Art and the Great Migration A Webinar for American Transitions from Rural to Urban Life Tracy Teslow University of Cincinnati July 7, 2011
The Great Migration 1916-1930
A segregated railroad depot waiting room in Jacksonville, Florida, 1921. State Archives of Florida
Black Family Arrives in Chicago from the South, ca. 1919 Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Macon, Ga April 2, 1918 To the Bethlehem Baptist Association reading in the Chicago Defender of your help securing positions I want to know if it is any way you can oblige me by helping me to get out there as I am anxious to leave here + everything so hard here I hope you will oblige in helping me to leave here ans[wer] at once to 309 Middle St. Mrs. J. H. Adams
“Times is Getting’ Harder” by Lucious Curtis, 1940 Times is gettin' harder, Money's gettin' scarce. Soon as I get my cotton and corn, I'm bound to leave this place. White folks sittin' in the parlor, Eatin' that cake and food, black person’s way down to the kitchen, Squabblin' over turnip greens. Me and my brother was out. Thought we'd have some fun. He stole three chickens. We began to run. Soon as I get my cotton and corn Cotton Pickers, Pulaski County, Arkansas, Ben Shahn, 1935
Art and the Paradox of African American Identity
“One ever feels his twoness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body” ~ The Souls of Black Folk, 1903 William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, ca. 1918
Photographs of African Americans: Paris Universal Exposition, 1900
Types of American Negroes, Georgia, U.S.A., 1900 W.E.B. Du Bois Displayed at the Universal Exposition, Paris, 1900 Bazoline Estelle Usher
Types of American Negroes, Georgia, U.S.A., 1900 W.E.B. Du Bois Displayed at the Universal Exposition, Paris, 1900 The home of an African American lawyer, Atlanta, Georgia Photo by Thomas E. Askew David Tobias Howard, an undertaker, his wife and mother, Atlanta, Georgia
The New Negro Movement: Art and the Great Migration
". Our problem is to conceive, develop, establish an art era "...Our problem is to conceive, develop, establish an art era. Not white art painting black...let's bare our arms and plunge them deep through laughter, through pain, through sorrow, through hope, through disappointment, into the very depths of the souls of our people and drag forth material crude, rough, neglected. Then let's sing it, dance it, write it, paint it. Let's do the impossible. Let's create something transcendentally material, mystically objective. Earthy. Spiritually earthy. Dynamic." ~ Aaron Douglas
Aaron Douglas
Aaron Douglas An Idyll of the Deep South, Aspects of Negro Life Series, 1934
Aaron Douglas Song of the Towers, Aspects of Negro Life Series, 1934
Archibald Motley, Jr. & William H. Johnson Life Up North: Archibald Motley, Jr. & William H. Johnson
Archibald Motley, Jr. Black Belt, 1934
Archibald Motley, Jr. Nightlife, 1943
William H. Johnson Jitterbug V, 1941-42 Street Life, Harlem, 1941-42
Jacob Lawrence
The Migration Series, 1940-41, by Jacob Lawrence #1 -- During the World War there was a great migration North by Southern Negroes
The Migration Series, 1940-41, by Jacob Lawrence #3 -- In every town Negroes were leaving by the hundreds to go North and enter into Northern industry
The Migration Series, 1940-41, by Jacob Lawrence #29 -- The labor agent also recruited laborers to break strikes which were occurring in the North.
The Migration Series, 1940-41, by Jacob Lawrence #49 -- They also found discrimination in the North although it was much different from that which they had known in the South.
The Migration Series, 1940-41, by Jacob Lawrence #57 -- The female worker was also one of the last groups to leave the South.
Resources Books, for kids: Websites: Video: The Great Migration: An American Story, paintings by Jacob Lawrence, New York: HarperCollins, 1993 (ages 8 & up) John Duggleby, Story Painter: The Life of Jacob Lawrence, Chronicle Books, 1998 (ages 6-12) The Harlem Renaissance, compiled by Karen Kuehner, Nextext, 2001 (grades 9-12) Websites: Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series, The Phillips Collection ~ http://www.phillipscollection.org/migration_series/index.cfm The Jacob and Gwen Knight Lawrence Virtual Resource Center ~ http://www.jacobandgwenlawrence.org/ Art and Life of William H. Johnson: A Guide for Teachers, Smithsonian Institution ~ http://americanart.si.edu/education/guides/whj/index.cfm History Matters (music, letters from the Great Migration) ~ http://historymatters.gmu.edu Great Migration: Documents for the Investigation ~ http://www.uic.edu/educ/bctpi/historyGIS/greatmigration/gmdocuments.html Video: “Up South: African American Migration in the Era of the Great War,” American Social History Productions, Inc., CUNY, 30 minutes ~ http://ashp.cuny.edu/ashp-documentaries/up-south/ “Jacob Lawrence: an intimate portrait,” Public Media Home Vision, 1993 ~ online at: http://www.artbabble.org/video/lacma/jacob-lawrence-intimate-portrait