Mildred Davenport | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | November 12, 1900 Roxbury, Massachusetts |
| Died | 1990 (aged 89–90) Boston, Massachusetts |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Dancer, Educator |
Mildred Davenport (November 12, 1900 - 1990) was an African-American Broadway performer and dance teacher. She was the first African-American woman to appear with the Boston Pops orchestra.
She was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts to Mary Davenport and Samuel Davenport, a Pullman porter. [1] She attended Boston Girls' High School, graduating in 1918, and then went on to the Sargent School for Physical Culture at Boston University. [2] Afterwards she studied dance with Ted Shawn. [2]
In the 1920s, she opened her first dance school, the Davenport School of Dance, where she taught for a decade. [2] In 1932, she founded her second dance school, the Silver Box Studio, at 522 Columbus Avenue in Boston. [2] [3]
In the 1930s, she performed in a number of musicals and revues on Broadway, including Blackbirds and Flying Colors . [2] [3] At a time when it was rare for African-American and white performers to appear together on the stage, she danced with performers like Imogene Coca and Clifton Webb. [3] [4] In 1938, she danced interpretations of spirituals with the Boston Pops orchestra, becoming the first African-American woman to appear with the Boston Pops. [3] She toured the East Coast for five years in a show entitled Chocolate Review. [3] [4]
In World War II, Davenport became one of the first black women to enlist in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps, rising from first lieutenant to captain during the war. [1]
After the war, she worked for the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination for two decades (1947–1968) [3] [4] and served on the board of directors for the Boston branch of the NAACP. [1]
In 1973 Davenport received the Sojourner Truth Award of the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Clubs, Boston and Vicinity Club. [2]
Davenport died in Boston, Massachusetts in 1990. [2]
A collection of her papers, photographs, dance programs, and other ephemera is held by UC Irvine's Special Collections and Archives. [2]
The Boston Pops Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, specializing in light classical and popular music. The orchestra's current music director is Keith Lockhart.
Mildred Bailey was a Native American jazz singer during the 1930s, known as "The Queen of Swing", "The Rockin' Chair Lady" and "Mrs. Swing". She recorded the songs "For Sentimental Reasons", "It's So Peaceful in the Country", "Doin' The Uptown Lowdown", "Trust in Me", "Where Are You?", "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart", "Small Fry", "Please Be Kind", "Darn That Dream", "Rockin' Chair", "Blame It on My Last Affair", and "Says My Heart". She had three records that reached number one on the popular charts.
Ruth St. Denis was an American pioneer of modern dance, introducing eastern ideas into the art. She was the co-founder of the American Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts and the teacher of several notable performers.
Dianne Walker, also known as Lady Di, is an American tap dancer. Her thirty-year career spans Broadway, television, film, and international dance concerts. Walker is the Artistic Director of TapDancin, Inc. in Boston, Massachusetts.
Alice Stone Blackwell was an American feminist, suffragist, journalist, radical socialist, and human rights advocate.
Donald McKayle was an American modern dancer, choreographer, teacher, director and writer best known for creating socially conscious concert works during the 1950s and '60s that focus on expressing the human condition and, more specifically, the black experience in America. He was "among the first black men to break the racial barrier by means of modern dance." His work for the concert stage, especially Games (1951) and Rainbow Round My Shoulder (1959), has been the recipient of widespread acclaim and critical attention. In addition, McKayle was the first black man to both direct and choreograph major Broadway musicals, including the Tony Award-winners Raisin (1973) and Sophisticated Ladies (1981), and he worked extensively in television and film. As a young man he appeared with some of the twentieth century's most important choreographers, including Martha Graham, Anna Sokolow, and Merce Cunningham, and in some of Broadway's landmark productions, including House of Flowers (1958) and West Side Story (1957), where he served for a time as the production's dance captain. A Tony Award and Emmy Award nominee, McKayle held an endowed chair for the last decades of his life in the Dance Department at UC Irvine, where he was the Claire Trevor Professor of Dance. He previously served on the faculties of Connecticut College, Sarah Lawrence College, and Bennington College.
Adelaide Louise Hall was an American-born UK-based jazz singer and entertainer. Her long career spanned more than 70 years from 1921 until her death and she was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Hall entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 2003 as the world's most enduring recording artist, having released material over eight consecutive decades. She performed with major artists such as Art Tatum, Ethel Waters, Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Cab Calloway, Fela Sowande, Rudy Vallee and Jools Holland, and recorded as a jazz singer with Duke Ellington and with Fats Waller.
Mildred Fay Jefferson was an American physician and anti-abortion political activist. The first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, the first woman to graduate in surgery from Harvard Medical School and the first woman to become a member of the Boston Surgical Society, she is known for her opposition to the legalization of abortion and her work as president of the National Right to Life Committee.
Fannie Dorothy Davenport was an American actress, screenwriter, film director, and producer.
Alice Childress was an American novelist, playwright, and actress, acknowledged as "the only African-American woman to have written, produced, and published plays for four decades." Childress described her work as trying to portray the have-nots in a have society, saying: "My writing attempts to interpret the 'ordinary' because they are not ordinary. Each human is uniquely different. Like snowflakes, the human pattern is never cast twice. We are uncommonly and marvellously intricate in thought and action, our problems are most complex and, too often, silently borne." Childress became involved in social causes, and formed an off-Broadway union for actors.
Ann Hobson Pilot is an American musician and the former principal harpist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops. She has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, and as a soloist with many orchestras in the United States. She was one of four African American musicians who were the first to play in United States symphony orchestras during the 1960s.
Carmen de Lavallade is an American actress, choreographer and dancer.
Peggy Stuart Coolidge was an American composer and conductor. She was one of the first female American composers to have a recording devoted to her symphonic works, and the first American composer to have a concert devoted entirely to her works presented in the Soviet Union. Although she does not quote particular melodies, her compositional style is accessible and influenced by American folk and popular idioms; her success at creating a distinctly American musical voice places her among such figures as Charles Ives, Aaron Copland and George Gershwin.
Jeni LeGon, also credited as Jeni Le Gon, was an American dancer, dance instructor, and actress. She was one of the first African-American women to establish a solo career in tap dance.
Mildred Dixon was a dancer at the Cotton Club in Harlem who became a longtime companion of composer and musician Duke Ellington, and manager of his company. She was born in Boston to parents from Africville, Nova Scotia. She became a dancer and moved to New York in the mid-1920s, where she became known as part of the dance couple, "Mildred and Henri."
The Boston Women's Heritage Trail is a series of walking tours in Boston, Massachusetts, leading past sites important to Boston women's history. The tours wind through several neighborhoods, including the Back Bay and Beacon Hill, commemorating women such as Abigail Adams, Amelia Earhart, and Phillis Wheatley. The guidebook includes seven walks and introduces more than 200 Boston women.
Until 1950, African Americans were a small but historically important minority in Boston, where the population was majority white. Since then, Boston's demographics have changed due to factors such as immigration, white flight, and gentrification. According to census information for 2010–2014, an estimated 180,657 people in Boston are Black/African American, either alone or in combination with another race. Despite being in the minority, and despite having faced housing, educational, and other discrimination, African Americans in Boston have made significant contributions in the arts, politics, and business since colonial times.
Mildred Elizabeth Albert was an American fashion commentator, modeling agency director, fashion show producer, radio and television personality, and society columnist. Known as the "Mighty Atom" and Boston's "First Lady of Fashion", she produced thousands of fashion shows during her career. She founded the Academie Moderne finishing school in 1936 and co-founded the Hart Model Agency in 1944. After selling both concerns in 1981, she remained active on the Boston fashion scene, covering fashion shows and hosting charity benefits, which earned her the title of "official grande dame" of Boston.
Ednorah Nahar was an African American elocutionist from Boston who flourished between the late 1880s and early 1900s giving dramatic recitations throughout the United States, as well as abroad.
Sara Mildred Strauss was an American dancer, educator, choreographer, and writer.