{"value"=>"<p>The Jackie Shearer papers consist of personal and professional papers that document her film projects. The personal papers include appointment books and greeting cards. The professional papers primarily consist of research materials and scripts (drafts and final editions) written by Shearer for \"Didn't Take Low,\" which focused on the lives of domestic workers during the Great Depression. The other projects documented in the collection include <span class=\"title\">A Minor Altercation</span>, <span class=\"title\">Incident Report</span>, <span class=\"title\">Sophronia</span>, and a civil rights film. Professional papers also include administrative records that relate to Shearer's company Reel Deal, Inc., principally contracts and subject files.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p class='list-head'>The Jackie Shearer papers are arranged in four series:</p>\n<ul class='arrangement series-descriptions'>\n<li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/20873#c1571030'>Personal papers</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1975-1993</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>The series, Personal papers, includes biographical information, appointment books, and letters and cards from her numerous friends concerning her illness.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/20873#c1571042'>Professional activities</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1980-1993</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series includes two speeches she presented, consultancies for several projects, and files for organizations on which she served on the fund review panel or in other advisory capacities. These organizations are the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Film Fund, and the New York State Council on the Arts. There are also files for conferences in which she participated, including printed material for a filmmakers trip to Cuba in 1983.</p> <p>Shearer served the Independent Television Service (ITVS) in several capacities. Created by the community of independent producers and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and authorized by Congress in 1988, the goal of ITVS is to enhance the diversity and innovativeness of television programming available to public broadcasting. These objectives perfectly fit Shearer's own personal aims for the mission of independent films. ITVS files (1988-1993) contain minutes of the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee, and information related to the organization's attempt to determine its own organizational structure and the role of its administrative staff. Included are minutes of the board of directors for \"P.O.V.,\" a national, prime-time public television series showcasing a broad range of non-fiction works that reflect the individual \"points of view\" of independent filmmakers. Since ITVS also functions as a funding source for independent works, Shearer's files contain lists of approved proposals in its \"Open Call\" program which encourages a wide diversity of subjects and treatments, as well as other administrative records. A single file containing minutes and a proposal (1991-1992) represents Span, Inc., a non-profit agency offering innovative re-entry services for former and current prisoners in Massachusetts. Shearer was the founding chair of the board in 1978, and continued her service until her death.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/20873#c1571110'>Projects</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1966-1992</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Shearer worked on a number of films with primarily African-American themes, in a variety of roles: producer, director and script writer, as exemplified in the Projects series. The project on which Shearer worked on longest and which is represented by the greatest amount of material is \"Addie and the Pink Carnations.\" She conceived the idea in 1979, when the title was \"Nobody Knows...\", later renamed \"Didn't Take Low\", and in 1984 she settled on the name \"Addie and the Pink Carnations.\" In a draft of the script of December 1984, she titled it \"When It's Morning in the City.\" The processor has maintained these four titles on the folders to show the development of Shearer's ideas. Because of funding difficulties, numerous changes to the script and ideas concerning the focus of the film, and Shearer's ill health, the project was never completed.</p> <p>The project files for \"Addie and the Pink Carnations\" include incorporation papers for Didn't Take Low Productions (1985), followed by proposals, synopses and contracts with script writers. Originally Shearer conceived of the idea of producing a forty-minute film about black women domestic workers during the Depression which would combine documentary and dramatic formats. As her thoughts evolved, she expanded the film to ninety minutes, and developed her characters into a dramatic presentation that includes their attempts at forming a labor union. The numerous versions of the screenplay commence with Shearer's own handwritten original first draft, followed by script outlines by novelist and dramatist Ifa Baeza (1981). Shearer continued to write additional script outlines in 1982, and hired author John Edgar Wideman who wrote a couple of versions of the script. Shearer wrote additional drafts in 1984, at which point she and arts educator and actor Steve Seidel co-produced several drafts. The writer Patricia Goldstone then took over Seidel's role as co-author in approximately 1986. Shearer's script notes follow this sequence of drafts, either associated with a particular co-author or relating to her own or an unidentified co-author. There is a small amount of correspondence associated with these various versions of the screenplay, 1980-1990.</p> <p>For the film, Shearer conducted research concerning the black domestics in 1930s and their efforts to form trade unions. There are manuscripts and notes by former editor of <span class=\"title\">Freedomways</span>, Esther Cooper Jackson (including a photocopy of her 1940 thesis), her friend and colleague Nancy Falk, and Dr. Trudier Harris, retired professor of literature. Additionally, there are oral history transcripts in the domestics research material files, along with general works about domestics. As Shearer wanted to provide a context for the Depression in her film, other files include general background material, including music of the era. Finally, financial records, especially proposals to various funding agencies and Shearer's marketing and distribution plan, offer her insights into this project which occupied her for more than a decade.</p> <p>This series also includes Shearer's proposal for a new audiovisual exhibit design prepared in 1990 for Boston's African Meeting House, part of the Museum of Afro-American History. One of her public service films was made for the Equal Employment Opportunity Training program; the file consists of the script with annotations and production material, 1987. Documents for the <span class=\"title\">Eyes on the Prize</span> subseries contains a published interview with Shearer; other items pertain solely to the \"Keys to the Kingdom\" segment and consist only of a list of award winning nominations and rating sheets.</p> <p><span class=\"title\">Going Up to Birmingham</span>, which was installed on the voting rights video wall in the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in 1992 combines original footage, historic paintings, etchings, photographs, old film footage and an audio track to tell the story of Birmingham's early history. Folders consist of a media package, budget and other financial information, as well as production files, 1991-1992. For the <span class=\"title\">Incident Report</span>, a thirty-minute narrative film on nursing home abuse edited by Shearer, there are scripts and correspondence about the production.</p> <p>Material for the film <span class=\"title\">Massachusetts 54th Colored Infantry</span> (1991) documents its production and consists of research files for particular soldiers including notes based on their pension records, a copy of Mary Frances Berry's 1966 dissertation, \"The Negro Soldier Movement and the Adoption of the National Conscription: 1652-1865\", and photocopies of letters from Corporal James Henry Gooding and other members of the regiment. Additional research material incorporates notes about free blacks in Boston during the Civil War era, and, for the Battle of Fort Wagner, there are manuscripts by Stephen R. Wise and Richard Andersen focusing on Robert Gould Shaw. Also part of the <span class=\"title\">Massachusetts 54th</span> are a couple of scripts, financial information, production files, and two boxes of slides showing the production team during filming in Boston. Publicity information includes Shearer's a manuscript for a report concerning the making of the film.</p> <p>Files for Shearer's first independently produced film and her first time directing narrative,<span class=\"title\"> A Minor Altercation</span> (1976), consist of a script, discussion guide, and information about screenings and distribution.</p> <p>Material for the unproduced <span class=\"title\">Songs of My People</span> contains a proposal, production files consisting of treatments, and the transcript of a lengthy advisors meeting with Quincy Jones and others, 1991. Research data encompass notes and printed material about various types of African-American music. The final project for which there are files is <span class=\"title\">Sophronia</span>, a love story, planned as a ninety-minute color film in 1979; there are script notes and a prospectus.</p> <p>Other material in this series includes proposals and related material for Shearer's projects which did not come to fruition, such as the 20th anniversary celebration of the Center for Constitutional Rights, 1986; a master scene outline based on Nella Larsen's novel <span class=\"title\">Quicksand</span>, 1981; and <span class=\"title\">The Southern Lady: Image and Reality</span>, 1992. Proposed projects of filmmakers Michelle Parkerson and Jack Willis can also be found here.</p> <p>Photocopies of research material from a wide array of repositories, along with research requests and associated material that she and her staff had assembled for several of her completed and incomplete film projects, have been discarded. This series is arranged alphabetically by title of film, followed by proposed films Shearer worked on, and proposed films projects of other filmmakers.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/20873#c1571321'>Subject files</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1971-1992</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series contains information pertinent to filmmakers including a directory of minority motion picture production and technical professionals, resumes of individuals in the filmmaking business, and printed material about politics and film.</p></div></li></ul>\n", "type"=>"arrangement"}