Research Catalog

Title

Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe manuscript and research collection, 1790-1986.

Author

Moutoussamy-Ashe, Jeanne, 1951-

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

2.3 lin. ft.

Summary

Collection comprises Ashe's work in developing VIEWFINDERS, a historiographic photoessay project for publication. The manuscript and research materials are about African-American women photographers in America from 1839 to 1985. While numerous professionals are cited, extensive interview materials are available on the Camera Girls (WACs), Hazel Shumate, Gladys Allen, Eslanda Goode Robeson, Mary Flenoy, Phillda Ragland-Njau, Wilhelmina Roberts, Elsie Forrest Harelson, Vera Jackson, Louise Martin, Louise Jefferson, Mary Warren, Colis Davis, Winifred Hall, and Elizabeth Williams. Transcribed interviews of these photographers are supplemented with interview tapes for Martin, Allen, Roberts, Robeson, Flenoy, and Williams through dialogue either with the individual or an acquaintance. Also included are various pre-publication manuscript and photoprint galleys and proofs, correspondence, and miscellanea.

Subjects

• African American photographers
• African American photographers > United States > Biography
• Women photographerszUnited States > Biography
• United States > Army > Women's Army Corps
• Jackson, Vera
• Ragland-Njau, Phillda
• Allen, Gladys
• United States > Armed Forces > African Americans
• Women and the military > United States
• Women photographers > United States
• Hall, Winifred
• African American women authors
• Shumate, Hazel
• Harelson, Elsie Forrest
• Robeson, Eslanda Goode, 1896-1965
• Jefferson, Louise E
• Flenoy, Mary
• Martin, Louise
• Roberts, Wilhelmina
• Interviews
• Davis, Colis
• Moutoussamy-Ashe, Jeanne, 1951- > Viewfinders: black women photographers
• Warren, Mary

Genre/Form

Interviews.

Note

• Photographs transferred to Photographs and Prints Division.
• Audiotapes transferred to Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division.

Source (note)

• Moutoussamy-Ashe, Jeanne

Biography (note)

• A photographer, Jeanne Moutoussamy's work has appeared in Life, Smithsonian, Sports Illustrated, Ebony, Essence, People, and The New York Times. She has shown in solo and group exhibitions around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, NY; The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; Galerie Herve Odermat in Paris, France; and The Excelsior in Florence, Italy. She is the author of five books, including "Viewfinders: Black Women Photographers"(1986); the 25th Anniversary Edition of "Daufuskie Island: Photographs by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe" which won the 2008 Essence Literary Award in Photography; and most recently, "Among Others: Blackness at MoMA" (2019). Having devoted many years to civic causes in health, arts, and civil rights issues, Moutoussamy-Ashe’s photography is interwoven with her activism. She has lectured at various educational and cultural institutions around the country and taught photography to high school and college students. In 1995, President Bill Clinton appointed her as an alternate representative of the United States to the United Nations General Assembly. In 2011, she traveled to Nepal on behalf of healthcare organizations to document healthcare workers’ efforts to address medical issues in the country. In 2013, Moutoussamy-Ashe received a Ford Foundation grant to research photographs from the 1963 March on Washington and curate an exhibition to commemorate the its 50th anniversary; the exhibition was held at Leica Gallery. In 2014, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture obtained a series of her Daufuskie Island images as part of their permanent collection, which was originally conceived of and shot over five years in the late 1970s. Currently, she is a director of the Arthur Ashe Endowment for the Defeat of AIDS and served on the President’s Council of The Cooper Union, of which she is also a former Alumni Trustee.

Processing Action (note)

• Surveyed
• Accessioned
• Cataloging updated

Call Number

Sc MG 343

OCLC

NYPW89-A158

Author

Moutoussamy-Ashe, Jeanne, 1951-

Title

Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe manuscript and research collection, 1790-1986.

Biography

A photographer, Jeanne Moutoussamy's work has appeared in Life, Smithsonian, Sports Illustrated, Ebony, Essence, People, and The New York Times. She has shown in solo and group exhibitions around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, NY; The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; Galerie Herve Odermat in Paris, France; and The Excelsior in Florence, Italy. She is the author of five books, including "Viewfinders: Black Women Photographers"(1986); the 25th Anniversary Edition of "Daufuskie Island: Photographs by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe" which won the 2008 Essence Literary Award in Photography; and most recently, "Among Others: Blackness at MoMA" (2019). Having devoted many years to civic causes in health, arts, and civil rights issues, Moutoussamy-Ashe’s photography is interwoven with her activism. She has lectured at various educational and cultural institutions around the country and taught photography to high school and college students. In 1995, President Bill Clinton appointed her as an alternate representative of the United States to the United Nations General Assembly. In 2011, she traveled to Nepal on behalf of healthcare organizations to document healthcare workers’ efforts to address medical issues in the country. In 2013, Moutoussamy-Ashe received a Ford Foundation grant to research photographs from the 1963 March on Washington and curate an exhibition to commemorate the its 50th anniversary; the exhibition was held at Leica Gallery. In 2014, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture obtained a series of her Daufuskie Island images as part of their permanent collection, which was originally conceived of and shot over five years in the late 1970s. Currently, she is a director of the Arthur Ashe Endowment for the Defeat of AIDS and served on the President’s Council of The Cooper Union, of which she is also a former Alumni Trustee.

Connect to:

Finding Aid

Occupation

African American women authors.

Research Call Number

Sc MG 343