Helen Armstead-Johnson miscellaneous theater collections

1831 - 1993

The Helen Armstead-Johnson miscellaneous theater vollections (HAJMTC) were formed by over two hundred file-folder level collections (one-three file folders per personality or event). The collections contain information dating from the mid-nineteenth century to the late twentieth century, and they document early dramatic actors; minstrel shows; vaudeville acts; musical revues; 1920s and 1930s Broadway productions; the protest dramas of the 1940s and 1950s; plays written during the Black Arts Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s; and theatrical productions of the 1980s and 1990s. In addition to actors, playwrights, singers, musicians, and dancers (classical and popular) (e.g. Ira Frederick Aldridge, Eubie Blake and Katherine Dunham), and the productions in which they appeared, there are collections for poets and visual artists. There are eighteen collections documenting performers of the nineteenth century; twenty-nine collections covering the period 1900 - 1919; thirty-seven collections document the 1940s - 1950s; and eleven collections cover the 1980s and 1990s. The bulk of the collections represent the two most productive periods for black theater: ninety-two collections for the 1920s - 1930s, and ninety collections for the Black Arts Movement. This collection also includes information on white personalities if they were involved in some way with black performers, productions or events.

Types of materials in the collections include printed matter (reviews and feature articles, programs, flyers and broadsides, sheet music, newsletters), letters, including correspondence generated by Armstead-Johnson with donors and individuals documented in the collections, lyrics and music scores, resumes and other biographical information, scripts, sketches, academic papers, and speeches. In many cases the file consists of clippings only. Often the material documenting a performer or performance is not contemporaneous to the era in which the individual lived and worked, but comes from a source produced decades later. In several collections there is a notation for "Helen Armstead-Johnson Notes." These notes are the product of Armstead-Johnson's research on the personality or production in question. Additional research notes can be found in the Armstead-Johnson Foundation for Theater Research Records and the Helen Armstead-Johnson Papers.

A sampling of the documents found in the collection include Bessie Oliver Miller's (Flournoy Miller's wife) draft of her unpublished manuscript entitled "Forbidden Kin" (letters in the collection reflect attempts to have the book published); questionnaires that include personal and professional information on a variety of performers including Minto Cato and Joseph Attles; a transcript of the interview Helen Armstead-Johnson conducted with Ulysses S. Thompson; and Fess Williams's arrangement for Roll Jordan Roll. The collections also document non-theater related black personalities such as Shirley Black (painter), James Lowe (lawyer), and Leopold Sedar Senghor, poet and former President of Senegal.