Oral history interview with Elma Lewis
odd: label: General
content: Originally recorded on 1 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2007 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 32 min.
name: label: Interviewee
content: Lewis, Elma
label: Interviewer
content: Brown, Robert F.
label: Names
content: Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts
topic: label: Occupation
content: Educators -- Massachusetts -- Boston
label: Topic
content: African American artists
label: Topic
content: Women artists
label: Topic
content: Women educators
label: Topic
content: African American educators
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
creator: label: Interviewee
content: Lewis, Elma
label: Interviewer
content: Brown, Robert F.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Elma Lewis (1921-2004) was an artist and teacher from Boston, Mass.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 34 Pages (Transcript)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1997 July 25 and Sept. 19, 1997
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.lewis97
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Pages
label: Type
content: Sound recordings
label: Type
content: Interviews
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Sound recordings
label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: An interview of Elma Lewis conducted 1997 July 25 and Sept. 19, by Robert Brown, for the Archives of American Art, in Lewis' home, Roxbury, Mass.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Lewis discusses her parents, immigrants from Barbados; her father being very politicized, quickly disillusioned regarding economic opportunity and racism; meeting Marcus Garvey and becoming a member of United Negro Improvement Association; her parents giving her a very strong cultural sense of her race and culture steeped in Christian doctrine; family thought in pan-African terms; attending integrated schools; World War II as a watershed for the Black community; her brother graduating from Harvard medical school after their mother demanded he be admitted, though still he had difficulty being accepted in medical community; another brother who became a concert pianist; her study of dance (ballet) for many years.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Father's encouragment to attend Emerson College in Boston (1939-1943); preparation for a career in music and the performing arts; teachers' training at Boston University (1943-1944); teaching at the school of dance and performing arts run by Doris Jones; Lewis founding her own school, the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts in the largely Black Roxbury section of Boston in 1950; incorporating the visual arts; teaching by Alvin Ailey, Talley Beatty, Duke Ellington; problems posed by patronizing white liberal community; development of cooperative program with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; hiring the artist John Wilson and art historian Edmund Barry Gaither to further develop visual arts programs; and the primacy of culture and spirituality.