Overview
Materials relating to the Vaudeville careers of the married performing duo Art Tenny and Babe Allen, and their daughter, Dolores Tenny.
Dates
- Creation: circa 1900-1949
Condition Description
Gloves should be worn to handle photographs. Papers are fragile. Do not remove stage makeup from plastic bags. Careful handling required.
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for use.
A portion of this collection is shelved offsite. Retrieval requires advance notice. Readers should check with Houghton Public Services staff to determine retrieval policies and times.
Extent
4 linear feet (5 boxes)Materials relating to the Vaudeville careers of Art Tenny and Babe Allen. Includes performance notes, photographs, advertisements, theater programs, newspaper clippings, performance contracts, and a few plays and periodicals. Also includes costume materials worn by Tenny and Allen, as well as juggling pins used by Allen, paper samples, and prop currency. Material from Art Tenny's solo career prior to his act with Babe Allen is also present. Materials from Dolores Tenny's vaudeville career in the 1940s as a part of the act "Yvonne & DiAmico" are also included.
Biographical / Historical
Vaudeville was a type of live entertainment variety show popular in the United States from the late 19th through the early 20th centuries. Art Tenny (1877-1943) and Babe Allen (1891-1964) performed in vaudeville shows as a duo from circa 1907 to 1933. They were married soon after starting work together. Tenny and Allen toured around the United States. Their act included comedy skits, juggling, song and dance, and comic dialogue. Tenny and Allen retired to Weymouth, Massachusetts in 1933. Their daughter, Dolores Tenny, stage name Yvonne, followed in their footsteps as a vaudeville performer in the 1940s as half of the act "Yvonne & DiAmico."
Arrangement
This collection is arranged in series established by the archivist.
Physical Location
Harvard Depository
Immediate Source of Acquisition
2023MT-51. Gift of Karen Chroniak and the Tenny Family, 2023 March 20.
General note
See curatorial file for more biographical information.
Processing Information
This collection was processed to a basic level with minimal rehousing, organization, and preservation. (Aurora Charlow, 2023)
Subject
- Tenny & Allen (Vaudeville performers) (Organization)
- Title
- Tenny & Allen vaudeville act collection, circa 1900-1949 (Ms Thr 2259): Guide
- Status
- completed
- Date
- 2023 March 22
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- eng
- EAD ID
- hou03542
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.
Harvard Yard
Harvard University
Cambridge MA 02138 USA
(617) 495-2440
Houghton_Library@harvard.edu