Photographer unknown. Circa 1960. Photo from Tuskegee University Archives. African American, Ethnography, Sociology Lewis Wade Jones (1910-1979) Dr. Lewis Wade Jones was one of the major ethnographers of Southern rural Black life in the 20th century, at a time when formerly enslaved Blacks transitioned from sharecropping to more mechanized ways of living and work. Lewis …
Portrait of Dr. Lawrence D. Reddick, professor of history. Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA. African American, Ethnography, History Lawrence Reddick (1910-1995) Dr. Lawrence Dunbar Reddick was an internationally acclaimed historian, intellectual, and educator. His transformative documentation of the lives, struggles, and cultures of Black people spans much of the …
Photo by Studio Iris. Katherine Dunham in a 1960s publicity photograph. Special Collections Research Center, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200003727/ African American, Dance, Ethnography, Theater Katherine Dunham (1909-2006) Katherine Dunham, one of the first dance anthropologists and Black modern dance choreographers, was an accomplished teacher, dance scholar, …
Richard Wright by Gordon Parks, May 1943. Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress, Reproduction Number: LC-USW3-030278-D African American, Federal Writers’ Project, Literature Richard Nathaniel Wright (1908-1960) Richard Wright, acclaimed author, and recognized leader of the Chicago Renaissance (1935- 1950) conducted ethnographic fieldwork in the Black communities of Chicago …
Esley Riddle in the 1960s African American, Music Lesley (Esley) Riddle (1905-1979) Lesley “Esley” Riddle was an African American Piedmont and bottleneck slide guitar picker and mandolin player, who was instrumental in collecting and teaching songs throughout African American, Appalachian Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina communities. Born in 1905 in Burnsville, North Carolina, Riddle grew …
Photo from from the 1925 Howard University yearbook. The Bison (Howard University 1925): page 58. African American, Ethnography, Activism Ophelia Settle Egypt (1903-1984) Born in a small town near Clarksville, Texas, in 1903, Ophelia Settle graduated from Howard University with a BA in 1925. After teaching for a year at the Orange County Training School …
BESSIE JONES, A GOSPEL SINGER, LIVES ON ST. SIMON’S ISLAND, photograph by Paul Conklin in Brunswick (Ga.), May 1973. National Archives at College Park Still Picture Records Section, Special Media Archives Services Division (NWCS-S), Record group: Record Group 412: Records of the Environmental Protection Agency, 1944 – 2006, Agency-Assigned Identifier: 076/03/004503, via Wikimedia Commons African …
Sterling [A.] Brown, Oct. 7 #119: [cellulose acetate photonegative and contact print, 1944]. Scurlock Studio (Washington, D.C.) (photographers). Black-and-white film negatives (Series 4), Scurlock Studio Records, 1905-1994. Smithsonian Institution. African American, Federal Writers’ Project, Literature Sterling Allen Brown (1901-1989) Sterling Allen Brown was a renowned poet who documented and championed African American traditional culture in …
Photo from The Peachite Vol. II, No. 2, Folk Festival Number, March 1944. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. African American, Music, Ethnography John Wesley Work III (1901-1967) John Wesley Work III was from a family of professional musicians and folklorists who taught at Fisk University for three generations. As a scholar, he not only …
