Bonnie and Semoura Clark black vaudeville photographs and ephemera, 1909-1958

Description

Title: Bonnie and Semoura Clark black vaudeville photographs and ephemera, 1909-1958
Creator: Clark, Bonnie
Contributor: Clark, Semoura.
Abstract: 48 photographs depicting predominantly black vaudeville acts, most of them unidentified, many of them inscribed to Bonnie and Semoura. Includes photographs of chorus girls, minstrels, and cross dressers; identified photographs are of Phil Black, Blaine & Brown, Cole & Johnson, Jerome and Thompson, Mack & Mack, John and Lila Moore, Stafford and Sammons, Gus Stevens, and possibly a young Jimmy Durante. There are three handbills for a ball, a party and a performance by Phil Black and Bonnie Clark, a program for the Pekin Theater, dated 1909, and two ink and wash drawings of Bonnie and Semoura Clark, dated 1913
Description: Bonnie and Semoura Clark, black vaudevillians who toured with the Theater Owners Booking Association (TOBA). The TOBA provided segregated entertainment for blacks in the South and Midwest. The Clarks act was probably comical, relying in part on cross dressing. Bonnie Clark was associated for many years with Phil Black, the originator of the Harlem drag balls.
Container list available.
Provenance: Purchased from Glenn A. Spellman Fine Art Photography on the Eugene C. O'Neill Memorial Fund, 1997.
Extent: 1.8 linear ft. (2 boxes)
Extent of Digitization: This object has been partially digitized.
Language: English

Genre: Portraits
Pictorial works
Photographic prints
Subject (Geographic): United States
Subject (Name): Black, Phil
Clark, Bonnie
Clark, Semoura
Theater Owners Booking Association.
Subject (Topic): Vaudeville
African American actors
Minstrel shows
Cross-dressing
Minstrels
Subjects: Black, Phil > Portraits
Clark, Bonnie > Portraits
Clark, Semoura > Portraits
Theater Owners Booking Association
Vaudeville > United States > Pictorial works
African American actors > Pictorial works
Minstrel shows > Pictorial works
Cross-dressing > United States > Pictorial works
Minstrels > United States > Pictorial works

Access: Public
Rights: The use of this image may be subject to the copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) or to site license or other rights management terms and conditions. The person using the image is liable for any infringement.
Citation: Bonnie and Semoura Clark Black Vaudeville Photographs and Ephemera. James Weldon Johnson Collection in the American Literature Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University