vintage pics of african americans

[ECHEVALIER]

this trend is to show the fashion and grooming of african americans and afro latinos in the 19th and 20th centurys.from harlem to havanah.

 

[NicknNora]

I'll start out with a great photo of this Harlem flapper. She looks sharp!

And of course there was Billie Holiday.

And Bessie Smith

And some not so famous people having a great time!

 

[Rick Blaine]

Shorpy dot com

African American Photographs Assembled for the 1900 Paris Exposition By W.E.B. DuBois

You will not BELIEVE the breadth & depth of the Library of Congress' American Memory collection! (2nd link) Here are some of my favorites:

A Negro Woman

African American Girl

African American Girl

African American Lady

An African American Gentleman


I suspect most, if not all, of the above pictured folks are bi or tri-racial ... but Hypodescent (one drop) was the law of the land, eh?
Regards,

RB


PS- another great thing is that you can download uncompressed TIFS from the LOC (Library of Congress) (12 Megs +)of all these that are just LOVELY! ... fer' FREE!

 

[LizzieMaine]

From the Everyday Women of the Golden Era thread by way of the Life Magazine archives --

A Mississippi mother and children, 1940. One of my all-time-favorite vintage photos.

 

[BeBopBaby]

Please everyone, do yourself a favor a google Teenie Harris' name. From Wikipedia:

"Charles "Teenie" Harris (1908–1998) was an accomplished African-American photographer.

Harris was born in 1908 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, the son of hotel owners in the city's Hill District. Early in the 1930s he purchased his first camera and opened a photography studio. He freelanced for the Washington D.C. news picture magazine, Flash!. From the 1936 to the 1975 Harris chronciled life in the black neighborhoods of the city for the Pittsburgh Courier, one of America's oldest black newspapers. He was nicknamed "One Shot" because he rarely made his subjects sit for retakes. Harris took more than 80,000 images during his career. The body of his work constitutes arguably the largest and most complete photographic documentation of a minority community in the United States.

Unlike his more celebrated African-American contemporaries, such as James Van Der Zee, known for studio portraits, or Gordon Parks, who traveled widely as a photojournalist, Harris was a working-class photographer tethered to a job with a circumscribed beat. His work was rarely seen outside of Pittsburgh, until after his death in 1998.

In addition to his photo essays of daily life in the city, he captured many celebrities who visited Pittsburgh, e.g. Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billy Eckstine, Lena Horne, Sarah Vaughan, Sam Cooke, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Charlie Parker, Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Eleanor Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and Dizzy Gillespie.

Harris also photographed legendary Negro League baseball players of the Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords. Harris himself played baseball for the Crawfords when they were known as the Crawford Colored Giants."

Teenie's work is amazing. He was a master of capturing everyday moments and life and making them special. He took thousands of pictures. The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh currently has an exhibit of his works. This is the third exhibit they've dome of his work and every exhibit has left me speechless. I'll see if I can find some of his pictures and post them.

 

[BeBopBaby]

First a picture of Teenie himself. Not only was he talented, but he was handsome as well!

Mrs Joe Louis & friends:

War Bond Drive:

Teenie Dancing at the Syria Mosque (an amazing Middle Eastern Deco themed building that the local university tore down to make a parking lot):

Spectators at Forbes Field:

 

[NicknNora]

First a picture of Teenie himself. Not only was he talented, but he was handsome as well!

Mrs Joe Louis & friends:

War Bond Drive:

Teenie Dancing at the Syria Mosque (an amazing Middle Eastern Deco themed building that the local university tore down to make a parking lot):

Spectators at Forbes Field:

Thanks for the tip on Teenie. I agree he is a handsome man. I'll have to check him out. I love the Forbes Field photo. It brings back childhood memories of when I watched Roberto Clemente at Forbes Field. Clemente was my favorite baseball player of all time. He was a fantastic fielder/hitter and he did such wonderful humanitarian work off the field. He died way too young.

Doesn't it just make you sick that they tore down the Syria Mosque for a freaking parking lot! Ugh.

 

[BeBopBaby]

2 Uknown boys in front of a hotel in the Hill District:

Singer connie Irvin at the Ritz Club:

Friends at a Club:

Women standing in front of a fountain at the University of Pittsburgh:

The Gay Amigoes Roller Skating Club at the Pittsburgh YMCA:

 

[BeBopBaby]

Duckpin bowling:

Chuck Edwards:

Billy Ecksteine's band performing at the Savoy Ballroom:

Santa!

The interior of the B&M Restaurant:

 

[BeBopBaby]

You can also search the Carnegie Museum of Arts Photo Archives for more of Teenie's work:

http://www.cmoa.org/searchcollections/

Sorry to flood the list with pictures, but I just had to share.

 

[NicknNora]

Wow. Those are some great shots! Thanks for sharing and keep the flood coming!

 

[Lady Day]

My Mother and Uncle, shes 11, hes 7

My Mother at 16 (1957 HS pic)

V V Two people seemed to love V V

And again Granny's HS graduation pic in '38

LD

 

[NicknNora]

Thanks for sharing, Lady Day. Any stories to go along with those photos?

 

[Lady Day]

One more:
Granny's HS yearbook picture. Class of '38

Id never seen a profile shot like that at the bottom before. My grandmother is Marie Goodwin, and she is none of what is described

LD

 

[BeBopBaby]

I wonder what happened to Clemontine?

 

[Lady Day]

That looks like my Granmother's later handwriting, so Id say old age.

LD

 

[NicknNora]

One more:
Granny's HS yearbook picture. Class of '38

Id never seen a profile shot like that at the bottom before.

LD

That is a curious profile shot. I've never seen one like that in a yearbook. I wonder if the photographer took everyone's photo like that? It's too close to mug shots for my liking.

 

[Lady Day]

Last ones Thanks for humoring me.

My Uncle Alvin

My Uncle Daryl age 14
Granny has all 3 of these (along with the pic of my Mother above) in a tryptic frame.

Thats Granddaddy in the house he built. Thats the house I grew up in. That pedestal table on the far right is still there, in that exact position.

LD

 

[Lady Day]

That is a curious profile shot. I've never seen one like that in a yearbook. I wonder if the photographer took everyone's photo like that? It's too close to mug shots for my liking.

Really? I dont see it that way at all. I think its a beautiful shot. Hes quite handsome. Perhaps he had the option to choose.

LD

 

[Tomasso]

MamaisaHOTmama

I'll say!!!