Still Photographs Series, 1839-1989

Extent:

8 boxes

Scope and content:

Consists of hundreds of black and white publicity stills and other images collected by Thomas Cripps over many years, taken from films featuring African American actors or African American producers and directors from the silent film era through the 1970s. Almost all derive from American-made films, but there is also a large group of stills originating from British films. One significant group contains images from pioneer African American director Oscar Micheaux's movies. Titles refer either to individual films, or to broad subjects.

To improve housing, contents of original envelopes have been refoldered, but Cripps's content lists which provide fuller descriptive access to individual images have been photocopied and placed in each folder with its corresponding group of stills. A few folders include other film publicity or correspondence. Arranged as received, in alphabetical order by film title or topical heading. Original folder titles retained. Dates added by staff are in brackets.

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