Negro Actors Guild of America. Letter to Vera Zorina, 1938., 1938.
Dates
- Creation: 1938.
Language of Materials
Collection materials are in English, Norwegian, German, and French.
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.
Most of this collection is not housed at the Harvard Theatre Collection but is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. Retrieval requires advance notice. Readers should check with Houghton Public Services staff to determine what material is offsite and retrieval policies and times.
Extent
1 foldersBiographical / Historical
The term "Negro" was adopted and preferred by members of the Black community starting in the latter half of the nineteenth century, becoming dominant in language in the United States by the 1950s. As the Civil Rights movement developed, the term was criticized for being imposed upon the Black community by white people, and a new term to self-identify was sought. By the mid-1960s, more progressive language shifted to the preference for the word "Black," with some arguing that "Black" referred to radical, progressive figures, while "Negro" was used for those who were "established" or more in keeping with the status quo." (See Citation below.) Black grew in popularity over the latter half of the twentieth century and is the contemporarily preferred term at the time of writing (2024). The inclusion of the term "Negro" in this description is in keeping with the establishment usage, particularly by white Americans such as Georgina Lowell in the early twentieth century.
Citation: Smith, Tom W. “Changing Racial Labels: From ‘Colored’ to ‘Negro’ to ‘Black’ to ‘African American.’” The Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 56, no. 4, 1992, pp. 496–514. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2749204. Accessed 16 Jan. 2024.
Physical Location
Harvard Depository, b
Processing Information
This file was reviewed in 2024 to address outdated and harmful descriptive language. During that review, it was decided that the potentially harmful and problematic term describing Black Americans is in a formal title of an organization. In order not to censor history or make searching difficult, the title has been left as-is, with a note sharing the organization's current title added. A contextual note situating the usage of the term has been added. If you have questions or comments about these revisions, please contact Houghton Library. For more information on reparative archival description at Harvard, see Harvard Library’s Statement on Harmful Language in Archival Description.
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
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