Correspondence, receipts, bills, etc., 1940 Jan-May, Undated

The Effa Manley Private Business papers consist of correspondence, and a few bills, receipts, related primarily to the management of property owned by Effa and Abe Manley in Germantown, Pennsylvania and Camden, New Jersey. The collection also includes a few undated lists of names and addresses The Effa Manley Private Business papers consist primarily of correspondence, but also include lists, and a few bills and receipts. The bulk of the material is related to an apartment building owned by Effa Manley and members of her family in Germantown, Pennsylvania, and property owned by Abe Manley in Camden, New Jersey.

Material is arranged chronologically.

The correspondence between Effa Manley, her brothers, and various contractors and agents reveal her attention to detail and hands-on management style as she ….. The correspondence between Abe, his tenants, and agents also reveal some racial … of real estate. Although the owner would like to buy the building from Manley, he cannot get a bank loan because the building is in a … area, esse

A few of receipts and bills give an indication of the wealth of the Manley’s. The collection contains 1939 insurance bills (1939) a for mink coat valued at 700 dollars and a Hudson seal coat valued at 90 dollars; and estimates for washing Oriental rugs (1940).

In 1941, Arthur A. Waples, who rented a building owned by Abe Manley on 824 Kaighn Avenue in Camden, wrote that although he would like to buy the property, he could not obtain a mortgage. “The Home Loan Corporation will not consider making the loan as it is located in a restricted area.” The building must have been in a red-lined area.

The collection consists of typed and handwritten correspondence (incoming and copies of outgoing); staff lists, including names from Newark and elsewhere; handwritten notes; and financial documents. Most of the material dates from 1939-1942, with one item from 1933 and one from 1946.

There is some correspondence of Abe Manley, as well as a very small amount of personal correspondence from Effa Manley to her brothers Alphonso and Jacob Brooke, to her mother Cora Rollins, and to other family members.

A substantial portion of the collection consists of documents concerning property owned or rented by the Manleys (especially a property they owned in Germantown, PA). These diverse materials include discussions of whether to rent to “colored” tenants, racial discrimination in housing in general, renovation contracts, and responsibilities of landlords for sanitation, etc. Effa Manley figures in these documents as both landlord and tenant. The bills consist mostly of those for property repairs, but they include fur coat insurance and a Bordentown Institute bill for the niece of her secretary, Carrie Jacobs. Some notes reflect Effa Manley's membership in the Volunteer War Services Committee. Only a very few items are baseball-related; these include a Newark Eagles advertisement for a game in 1939.

Frequent (or Newark-related) correspondents include: J. Russel Winder; Joseph Trent; the Bell Telephone Company; Herman Natal; Bamberger's Department Store; John Anderson; the Newark YWCA; the Prudential Insurance Company; the Dime Savings Institution; rug cleaners Jancovius and Son, Newark; the Herman Dietz clothing store, Newark; War Damage Insurance, Newark; Rev. M. T. Waters, Newark; Dick Campbell, agent for singer Muriel Rahn; Elizabeth Galbreath, a reporter for the Chicago Defender (response contains biographical information on Effa Manley); Newark YMCA; Walter Super, on a conference for "betterment of colored race"; and the Newark Defense Council.