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Today in History: May 3

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A Couple of Kansans

Portrait of William Inge,
Carl Van Vechten, photographer, September 4, 1954.
Creative Americans: Portraits by Van Vechten, 1932-1964

Gordon Parks, circa 1943.
FSA/OWI Black-and-White Photographs

Playwright William M. Inge was born in Independence, Kansas on May 3, 1913. Inge wrote several hit plays including Come Back, Little Sheba, Bus Stop, and Picnic, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. His first play, Farther Off From Heaven (1947), was revised ten years later for Broadway as The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. Many of his plays were made into films and, in 1961, Inge won an Academy Award for his original screenplay Splendor in the Grass.

Photographer Gordon Parks was a contemporary of William Inge. He was born less than six months prior to Inge on November 30, 1912 in Kansas. He also pursued a career in the arts. Parks began taking photographs during the Great Depression and was earning his living as a self-taught fashion photographer by 1940. A fellowship allowed him to come to Washington, D.C., in 1942 and work for the Farm Security Administration. Working through the medium of photography, Parks went on to become one of America's finest social commentators. His autobiography, A Choice of Weapons, was published in 1965.

To develop a bibliography of works by and about individuals, use the Library of Congress Catalogs. For example, search for the name Parks, Gordon in the Author/Creator Browse on the Basic Search page for works authored by Parks. For a list of works about Inge, use the Subject Browse on Inge, William M. to find things such as biographies of his life or literary criticism and interpretation of his writing.
Select the name Gordon Parks from the Creator Index of America from the Great Depression to World War II: Black-and-White Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945, to view more than 1,600 photographs taken by Parks. Learn how the work of Gordon Parks was influenced by his time with the Farm Security Administration. Select Gordon Parks from the online presentation Documenting America: Photographers on Assignment in the same collection.
Learn more about the social backdrop against which both Inge and Parks created their early work from The Depression, the New Deal, and World War II section of the online exhibition African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship
Search the Today in History Archive on playwright to locate more material on American dramatists. Read, for example, about James Baldwin.

Government Charwoman

Corner Store Which Is Patronized by Mrs. Ella Watson, a Government Charwoman

Mrs. Ella Watson, a Government Charwoman, Receiving Annointment from Reverend Clara Smith…

Adopted Daughter of Mrs. Ella Watson, a Government Charwoman

Gordon Parks, photographer. Washington, D.C., August 1942.
America from the Great Depression to World War II: Black-and-White Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945

Jamaica

Wild Banana Plants, Jamaica, West Indies, copyright ca. 1901.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America, 1880-1920

On May 3, 1494, Christopher Columbus sighted the island of Jamaica. Spanish colonists settled the island fifteen years later, and it fell into British hands in 1655. Although the Spanish introduced slavery to Jamaica, the British oversaw its development. By the end of the eighteenth century, Jamaica was one of the most valuable colonies in the world, its profitable plantation economy based on the production of sugar through the labor of African slaves.

Some measure of the human cost of this economy is apparent in African Slave Trade in Jamaica, and Comparative Treatment of Slaves, an essay read before the Maryland Historical Society in October 1854. In this treatise, which includes a statistical comparison of the cost of slavery in the United States and Jamaica, Moses Sheppard attempts to undercut British criticisms of American slavery by emphasizing Britain's role in the introduction of slavery to the Americas and by recounting British atrocities in Jamaica. Sheppard's essay is featured in African American Perspectives, 1818-1907; to locate more documents on this subject, search the collection on slave trade.

Folklorist, author, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston collected material in both Jamaica and Haiti for her 1938 book Tell My Horse. In addition to her independent research, Hurston also worked closely with John and Ruby Lomax and others in the Southern U.S. capturing the voices of everyday folks. A description of the Hurston material available in the Library's Folklore Collection gives an indication of Hurston's broad range of skills.

Zora Neale Hurston,
Alan Lomax, photographer, Eatonville, Florida, 1935.
"The Harlem Renaissance and the Flowering of Creativity" in African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship

Jamaica gained its independence from England in 1962 but remains a member of the British commonwealth. The U.S. has long been one of Jamaica's principal trading partners.

To learn more about Christopher Columbus and the consequences of European exploration of the Americas, see the online exhibition 1492: An Ongoing Voyage or search the Today in History Archive on Columbus.
The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship includes a map of West Africa During the Eighteenth Century. Many of the ports identified on the map are identified as being controlled by the English, Dutch, Danish, or French. The use of Latin, French, and Dutch place names on the map is another indication of the international interest in the African trade.
The Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 make evident the fact that the Founding Fathers considered the Caribbean islands, including Jamaica, strategically important to trade. See, for example, the debate of October 20, 1775, which may be located through the collection's Navigator. The Journals of the Continental Congress are a part of A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation, 1774-1875.
Search on the name Hurston in Florida Folklife, 1937-1942 to find material about the folklife of Florida, particularly its music. Read, for example, Zora Neale Hurston's essay entitled "Proposed Recording Expedition Into the Floridas" and listen to some of the music that she helped to preserve.
For images of a Jamaican hotel and an estate, search on the term Jamaica in Architecture and Interior Design for 20th Century America. Note, however, that this search also retrieves images of Jamaica Avenue and Jamaica, Long Island. To refine such a search, use a more concise term, such as Jamaica, British West Indies.
Oral history is a way to gather information from people who took part in past events. Zora Neale Hurston gathered oral histories for the Folklore Project of the Federal Writers effort and for her book on Jamaica. Learn more about using oral history from the Learning Page.
Search the Today in History Archive on her name to learn more about Zora Neale Hurston.