I recognized the profile on the album cover as soon as I saw the name. Who wouldn’t know the stacked buns and long black ponytail that was the trademark hairstyle of the incomparable Josephine Baker. It’s not often that…
Category: Ephemera/Paper/Documents
Remnants of slavery – auction ads & neck shackles
Posted in Black history, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and slavery
I was flipping through a decade-old black history newsletter recently when I came across an article illustrated with two 19th-century ads announcing slave auctions. The headlines slapped me across the face because they were so jarring:…
Treasures in your home
Posted in Black history, collectibles, Culture, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, Family, and Photos
Next weekend, I will be joining another history buff in a presentation on historical treasures to look for in your home. It’s part of the 2012 Black History & Culture Showcase that has been held in…
Cakewalk images demystified
Posted in dance, and Ephemera/Paper/Documents
One of the exasperating anomalies of history is that people can get lost in it. One minute they’re recognized; the next, no one remembers their name. That seemed to be the case when my auction…
A shout-out to women on their very own month
Posted in African American women, Art, Black history, Books, Civil War, Cooking, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and slavery
I was reading an email a few days ago that reminded me that this month was Women’s History Month. Why are people whom society considers marginal given a small piece of the year to spotlight their…
Jumping for joy with Duke Ellington
Posted in Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and Music
I was perusing the catalog at Swann Auction Galleries recently when I came across a photo of Duke Ellington and his band, all handsome and stylishly dressed in heavy overcoats on what was apparently a cold…
Spike Lee, a railroad & other nuggets of black history
Posted in Black history, and Ephemera/Paper/Documents
I was looking through the catalog at the African American manuscript auction when Spike Lee came through the door. There were so many goodies wrapped up in so much history that I had kept my…
I got my first credit card when I was in graduate school in the 1970s. I was a student at Ohio State University on a fellowship and had enough money to warrant a card. It…
Artifacts from a prominent doctor’s office
Posted in Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and Health & Medicine
The couple who bought the house some 15 years ago had left the fourth floor intact. Now, they needed the space for their family, and had called in the auction house to dismantle the clinic…
Looking for objects of love
Posted in Dolls, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, jewelry, Photos, and Sewing
Young people in every generation think they were the first to discover love and romance when they get that first-time-all-is-right-with-the-world feeling. As they mature, they realize that they weren’t the first. People have been loving and living…