ChickenBones: A Journal

for  Literary & Artistic African-American  Themes

   

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Forgotten & Under-Appreciated Black Women

They Kept America Cleaned and Pressed

 

 

 

 Ben Neihart. Rough Amusements: The True Story of A'Lelia Walker, Patroness of the Harlem Renaissance's Down-Low Culture. 2003

 

Tananarive Due. The Black Rose: The Dramatic Story of Madam C.J. Walker, America's First Black Female Millionaire. 2001

A'Lelia Bundles. On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker. 2002

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Businesswoman

Sarah Breedlove Walker (1867-1919)

Registered Nurse 

Mary Eliza Mahoney (1845-1926)

Philanthropist

Oseola McCarty (1908-1999)

Methodist Evangelist, Missionary, Temperance Reformer

Amanda Berry Smith (1837–1915)

Mother of a Poet

Matilda Jane Dunbar (d. 1943)

Oscar Winning Actress 

Hattie McDaniel (1895-1952)

 To 'Joy My Freedom  

Vanishing Washerwoman  

Washerwomen 

Sons & Daughters 

Amanda Smith Autobiography 

Washerwomen in Brooklyn  

Washer-Woman Poem   

Washerwomen in Baltimore  

John Henrik Clarke   

Fifty Influential Figures

 

Mother of a Composer/Musician, Eubie Blake

Emily Blake, born a slave, was the mother  of musician, composer, performer Eubie Blake, whose parents were both freed slaves. His father  worked as a stevedore on the Baltimore docks. Emily, his mother took in washing to earn a few dollars. To supplement the family income, Eubie the teenager born in 1883 in Baltimore, Maryland sneaked out of the house every night to play piano at a bordello in Baltimore's tenderloin district. he made more in a night than his father made in a week.

Bibliography

Bundles, A'Lelia Perry. Madam C.J. Walker. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1991.

 

Due, Tananarive. The Black Rose: The Magnificent Story of Madam C.J. Walker, America's First Black Female Millionaire. New York: Ballantine Publishing Group, 2000.

 

Eldred, Sheila Mulrooney. "Inventing Dreams: Sarah Breedlove Walker (18671919)." New Moon, January/February 1998.

 

Leavitt, Judith A. American Women Managers and Administrators. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985.

 

Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. Late Achievers: Famous People Who Succeeded Late in Life. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1992.

 

Vare, Ethlie Ann, and Gret Ptacek. Mothers of Invention from the Bra to the Bomb: Forgotten Women and Their Unforgettable Ideas. New York: Morrow, 1988.

 

 

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Related files:   To 'Joy My Freedom   Vanishing Washerwoman   Washerwomen  Sons & Daughters  Amanda Smith Autobiography  Washerwomen in Brooklyn  

Washer-Woman Poem    Washerwomen in Baltimore   John Henrik Clarke    Fifty Influential Figures