Seventh Anotation

freedom, for us. "Freedom a History Of Us." 2008. Freedom a History Of Us. 21 Nov 2008 .



Bessie Smith began her career at the age of nine singing in the streets of Chattanooga, Tennessee. She joined a traveling vaudeville show as a dancer, but her real talent was singing.

By the 1920s, Smith had become the most popular blues singer in the country. Her fans called her the "Empress of the Blues." Smith made her first recording in 1923, "Down-Hearted Blues," which sold 750,000 copies. She made lots of money, but she spent it as fast as she made it.

When the Depression, radio, and talking movies stole the audience away from recorded music, Smith's career went downhill. She started a successful comeback as a Swing singer. In 1937, she died in a car accident.

Sixth Anotations

Whitney , Ross. "Reflections Of 1920's And 30's Street Life In The Music Of Bessie Smith." http:bluesnet.hub.org. 1995. the History of Women in Music.. 21 Nov 2008


As the saying goes, "you gotta pay the dues if you wanna sing the blues." In no other way than living the kind of violent, promiscuous, hard-drinking street life she sang about, could Bessie Smith have inspired in her audiences the powerful empathy that ultimately won her the title, "Empress of the Blues." Throughout her career, Bessie was respected for being a strong, independent African-American woman with tremendous talent and determination. She expressed great pride in her culture, and gladly participated in its earthy pleasures, regularly indulging her taste for alcohol and sex to extremes. Though her acclaim rapidly crossed racial boundaries, she shunned the icy affections and condescending embraces of the elitist white New York uppercrust, as well as fawning conformists from her own community. How ever much others tried to run roughshod over her, Bessie refused to submit to the slightest abuse without a knock-down, drag-out fight. With few exceptions, she held to her musical ideals with equal tenacity. Though musically illiterate, she regularly collaborated with her pianists to compose and write down her music,1 and her words frequently touched on pertinent events in her life. Her performance style, too, derives considerably from her own personal and cultural attributes.

Firth Anotation

Burns, Ken. "Bessie Smith." Biographies. October 2008. PBS.org. 20 Oct 2008 .

This website was very helpful. It gives certain details about Bessie Smith. Bessie Smith began her professional career in 1912 by singing in the same show as Ma Rainey, and subsequently performed in various touring minstrel shows and cabarets. By the 1920s, she was a leading artist in black shows on the TOBA circuit and at the 81 Theatre in Atlanta. After further tours she was sought out by Clarence Williams to record in New York. Her first recording, Down-Hearted Blues, established her as the most successful black performing artist of her time. She recorded regularly until 1928 with important early jazz instrumentalists such as Williams, James P. Johnson, and various members of Fletcher Henderson's band, including Louis Armstrong, Charlie Green, Joe Smith, and Tommy Ladnier. I think this will help us understand how Bessie Smith started her career as a blues singer.

Forth Anotation

Primaryaccess.org. 24 Oct 2008 .

Bessie Smith was a talented African American blues singer. She was a rough, crude, violent woman. She was also the greatest of the classic Blues singers of the 1920s. But during her career she had her ups and downs. She was turned down by three record companies because they felt she wasn't commercial enough, but Columbia Records soon signed Bessie. Her first record "Down Hearted Blues" sold more then 2 million copies within a year. At her peak in the 1920's she earned $2,000 a week, making her the highest paid black entertainer in the country. In 1930 her career had begun to fall due to the public’s change musical taste. By 1931 the Classic Blues style of Bessie Smith was out of style. The Depression, radio, and sound movies had all damaged the record companies' ability to sell records so Columbia dropped Smith from its roster.

Third Anotation

Sanders, Madelyn. "Bessie Smith." Women in History. 1/25/2008. 23 Oct 2008 .

This website was very useful, for example it told me about how Bessie Smith was born into a poverty stricken black family in the segregated south. It also stated " Bessie Smith was in the process of a comeback at the time of her tragic death at age forty-three. On Sept. 26, 1937, she was critically injured while on her way to a singing engagement, when the car being driven by her boyfriend Richard Morgan in which she was a passenger crashed into a truck on a road in Mississippi. According to legend segregation led to her death when a white hospital first refused her admission and by the time she arrived at a black hospital in Clarksdale, Miss., it was too late to save her and she bled to death. Although much has been said to dispute this claim, it is not implausible considering that this was the segregated south. The playwright Edward Albee dramatized the account in his 1960 play The Death of Bessie Smith ".

This website helped me a lot it told me about what type of family she was born into and how bessie smith life could have actually been saved after the tragic car crash but since it was a time during segregation the white hospital refused to take her so she bled to death.

Bessie Smith (Introduction)

Bessie Smith was a beautiful, well known, and respectful woman. Bessie Smith was an exquisite blues singer and her voice caught people’s ears. In 1912 during the Harlem Renaissance Bessie Smith broke into the singing world. A lot of people could relate to Bessie because of her hard life and struggles she had trying to become a Blues singer. From her being a black female in the music industry it was hard on her so she use alcohol and drugs to get away from her pain. Since she started to use drugs and alcohol her life became drugs and alcohol and singing, which were first in her, life slowly became nothing to her and she fell out the industry.

Second Anotation

jarvis, gail. "remembering Bessie Smith." lewrockwell.com. 26,09,2001. lewrovkwell. 24 Oct 2008 .

In the years following Bessie Smith’s death there were conflicting accounts of how she actually died. What is known is that after a late night performance somewhere in Mississippi, probably Natchez, Bessie headed for Memphis in a car driven by her boyfriend, Richard Morgan. In 1937 there were no expressways and Route 61 was a typical poorly lit, winding two-lane road. Near the outskirts of Clarksdale, in the early morning hours of that September day, their car, being driven at a high rate of speed, crashed into the back of a truck stopped on the side of the road.

Several rumors began circulating regarding the cause of her death: she was killed upon impact, she was taken to a hotel where she died; she died in an ambulance en route to a hospital, and she was taken to a white hospital that refused to treat her because she was black and so she died as the ambulance tried to locate a black hospital.

First Anotation

hernsworh, joan. "empress of the blues (bessie smith)." http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/386/bsmith.html. 14,12,1998. true women, new women: women in new york city. 24 Oct 2008 .

Bessie Smith, the "Empress of the Blues" as she was called at the time, was a powerful, strong-willed woman who made her mark in history through singing the blues in the 1920’s and 30’s. The road that took her to that title was not an easy one, no romantic " rags to riches" story such as Horatio Alger made popular in her youth for white boys. For a young black woman from the South, a far different approach was needed, or a different person, and she most certainly was that. This was a woman who fought for what she believed in, and for what (and whoever) was hers, and backed down before nobody. She had determination which at times became a fiery temper, and no one was exempt from her wrath, which could turn violent; at six feet in height and above 200 pounds in weight, that wrath could be devastating. Yet the same experiences and temperament could show as great loyalty to those around her. And the whole range, with all its passsion, were expressed in her songs, and the way she sang them.

My thesis statement

Even though Harlem Renaissance - · Refers to the proliferation of art and music in New York's African-American community in the 1920's. During this time, Harlem became the undisputed intellectual and artistic center of African-American society. The 1920s in Harlem produced writers like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson and Claude McKay, and photographers like Roy De Carava and James Van Der Zee.,Bessie Smih influence many people with her blues singing because civil rights movement and harlem renaissance .

TOPIC SELECTION

I choose Bessie Smith for my N.H.D Project because I am interested in the music she made and the struggles she had to take
to get there.
Bessie Smith is an important to history because without her
efforts being the first African American woman who was
rich because of her blues singing, she inspired a lot of people with
her voices.
For this week’s research paper, I found an article at http://www.redhotjazz.com/bessie.html at this website it talks
about her life and fame. I will read and summarize it for next week.

Service Learning Reflection

What have I learned about myself through this
experience? I learned that I am a neat freak and that I love helping out my community
I also learned that I talk really talk fast when I believe in something and when I serious
or deep into something.

What have you learned about this agency,
these people, or the community? I learned that my community does not care about their
home land and that people are dirty and nasty in many ways such as throwing things on the
ground that could be recycle or just thrown in the trash.

How will service learning change your future
behaviors/attitudes/and career? Career:It will help me to get into different college and good jobs.
Behavior:Well I all ready had a good behavior but it will show me to give but to the community.
Attitude:Give a person a better attitude and it will sow people you are respectful and caring and they
would want to do things for you.

Debating Class

In my constitution class today Lashay and Dom debated on should or should not be abolished. That debate was the funniest
debate I seen they were going back and forward about something nothing it just was very funny.But it was a good debate the both had evidence and they both stood up to their topics.

What I Think Is Going To Happen In Service Learning Today

I think that we are going to talk about what happen on Friday and about our paper Miss Thomason
and about what we do around the way, in school ,etc. Thats what I think we are going to talk about.

service learning (catch up)

I was not here on Friday because I was sick so I don't know what happen!!!!

service learning (catch up)

The three ideas I have for service learning is......
1. Collecting Binds
2. Passing out papers talking about my topic
3. Talking to people around my way about it

Recycling Service Learning

The school wide service learning group i am in is Recycling. This Friday or tomorrow we are going to be
meeting our groups to discuss and plan our groups.When we talk Friday I will update my blogger.

service learning

I am working with my three friends Kameko, Georgia and Lashay at my mother job which is a nursing home call liberty court which is located at 1526 Lombard street the number is (215)546-5960.We are going to work during spring break helping the elderly people.We will be working on Mondays,Wednesdays,Thursdays.

NHD Project

NHD (National History Day) was a learning process, it had its ups and downs but it was fun also.NHD was a little
challenge for me it was hard because it took up allot of your time and allot of research.NHD was fun also because I got
to hang out with my friends and because we choose a performance.Our project was about THE WOMEN ANTI SLAVERY IN PA.
That was a bold topic so we had to make it smaller so we did the burning of the PA hall.It was such a good topic and performance that we are going to state.

LINKS 4 NHD

1.http://www.antislavery.org/

2.http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REantislavery.htm

3.http://www.assumption.edu/ahc/Kansas/abolition/abolition.html

4.http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/teachers/lesson3.html

5.http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/slavery.htm

6.http://cghs.dade.k12.fl.us/slavery/anti-slavery_movement/women.htm

7.http://www.antislavery.org/homepage/antislavery/history.htm

NHD PROJECT

NHD Project

1. Site:"We Abolition Women are TURNING THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN!"
Lucretia Mott. From by John Sartain, after the painting by Joseph Kyle, ca 1850
Lucretia Mott was in a lot of actives for the antislavery moverment. She was in the movement
she was also in the free produce movement in the mid- 1820's.She also help Abby Kelley Foster
with his book "THE LIBERATOR".
2.Site:The Abolotionist Sisterhood
The antislavery group.From the women antisalvery soceity,book from 1800's
The women in the antislavery movement had fairs selling different idems such as:books, poster
bags and many more things.One book they sold at the fair was called "I'm a man I'm a brother"
3.Site:The Abolotionist Sisterhood
The antislavery group.How the group came about.1700's
Historians often cite the Philadelphia Female antislavery society for its inclusion of white
and black women as leaders and members, its defiance of the middle-class norms, and its
nurture of the women's rights movements.
4.Site: The Abolitionist Sisterhood
Margaretta Forten.How she came about to be a Antislavery movement
When she was young her father did not believe in slavery. So when she got older she started to help
with the women antislavery movement. Men and women bad talked her and harm her, but she never
gave up.
5.Site:Http://womenhistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/lucretia_mott.htm
Lecretia Mott.Quotes.Jone Johnson Lewis
"The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation, because in the degradation
of women, the very fountains of life are poisoned at their source".
6.Site: The Abolitionist Sisterhood
Margaretta Forten.A picture of her.1829
"A downright Gabbler, or a goose that deserves to be hissed" by: J.Akin
7.Site: The Abolitionist Sisterhood
Abolition Hall. When they burn down the hall. May 1838
A further attack on antislavery women is "Abolition Hall", an anonymous lithograph showing the scene at
Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia in May 1838, the time of the second antislavery convention of
American women.
8.Site: The Abolitionist Sisterhood
Mary Grew and Lucretia Mott. Help to prepare a call.1843
In November 1843 the society asked Mary Grew andLucretia Mott to prepare a call
to those who have "from various absented themselves from our meetings and withdrawn
from active participation in our labors" but the situation had not improved two years later.
9.Site: The Abolitionist Sisterhood
Friendship album’s album that has writing in it. During the movement
The friendship album was a album that all the anti slavery people had and they all got
different people to write in it. They would paint pictures are essay tell how they felt.
10.Site: The Abolitionist Sisterhood
Pfass membership. Another group that was apart of the antislavery movement.1834-1848
The pfass was a group that had a mixture of different colors and religons. It also helps
of religions.
11.Site: The Abolitionist Sisterhood
Pennsylvania Hall. The burning of the hall.1838
After 1838, the burning of Pennsylvania Hall and other racist attacks must have discouraged
Sympatric Philadelphians from joining because the data of people coming when down.
12.Site: The Abolitionist Sisterhood
African American leaders. How they became leaders. No year
Historians often cite the Philadelphia female antislavery society for its inclusion of white
and black women as leaders and members its defiance of middle-class norms.
13.Site: The Abolitionist Sisterhood
The anti-slavery movement. There contexts. no year
The alteration in the Philadelphia society must be understood within several contexts: the
Changes in the abolitionist movement on the national level and in Pennsylvania, the refusal
of congress to consider antislavery petitions, the rising level of racist attacks in Philadelphia
and they’re increasing private responsibilities and age of society members. All these factors constricted
The society's focus and sapped its ability to provide strong support in 1848 for the fledgling women's
rights movement.
14.Site: The Abolitionist Sisterhood
Afro American. Sixty new members.1835
In 1835 sixty-nine new members including at least nine Afro American women signed
the constitution. The society grew and reached beyond the Hick site meeting and the
African Episcopal church of St.Thomas to which most of the first members belonged.
15.Site: The Abolitionist Sisterhood
Charlotte, Margaretta, Sarah Forten.Some of the black people. different years
The African Americans included Charlotte,Margaretta,and Sarah Forten, the wife
and unmarried daughters of aboliyionist James Forten and Harriet D.Forten Purvis
another Forten daughter and wife of Robert Purvis.
16.Site:The Abolitionist Sisterhood
A Listed.How the list grew.1845
In January 1845 the society perpare an annotated roll of members.This listed,which
was updated until early 1848 totalled 212 named.
17.Site:The Abolitionist Sisterhood
African Americans.about the constitution.1834
During 1834 the society's first year, twenty nine women signed the Constitution. At
least nine, and perhaps twelve,of these early member were African Americans.
18.Site:The Abolitionist Sisterhood
Groups.strategy and methods.no year
Although the group never wavered in its opposition to slavery and prejudice,its
strategy and methods change dramatically.
19.Site:The Abolitionist Sisterhood
New members.signatures for petitions. no year
The society began as a team of energetic young women seeking new members and
knocking on doors to obtain signatures for petitions.