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 …
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 …
Photo from The Peachite Vol. II, No. 2, Folk Festival Number, March 1944. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. African American, Music, Folklore, Education Willis Laurence James (1900-1966) Willis Laurence James was a musician, composer and music director, educator, concert violinist, lecturer, folklorist, and ethnomusicologist of African American religious and secular music traditions of the …
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 …
Image from Temple University, Urban Archives, Philadelphia, PA. African American, Folklore, Literature Arthur Huff Fauset (1899-1983) Arthur Huff Fauset was born in New Jersey in 1899. His father, Redmon Fauset, was an African American minister. His mother, Bella Huff, was Jewish. Fauset grew up in Philadelphia and earned his AB (1921), an MA (1923) and …
