Lola Menzeli and Senia Solomonoff papers

id
9618
origination
Menzeli, Lola, 1898-1951
date statement
1873-1954 [bulk 1910s-1940]
key date
1873
identifier (local_mss)
18761
org unit
Jerome Robbins Dance Division
call number
*MGZMD 417
b-number
b20319624
total components
18
total series
0
max depth
2
boost queries
(none)
component layout
Default Layout
Extended MARC Fields
false
Extended Navigation
false
created
2014-10-28 18:06:37 UTC
updated
2026-06-25 15:07:55 UTC
status note
(missing)
Display Aeon link
true

Description data TOP

unitid
{"value"=>"*MGZMD 417", "type"=>"local_call"}
{"value"=>"18761", "type"=>"local_mss"}
{"value"=>"b20319624", "type"=>"local_b"}
unitdate
{"value"=>"1873-1954", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1873/1954"}
{"value"=>"1910s-1940", "type"=>"bulk", "normal"=>"1910/1940"}
date_inclusive_start
1873
date_inclusive_end
1954
keydate
1873
unittitle
{"value"=>"Lola Menzeli and Senia Solomonoff papers"}
physdesc
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"2.34 linear feet", "unit"=>"linear feet"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"5 boxes, 3 volumes", "unit"=>"containers"}], "supress_display"=>true}
repository
{"id"=>"DAN", "value"=>"Jerome Robbins Dance Division"}
abstract
{"value"=>"Lola Menzeli and her husband Senia Solomonoff were ballet dancers and teachers. The Lola Menzeli and Senia Solomonoff papers (1873-1954, bulk 1910s-1940) contain scrapbooks, photographs, and other papers documenting their careers. The collection includes scrapbooks concerning Menzeli's career on the vaudeville circuit in the 1910s; Menzeli and Solomonoff's world tour in the 1920s; and the Festival of States in St. Petersburg, Florida, which Solomonoff directed from 1933 to 1935. The collection also contains materials related to Menzeli's patented invention of heeled toe shoes, and a scrapbook about Menzeli's teacher, Elizabetta Menzeli."}
prefercite
{"value"=>"Lola Menzeli and Senia Solomonoff papers, *MGZMD 417. Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts"}
origination
{"value"=>"Menzeli, Lola, 1898-1951", "type"=>"persname", "role"=>"creator"}
bioghist
{"value"=>"<p>Lola Menzeli (1898-1951) was the stage name of ballet dancer Julia Lola Solomonoff, née Hamburger. Menzeli frequently performed with her husband, dancer and director Senia Solomonoff (d. 1954).</p> <p>Menzeli was a student of Elizabetta Menzeli, from whom she took her stage name. In her early career, Menzeli danced under the name Lola Girlie. She toured the vaudeville circuit during the 1910s, where her dance partners included Ivan Bankoff and Maurice Diamond. She first partnered with Solomonoff in 1920. In the ensuing decade, the two toured the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe.</p> <p>During the 1930s and 1940s, Menzeli and Solomonoff lived and taught in cities across the United States. They established a dance school in Atlanta, Georgia in 1932. From 1933 to 1935, Solomonoff directed the Festival of States in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he and Menzeli both performed. He was guest director for the Works Progress Administration Federal Theatre Project in Tampa in 1937.</p> <p>Menzeli died in Chicago in 1951. Solomonoff died three years later in New York City.</p>"}
scopecontent
{"value"=>"<p>The Lola Menzeli and Senia Solomonoff papers (1873-1954, bulk 1910s-1940) contain scrapbooks, photographs, and other papers documenting Menzeli and Solomonoff's dancing and teaching careers.</p> <p>Scrapbooks make up the bulk of the collection, and date from 1873 to 1939. The scrapbooks contain clippings, programs, posters, correspondence, contracts, and photographs. Subjects of the scrapbooks include Menzeli's career in vaudeville in the 1910s; Menzeli and Solomonoff's world tour in the 1920s; and the Festival of States Pageants of 1933, 1934, and 1935. There is a large scrapbook about Elizabetta Menzeli's dancing and teaching career, which dates from 1873 to the 1920s. There is one small scrapbook dedicated to Solomonoff's work with the Federal Theatre Project in Florida, and one small scrapbook about the play <span class=\"title\">Lindbergh</span>, performed in Paris in 1929, in which Menzeli appeared as the principal dancer. There are also loose clippings, fliers, programs, correspondence, and contracts, dating from 1913 to 1954.</p> <p>The collection contains materials concerning Menzeli's invention of high-heeled toe shoes, which were sold by the E. Landi dance shoe company as the Menzeli Heeled Toe Slipper. The materials include designs, advertisements for the shoe, copies of Menzeli's contract with E. Landi, and documentation of her patents from the United States, the United Kingdom, Austria, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain.</p> <p>The collection contains a small amount of material related to Menzeli's ballet textbook, <span class=\"title\">From Teacher to Student</span>, published in 1946. Materials include mock-ups, galleys, and correspondence.</p> <p>Photographs in the collection are primarily promotional images of Menzeli and Solomonoff, both together and individually. There are also photographs of Menzeli and Solomonoff meeting dancer La Argentina in 1932, signed photographs of Yvonne Printemps and Lew Fields, and a photograph of Solomonoff meeting Babe Ruth.</p>"}
acqinfo
{"value"=>"<p>Donated by Marya and Oscar Stein, 2012.</p>"}
processinfo
{"type"=>"processing", "value"=>"<p>Compiled by <span class=\"name\">Kit Fluker</span>, <span class=\"date\">2014</span></p>"}
userestrict
{"value"=>"<p>The author/creator retains copyright of materials. For information on obtaining permission to publish, contact the Dance Division at dance@nypl.org.</p>"}
dsc_type
combined
extent_statement
2.34 linear feet (5 boxes, 3 volumes)
date_start
1873
date_end
1954
date_bulk_start
1910
date_bulk_end
1940

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