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RARE PHOTOS: Portrait of Stepin Fetchit (Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry) and wife, Dorothy Stevenson (1929)
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Photo of the Week: President Obama kisses poet, activist, & author, Dr. Maya Angelou after awarding her the 2010 Medal of Freedom.
-Feb. 15, 2011 (A/P photo: Charles Dharapak)A Brotha almost chocked up when I first saw this!
*Thanks to Mrs. M for posting this!
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Photoset reblogged from Lucille Ball & I Love Lucy
Happy 60th Anniversary I Love Lucy
↳ On October 15, 1951 I Love Lucy first aired. It was the first television show filmed in a movie studio in front of a live audience, first sitcom to use three film cameras to capture all the action simultaneously, first comedy show to use guest stars on a continuing basis and the first program to feature a pregnant woman. It was the most watched show in the United States in four of its six seasons, and the first to end its run at the top of the Nielsen ratings. The show won 5 Emmy Awards and received numerous nominations. It was also one of the first programs made in the USA seen on British television. It remains the longest-running program to air continuously in the Los Angeles area.
“It makes me happy to know I Love Lucy still plays on televisions daily in homes around the world sixty years after it was first viewed in 1951.” - Desi Arnaz Jr.
“It astounds me. It’s 60 years and counting, and the show has never been off the air. There are now four generations of people who bring kids up—first to my mother and dad, now to me. I save the letters. At one point I thought they would make a good book, except it would be redundant. So many people have so many detailed stories of how this particular show affected their home life.” - Lucie Arnaz
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Video reblogged from SONS OF YEMAYA
The first Academy Award that was given to a black actor was in 1940. It was presented to Hattie McDaniel (1895 - 1957) in the Best Supporting Actress category for her role in “Gone With the Wind.” Ms. McDaniel not only opened a door for black actresses, but for people of color all over the United States. This victory would eventually lead to Sydney Poitier’s Oscar win the in 1960s as well as the others that have come after.
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Ruth Orkin (1921-1985) is one of my new favorite photographers! Check out a story on her famous piece, “American Girl in Italy” by clicking here.
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In the past hundred years, trendy American women have worn everything from flapper dresses to bobby socks to bell-bottom jeans. But when we’re talking about the history of fashion, Minh-Ha T. Pham, a visual arts and fashion scholar at Cornell University, says there’s something — or someone — we often leave out: women of color.
Credit: Photos via “Of Another Fashion”
Enter Pham’s blog, “Of Another Fashion.” There, Pham features old photographs of African-American, Native-American, Asian-American and Latin-American women — and the clothes they wore. Many of the pictures are submitted by readers and include stories about the women in them.
“In general, I’m trying to put together a collection of photos and stories that … will illustrate the rich and complex texture of … women of color — who have been both shaped by and shape American fashion in different ways,” she says over email.
Ama Kyere via “Of Another Fashion”
“This is my mother, Alice Antwi. She grew up in Kumasi, Ghana. She describes herself as someone who went ‘with the flow’ of fashion which, for many Ghanaians at that time, meant Western fashion. But back then, she told me, you wore whatever you had at the time.”
Pham got the inspiration for her blog after reading a Washington Post article featuring Lois Alexander Lane, who founded the Black Fashion Museum in the 1970s.
“As an academic, I’ve read a good amount of fashion histories and yet never encountered anything about Lane or her legacy,” Pham says. And neither had Pham’s friends, many of whom studied fashion. It inspired her to delve into the fashion histories of minorities in America.
The scope of Pham’s blog is broad: It includes pictures of women of color throughout the 20th century in high fashion, mass-market items and hand-me-downs alike. She also features women abroad, including her mom, whose personal style is influenced by American movies and magazines.
Los Angeles Public Library via “Of Another Fashion”
A woman wears pants and wields a gun in the 1920s.
But the photo that has gotten the most attention on her site isn’t of some midcentury fashionista: It’s a picture of a Mexican-American woman wearing pants, a button-down shirt, a tie — and holding a pistol. This, during the 1920s, the era of the flapper.
“This woman’s decision to dress not in the flapper style but in pants in the 1920s is not only a fashion choice but a very brave choice because it bucks gender norms and expectations,” she says.
Pham adds, “For me, this makes her all the more fashionable.”
(Source: NPR)
