 A song thought forgotten can always be remembered. 
This photo shows Broadway actress Altonell Hines, who performed on the New York City stage during the 1930s in the shows Porgy and Bess and Four Saints in Three Acts. Unfortunately, like many early Broadway performers, after her career she faded into obscurity. However, she was somewhat rediscovered, partly thanks to a photographic portrait shot in 1934 by the famed Carl Van Vechten as part of an unfinished project titled, "Noble Black Women: The Harlem Renaissance and After.” The photo wasn't printed until 1983 when it went on exhibition at the Smithsonian Institute. Hines never saw it—she'd died in 1979.
Nevertheless, she's an interesting example of how obscurity never has to be permanent for stars of yesteryear. Archivists and biographers have always resurrected long dead public figures, but the creation of the internet has accelerated that process, and now hundreds of formerly forgotten personalities from history are restored into the cultural consciousness each year. It's the coolest thing about the internet, if you ask us. The above shot, which is not from the Noble Black Women collection, was made in 1935. You can see a few more images of Hines on the website of the New York Public Library, at this link.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1955—Rosa Parks Sparks Bus Boycott
In the U.S., in Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott resulted in a crippling financial deficit for the Montgomery public transit system, because the city's African-American population were the bulk of the system's ridership. 1936—Crystal Palace Gutted by Fire
In London, the landmark structure Crystal Palace, a 900,000 square foot glass and steel exhibition hall erected in 1851, is destroyed by fire. The Palace had been moved once and fallen into disrepair, and at the time of the fire was not in use. Two water towers survived the blaze, but these were later demolished, leaving no remnants of the original structure. 1963—Warren Commission Formed
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. However the long report that is finally issued does little to settle questions about the assassination, and today surveys show that only a small minority of Americans agree with the Commission's conclusions. |
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