Armstead-Johnson Foundation for Theater Research records

1974-1994

The Armstead-Johnson Foundation for Theater Research was established in February 1974, by theater historian Helen Armstead-Johnson, for the purpose of collecting, preserving, documenting, and exhibiting the history of African American contributions to the American stage. The governing body of the Armstead-Johnson Foundation, the Board of Sponsors, included John Bubbles, Carmen DeLavallade, Owen Dodson, Geoffrey Holder, Joe Franklin, John Houseman, Walter Kerr, and Ulysses S. Thompson. The committees included Executive, Finance, Acquisitions, Production Benefits, and Volunteers.

Johnson, the Foundation's director, began conducting research into African American theater following a chance meeting in 1966 with Noble Sissle (1889-1975), musician, band conductor and show business partner of composer Eubie Blake. An English professor at York College in Queens, New York, at the time, Johnson turned to theatrical research, adapting to it the discipline and research techniques of her previous specialty, eighteenth-century English literature. Her research and other activities for the Foundation to her across the United States, most of Europe, Africa (including Egypt), South America, and Australia. Throughout this time, she continued to combine full-time teaching with her research and other duties for the Foundation.

Among the materials which Johnson collected were scripts, programs and playbills, books and pamphlets, posters, broadsides, clothing worn by performers, costume designs, musical instruments, memorabilia, photographs, phonograph records, taped interviews with well-known entertainers, magazine and newspaper clippings, trophies, and plaques. Johnson attempted to document Black people's role in theatrical history from slavery through the 1980s. Most of the items in the Foundation's collections were acquired through donations, such as the bequest of the Elliot Carpenter Papers and the gift of the A. Lincoln Harris Scrapbook. Some materials were purchased, such as the Bill Robinson Collection of artifacts. She also gathered contemporary articles to supplement older material and document modern day performers. The Foundation was housed adjacent to Johnson's apartment in the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan where she put together a small museum, in 1975. for the display of some of the objects she had collected.

Initially, the space was open to the public by appointment, however after several years, security and space considerations forced her to close the museum. Because the Foundation was unable to open to the public on a regular basis, major grants of public funds were unavailable to it. Instead, the Foundation sought and received a number of small grants from foundations and corporations such as the New York Foundation for the Arts, IBM, the CBS Foundation, Exxon, and other modest private donations to help support acquisitions, cataloging of the collections, and mounting exhibitions. The bulk of the expenses, however, to support the Foundation was borne by Johnson through a combination of her university salary, lecture fees, and exhibition fees. Additionally, in November 1980, the Foundation initiated its Spotlight Awards "for the pursuit of excellence on stage"; they also served as a fund raiser. The first two recipients were ninety-two year old U. S. "Fleet of Feet" Thompson, a retired international entertainer, and the artistic director of the Negro Ensemble Company, Douglas Turner Ward. This performance benefit also included entertainment and a silent auction of mementos.

Following the closing of the museum, the Foundation's public service was rendered primarily through exhibitions based solely on its collections for which rental fees were charged to the host institution. The collections were also utilized in the making of a film and filmstrip and for publications. On irregular occasions Johnson granted access to the artifactual and archival collections.

The Foundation was honored with several awards: the AUDELCO Board of Directors's award for "superior contributions toward preserving black cultural heritage"; a 1981 Proclamation for the Junior Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas, for "endeavors to expose and preserve the "Black Cultural Heritage nationally and internationally"; and a Proclamation from the mayor of New York City in 1982.

The Foundation continued to function through 1994, primarily through the exhibits planned by Johnson, and some collection development. In 1996, due to Johnson's ill health, the Foundation ceased functioning and that same year Johnson donated the entire Armstead-Johnson collection to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.