Research Catalog

Josephine Baker collection

Title
Josephine Baker collection, 1933-1975.
Author
Baker, Josephine, 1906-1975.

Available Online

Finding Aid

Items in the Library & Off-site

Filter by

1 Item

StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
Mixed materialUse in library Sc MG 778Schomburg Center - Manuscripts & Archives

Details

Additional Authors
Sawada, Miki, 1901-1980.
Description
0.2 lin. ft. (1/2 archival box)
Summary
The collection consists of 25 letters and postcards written by the renown dancer and cabaret singer Josephine Baker to her Japanese friend Miki Sawada and other parties; a scrapbook of press clippings assembled by Sawada; and material from Baker's 1952 South American tour. The latter part of Baker's correspondence with Sawada was concerned with the adoption of a Japanese boy in 1954. Other materials in the collection include three speeches from her 1952 lecture tour in Argentina and Brazil to promote "the spiritual freedom of mankind" and an end to racial discrimination, and printed matter from her 1954 tour of Japan.
Subjects
Note
  • Photographs transferred to Photographs and Prints Division.
Source (note)
  • Sumi Kamiya
Biography (note)
  • Born in 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri, Josephine Baker achieved fame in Paris in the 1920s. In the 1950s, she sought to promote racial equality by adopting twelve children of various races and nationalities to create what she called a "rainbow family." Miki Sawada was the founder and director of the Elizabeth Sanders Home in Tokyo for ostracized mixed-race children fathered by U.S. servicemen with Japanese women. She and Baker had become friends in the 1930s in Paris, where her husband, Renzo Sawada, was stationed as a diplomat.
Call Number
Sc MG 778
OCLC
244205486
Author
Baker, Josephine, 1906-1975.
Title
Josephine Baker collection, 1933-1975.
Biography
Born in 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri, Josephine Baker achieved fame in Paris in the 1920s. In the 1950s, she sought to promote racial equality by adopting twelve children of various races and nationalities to create what she called a "rainbow family." Miki Sawada was the founder and director of the Elizabeth Sanders Home in Tokyo for ostracized mixed-race children fathered by U.S. servicemen with Japanese women. She and Baker had become friends in the 1930s in Paris, where her husband, Renzo Sawada, was stationed as a diplomat.
Connect to:
Finding Aid
Occupation
Scrapbooks.
Local Subject
Black author.
Added Author
Sawada, Miki, 1901-1980.
Research Call Number
Sc MG 778
View in Legacy Catalog