Self-portrait by Robert McNeill African American, Documentary Photography, Federal Writers’ Project Robert H. McNeill (1917-2005) Robert H. McNeill was a renowned photographer of Black life and culture from the 1930s through the 1970s. Born in 1917 in Washington, DC, to Dr. William C. McNeill, a physician and medical educator and Mary A. McNeill, a DC …
Photo from Georgia Center for the Book African American, Federal Writers’ Project, Literature Frank Yerby (1916-1991) Dr. Frank Yerby wrote 33 popular historical romance novels that challenged white conceptions of Southern history and culture. He was the first African American to have one of his novels adapted into a commercial movie. Earlier in his career, …
Women of courage : an exhibition of photographs based on the Black Women Oral History Project, by Judith Sedwick; sponsored by the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe College. [Cambridge, Mass.] : Radcliffe College, c1984. HOLLIS collection-level record: 007598802 African American, Federal Writers’ Project, Literature Margaret Walker Alexander …
Ralph Ellison, photographed in 1960 by a United States Information Agency staff photographer. NARA reference number 306-PSA-61-8989. African American, Federal Writers’ Project, Literature Ralph Ellison (1913-1994) Ralph Waldo Ellison worked as an interviewer and researcher in New York City’s Federal Writers’ Project, documenting African American urban history and folklore on his way to becoming an …
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 …
Professor Arthur L. Campa, Sr. sits at his desk in his office in the Spanish Department at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico [1935?]. Image from Auraria Library via Denver Public Library Digital Collections. Mexican American, Folklore, Federal Writers’ Project,Cultural History Arthur L. Campa, Sr. (1905-1978) With the 1914 death of his …
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 …
Van Vechten, Carl, 1880-1964, photographer. 1936 Feb. 29. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten Collection, Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-92598 (b&w film copy neg.), LOT 12735, no. 540 [P&P] African American, Federal Writers’ Project, Literature Langston Hughes (1901-1967) Preeminent Harlem Renaissance writer James Mercer Langston Hughes made a lasting impression on American cultural …
Image from Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans African American, Federal Writers’ Project, Literature Marcus Bruce Christian (1900-1976) Marcus Bruce Christian directed the Negro Unit of the Louisiana Writer’s Project during the Federal Writer’s Project. Under his leadership, he and his team documented African American ex-slave expressive culture in Louisiana. Born in Terrebonne …
