Tag Archives: New York

Regina Anderson Andrews and the Power of Libraries

As a lover of both libraries and theater, it perhaps inevitable that I discovered Regina Anderson Andrews, playwright, actress, salon holder, and librarian in New York City from the 1920s to the 1960s.  Anderson (1901-1993) was born in Chicago and … Continue reading

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Meet Bricktop, International Star

Born in West Virginia in 1894, Ada “Bricktop” Smith gained her nickname because of her red hair. Her family soon moved to Chicago, a center of African American culture, where she started performing full time at age sixteen.  She didn’t … Continue reading

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A Trio in Hats, 1910s

“Freddy seems to have some misgivings, but my expression is certainly hopeful,” it reads on the front of this photo post card.  I’m thinking that Freddy is the one in the striped suit in the front.  The writer must be … Continue reading

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Alice Neel’s Older Women

Due to family responsibilities, I’m limited in my travel these days.  Therefore I’m especially grateful when the art comes to me.  A show of the work of the famous American painter Alice Neel (1900-1984) recently opened at the Orange County … Continue reading

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Labor Day Race, 1917

I thought it might be hard to find photos of women on Labor Day doing anything but dishing up potato salad, but I was wrong.  The Digital Pubic Library of America, one of my favorite sources, had many pictures of … Continue reading

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Easter Hat, 1959

Photos by the street photographer Angelo Abruzzo show New York in the fifties and sixties.  Similar to the Chicago photographer Vivian Maier, his work was unknown during his lifetime.  Later studies stress the fact that the people in his photos … Continue reading

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Lois Alexander and the Black Fashion Museum

Most fashion museums focus on the works of famous designers and the clothes of the well-off women who supported them.  The Black Fashion Museum, which existed from 1979 to 2007, had a different mission.  Under the leadership of the visionary … Continue reading

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Spring in Central Park, April 1960

If you can look past the two doormen at the center of this picture, it offers an interesting overview of different clothing styles adapted by a set of older women in New York at the dawn of the 1960s. Starting … Continue reading

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Auntie Chris at Jones Beach, 1955

My husband comes from a small family, so he doesn’t have a vast supply of stories about wacky relatives to enliven dinner parties. One exception is his great aunt, Edith Christine Smith (1888-1968), known to the family as Auntie Chris. … Continue reading

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Mutton Dressed as Lamb–Helen Hokinson’s View

According to Alison Lurie’s inventive book about fashion, The Language of Clothes, trying to dress younger than you are has long been regarded as a bad fashion move.  “Since classical times, literature has been full of elderly and not-so-elderly comic … Continue reading

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