- Creator
- Buckley, Gail Lumet, 1937-
- Call number
- Sc MG 327
- Physical description
- 2.04 linear feet (4 boxes)
- Language
- English
- Preferred Citation
- [Item], Horne Family research collection, Sc MG 327, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library
- Repository
- Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division
- Access to materials
- Request an in-person research appointment.
This collection consists of original documents and correspondence related to the Horne family, assembled by Gail Lumet Buckley during the research and writing of her book The Hornes: An American Family (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986). Included are articles, programs, awards, memorabilia, business correspondence and papers, financial data, and other printed material pertaining to the careers of singer Lena Horne; her uncle, Frank S. Horne, a member of the Roosevelt "Black cabinet" and poet; and other members of the extended family.
Biographical/historical information
The Horne Family research collection documents the life history of the Hornes (formerly spelled Horn), the Calhouns, and their extended family from ca. 1777 until the present. Born in Maryland ca. 1777, the founding mother of the Calhoun family was Sinai Reynolds, who enjoyed "favored slave" status as the household cook, and was given the opportunity to learn to read and write. After she bought her freedom in 1859, Mrs. Reynolds, her husband Henry, and four of their seven children moved to Chicago. Two of the children had been sold as slaves outside of Georgia, and the eldest child, Nellie, remained in Coweta County as a cook. Nellie's son, Moses Calhoun, who was freed from slavery after the Civil War at age 36, became a restaurateur and a prominent member of Atlanta's Black bourgeoisie. His daughters, Cora and Lena, were belles of the Black South; Cora graduated from Atlanta University, class of 1881, and Lena attended Fisk University where she was a classmate and romantic interest of W. E. B. Du Bois. The Horne branch of the family began in Georgia in 1887, when Nellie's granddaughter, Cora, married Edwin Fletcher Horn, son of a British sea captain of a Tennessee River trading boat and a Native American.
The Horns lived in Atlanta, Georgia, and moved to Brooklyn, New York, a stronghold of the Black bourgeoisie, ten years later to escape the segregation and violence that, in the wake of Reconstruction's demise, was permeating the South. Horn was an alternate delegate to the 1884 Republican Convention, as well as a school teacher, journalist, and entrepreneur. Of their four sons, Frank Smith Horne became a poet, writer-intellectual, optometrist, teacher, and member of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Black cabinet" in the National Youth Administration. Edwin Fletcher Horne, Jr., known as "Teddy", sportsman and bon vivant, and Edna Scrottron were the parents of the family's most illustrious member, Lena Horne, born in 1917.
Administrative information
Source of acquisition
Gift of Gail Lumet Buckley, November 1989.
Revision History
Finding aid updated by Lauren Stark. (2021 October 22)
Processing information
Accessioned by Berlina Robinson, 1989.
Separated material
Transferred to the Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division: audio and materials. For more information, please contact the division at schomburgaudiovisual@nypl.org or 212-491-2270.
Transferred to the Photographs and Prints Division: photographs.
Key terms
Names
Subjects
- African American actresses
- African American educators
- African American families
- African American optometrists
- African American poets
- African American politicians
- African American women entertainers
- African American women singers
- African Americans -- Intellectual life
- African Americans in the performing arts
- Authors, Black
Using the collection
Location
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY 10037-1801
Second Floor