conference proceedings, personal events and celebrations, and professional visits to foreign countries. The collection contains little documentation of the actual proceedings and activities undertaken at any particular conference or the resulting reports that came from those meetings. The collection does contain some newspaper clippings that shed light on the Holloways participation in some of the conferences and travel, and there are also limited memoranda and correspondence related to events and conferences.

One scrapbook in particular documents Cynthia Moultrie's high school activities while attending Central High School in Cleveland and illustrates the daily lives of African American youth in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Cynthia Moultrie attended Central High School with civil rights activist Ardelia Bradley Dixon, and the two remained close lifelong friends. The scrapbook includes images of Dixon as a teenager. Moultrie's homeroom teacher was the daughter of African American author Charles Chestnutt, and the scrapbook includes Moultrie's memories of a classroom visit by author Langston Hughes.

The researcher should also note that the collection contains a signed letter received from Martin Luther King, Jr., in reply to Edward Holloway's request that he address the 1966 conference of the Ohio Education Association. King declined the invitation due to his busy schedule, and a few days later moved into the Cabrini Green Homes in Chicago, Illinois, as part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Chicago Freedom Movement.

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Access

None.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

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Preferred Citation

[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 5317 Edward L. and Cynthia Moultrie Holloway Papers and Photographs, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio

Acquisition Information

Gift of Debra Wells in 1995.

Processing Information

Processed by Margaret Burzynski-Bays in 2015.

Detailed Description of The Collection