Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Zora Yaa Adams-Williams and The Family of Lucy Kramer Cohen (Barnard College, 1928)
Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Barbara Marshall-Bailey and her children; Bianca A, Jason Q, and Aliana Grace
Object number:
2022.51
Restrictions & Rights:
Unknown - Restrictions Possible
Rights assessment and proper usage is the responsibility of the user.
The folklore (stories, jokes, and sayings) was recorded by Hurston and used to prepare her book Mules and Men. The NAA vertical files includes a letter from Drs. Akua Duku Anokye and Sally McLendon with related copies of letters written by Hurston concerning the background of the document and Anokye and McLendon's opinion that it represents the "scholarly folkloric format" in which Hurston originally intended to present her work.
The manuscript includes a notes on locations, list of informants, a list of stories, and a table of contents as well as the folklore.
Video oral history of anthropologist Stetson Kennedy conducted by anthropologist George Bedell. Dr. Kennedy, one of the pioneers in the study of folklore in Florida, discusses his involvement with the WPA Writers Project and his work among the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups.
Legacy Keywords: Barnacle, Elizabeth ; Hurston, Zora Neale ; Lomax, Alan, 1915-2002 ; Organization WPA Writers Project ; Institution Library of Congress ; Groups Ku Klux Klan ; Groups white suprematist groups ; Organizations Florida Bureau of Folklife Programs ; Organizations Florida Folklife Society ; United States of America Florida ; Special Collections
General:
Local Number: HSFA 1989.10.23
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Video Dialogues in Anthropology, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Video oral history of anthropologist Ruth Bunzel conducted by anthropologist Charles Wagley. Dr. Bunzel, a contemporary of Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict, reminisces about her days at Columbia University first as a secretary of the Anthropology Department and later as an anthropologist. She discusses her travels and fieldwork in Guatemala, Mexico, and China; her preliminary work among the Zuni Indians; and the people that were influential in her career. Dr. Wagley comments on Dr. Bunzel's influence on his own work.
Legacy Keywords: Boas, Franz, 1858-1942 ; Hurston, Zora Neale ; Kimbel, Sol ; Linton, Ralph ; Tax, Sol, 1907- ; Institute Carnegie Institute of Washington ; Special Collections
General:
Local Number: HSFA 1989.10.8
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Video Dialogues in Anthropology, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
The collection measures 20.8 linear feet, dates from 1885 to 1991 (bulk dates 1908-1986) and documents the career of lithographer, teacher, and painter Prentiss Taylor. The collection consists primarily of subject/correspondence files (circa 16 ft.), reflecting Prentiss' career as a lithographer and painter, his association with figures prominent in the Harlem Renaissance, notably Carl Van Vechten and Langston Hughes, his activities as president of the Society of Washington Printmakers and other art organizations, his work in art therapy treating mental illness, and his teaching position at American University. The subject files contain mostly correspondence, but many include photographs and printed material. Also included are biographical, financial, legal and printed material; several hundred photographs; notes and writings; sketchbooks, drawings and a few prints by Taylor; and scrapbooks dating from 1885-1956.
Scope and Content Note:
The collection measures 20.8 linear feet, dates from 1885 to 1991 (bulk dates 1908-1986) and documents the career of Harlem Renaissance lithographer, teacher, and painter Prentiss Taylor. The collection consists primarily of subject/correspondence files (circa 16 ft.), reflecting Prentiss' career as a lithographer and painter, his association with figures prominent in the Harlem Renaissance, notably Carl Van Vechten and Langston Hughes, his activities as president of the Society of Washington Printmakers and other art organizations, his work in art therapy treating mental illness, and his teaching position at American University. The subject files contain mostly correspondence, but many include photographs and printed material. Also included are biographical, financial, legal and printed material; several hundred photographs; notes and writings; sketchbooks, drawings and a few prints by Taylor; and scrapbooks dating from 1885-1956.
The Langston Hughes files contain photocopies of letters from Hughes, greeting cards, ten original photographs of Hughes, and an autographed card printed with Hughes' poem, The Negro Speaks of Rivers. In addition, there is a contract between Hughes and Taylor, witnessed by Carl Van Vechten, forming the Golden Stair Press, through which many of Hughes' poems were printed with illustrations by Taylor. A rare edition of their first publication, The Negro Mother, is found here. Also found in this file is a 1932 final copy of Scottsboro Limited, another collaborative effort between Taylor and Hughes that focused on a case where nine black youths were falsely accused of raping two white women. The collection contains extensive correspondence about Taylor's lithograph of the same title and the printing of the publication. Other rare Harlem Renaissance publications found within Taylor's papers include Golden Stair Broadsides, Opportunity Journal of Negro Life, The Rebel Poet, and Eight Who Lie in the Death House, several of which were also illustrated by Taylor.
Prentiss Taylor's long association with Langston Hughes and other figures of the Harlem Renaissance stemmed from his early friendship with Carl Van Vechten. Taylor's papers contain correspondence with Van Vechten, autographed copies of Van Vechten's booklets, and numerous photographs of notable Harlem Renaissance figures, many taken by Van Vechten, including Zora Neale Hurston, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Eugene O'Neill, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Paul Robeson, and many others. Also found are period photographs of Charleston, South Carolina and Harlem street scenes.
95 letters from Rachel Field, 75 letters from Langston Hughes, 3 letters from Armin Landeck, 46 letters from Josephine Pinckney, 1 letter from Gertrude Stein, 7 letters from Alice B. Toklas, 1 postcard from Mark Van Doren, and 25 letters from Carl Van Vechten are photocopies. Originals of the Hughes and Toklas letters are located at the Yale University Library. Location of the remaining original letters are unknown.
The Prentiss Taylor papers offer researchers insight into the rich cultural documentation of the Harlem Renaissance and the development of twentieth-century printmaking as an American fine art.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into ten series. The largest series housing Subject Files is arranged alphabetically, primarily by name of correspondent, maintaining Taylor's original arrangement. The remaining series are arranged in chronological order. Oversized material from various series has been housed in Box 21 (Sol) and OV 22 and is noted in the Series Description/Container Listing Section at the appropriate folder title with see also/see references.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1918-1985, undated (Box 1; 6 folders)
Series 2: Miscellaneous Receipts, 1929-1986, undated (Box 1; 11 folders)
Series 3: Insurance Records, 1960-1976 (Box 1; 1 folder)
Series 4: Notes, 1921-1984, undated (Box 1; 18 folders)
Series 5: Writings, 1924-1971, undated (Box 1-2; 51 folders)
Series 6: Art Work, 1916-1975, undated (Box 2; 14 folders)
Series 7: Scrapbooks, 1885-1956 (Box 2, 21; 10 folders)
Series 9: Photographs, 1908-1984, undated (Box 3, 23-24; 1.1 linear feet)
Series 10: Subject Files, 1885-1991, undated (Box 3-21, OV 22; 18.0 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Prentiss Taylor was born in 1907 at the Washington, D. C. residence of his maternal grandmother, his birth assisted by his grandmother's cook, affectionately known as Cookie Belle.
In the 1920s, Taylor studied painting with Charles W. Hawthorne in Provincetown, but turned to lithography in the late 1920s to early 1930s during his enrollment at the Art Students League in New York City. He received further training in that medium at the George C. Miller workshop in New York. During this period, he also designed costumes for the American-Oriental Revue. Taylor worked primarily in the printmaking medium for the rest of his life, experimenting with various techniques and compositions and ultimately achieving a status as one this country's great lithographers. Taylor depicted mostly realistic and narrative scenes of subjects and themes that reflected his personal interests in music, architecture, religion and social justice.
During his time in New York, Taylor developed close friendships with poet Langston Hughes and writer Carl Van Vechten. He collaborated with Hughes in the formation of the Golden Stair Press to produce publications reflecting the ideas of the Harlem Renaissance. Taylor created a number of prints and illustration for the press and its publications.
After returning to Washington, D.C., Taylor's work was included in exhibitions at the Corcoran Gallery, the Smithsonian Institution, the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. He was represented by the Franz Bader Gallery in Washington, D.C., and by the Bethesda Art Gallery in Maryland. In 1942, Taylor was elected President of the Society of Washington Printmakers, a position he held for thirty-four years. He also worked as an art therapist for more than thirty years and taught oil painting at American University from 1955-1975.
Prentiss Taylor died October 7, 1991 in Washington, D.C.
Related Material:
Prentiss Taylor papers are also located at the Yale University Library.
Separated Material:
The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (reel 1392) including three notebooks detailing Taylor's lithographs, a gift and sales notebook, a guestbook, exhibition announcements, and a brochure. Lent materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Prentiss Taylor lent the Archives of American Art material for microfilming in 1978. Papers were donated in 1978 and 1984 by Taylor, and in 1992 and 2004 by his companion, Roderick S. Quiroz, for the estate of Prentiss Taylor.
Restrictions:
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Prentiss Taylor papers, 1885-1991. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the digitization of the microfilm of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Funding for the conservation of Prentiss Taylor's photograph album, 1929-1939, was provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
The collection, which dates from 1800 to 2002 and measures 14.75 linear feet, documents two centuries of the depictions of African Americans in popular culture. The collection is comprised of papers, journals, books, audio visual materials, sheet music, correspondence, photographs and artifacts. Included in the audiovisual series are recordings of Maya Angelou and Alice Walker reading their works.
Scope and Contents note:
This collection documents various elements of African American history. The Diane Isaacs Collection of Black Memorabilia is arranged into three series: Printed Materials, Audio Visual Materials, and Miscellaneous. Material in each folder is arranged in chronological order from 1800 through 2002.
Arrangement note:
The collection is arranged by into three Series: (1) Printed Materials, (2) Audiovisual Material, and (3) Miscellaneous.
Biographical/Historical note:
Diane Isaacs was a professor of English and a collector of black memorabilia. She earned her Ph.D. from Teachers College at Columbia University in 1982 after she wrote a doctoral thesis entitled "Ann Petry's Life and Art: Piercing the Stereotypes." As a professor at Fordham College, the University of Maryland, and the University of Minnesota, Isaacs taught English courses throughout the 1980s and 1990s. She was a scholar of the Harlem Renaissance and published essays and articles pertaining to the contributions that African-American writers made to U.S. culture.
Isaacs married Professor Jay Leon Halio, another professor of English at the University of Delaware, on May 26, 2002 at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona.
Restrictions:
Use of the materials requires an appointment. Please contact the archivist to make an appointment: ACMarchives@si.edu.
Topic:
Stereotypes (Social psychology) in advertising Search this
Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Zora Yaa Adams-Williams and The Family of Lucy Kramer Cohen (Barnard College, 1928)
