{"id":9952,"date":"2010-09-04T21:34:38","date_gmt":"2010-09-05T01:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=9952"},"modified":"2017-10-18T19:23:35","modified_gmt":"2017-10-18T23:23:35","slug":"african-american-actresses-the-struggle-for-visibility-1900-1960-by-charlene-regester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/african-american-actresses-the-struggle-for-visibility-1900-1960-by-charlene-regester\/","title":{"rendered":"African American Actresses: The Struggle for Visibility, 1900-1960 by Charlene Regester [in Library Journal]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-28867 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2010\/09\/African-American-Actresses.jpg\" alt=\"African American Actresses\" width=\"310\" height=\"475\" \/>Charlene Regester (African &amp; Afro-American studies, University of North Carolina \u2013\u00a0Chapel Hill) documents the lives and careers of nine African American actresses working before the Civil Rights era whose \u201ccontributions to mainstream cinema have been either minimized or erased in the histories of Hollywood cinema.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Madame Sul-Te-Wan had a near-half-century-career that began with the infamously racist <em>The Birth of a Nation<\/em> (1915). Nina Mae McKinney and Fredi Washington, both described as \u201cwhite mulattos,\u201d found success in part because their lighter coloring made them desirable commodities for white audiences. Louise Beavers and Hattie McDaniel (the first African American to win an Oscar) couldn\u2019t escape demeaning subservient roles. Lena Horne and Hazel Scott eventually chose activism over Hollywood\u2019s exploitations. Dorothy Dandridge became the tragic real-life version of her oversexualized reel masks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Verdict<\/strong>: As Regester proves how Hollywood made African American actresses virtually invisible, she ironically renders her own book unnoticeable to mainstream readers with a combination of academic posturing, tedious repetition, and careless inconsistencies. Numerous biographies and memoirs bear these actresses\u2019 names; readers might better discover these remarkable women there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Review<\/strong>: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.libraryjournal.com\/lj\/reviews\/xpress\/886425-289\/xpress_reviews--the_first_look_at.html.csp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">&#8220;Xpress Reviews \u2013\u00a0The First Look at New Books: Nonfiction,&#8221; <em>Library Journal<\/em>, August 19, 2010<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Charlene Regester (African &amp; Afro-American studies, University of North Carolina \u2013\u00a0Chapel Hill) documents the lives and careers of nine African American actresses working before the Civil Rights era whose \u201ccontributions to mainstream cinema have been either minimized or erased in the histories of Hollywood cinema.\u201d&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,147,142,20,6535],"tags":[3150,6608,3151,22,1054,24,51,70,145,28,29],"class_list":["post-9952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-biography","category-black-african-american","category-nonfiction","category-repost","tag-african-american-actresses","tag-bookdragon","tag-charlene-regester","tag-civil-rights","tag-film-studies","tag-historical","tag-identity","tag-library-journal","tag-mixed-race-issues","tag-politics","tag-race-racism"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>African American Actresses: The Struggle for Visibility, 1900-1960 by Charlene Regester [in Library Journal] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/african-american-actresses-the-struggle-for-visibility-1900-1960-by-charlene-regester\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"African American Actresses: The Struggle for Visibility, 1900-1960 by Charlene Regester [in Library Journal] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Charlene Regester (African &amp; Afro-American studies, University of North Carolina \u2013\u00a0Chapel Hill) documents the lives and careers of nine African American actresses working before the Civil Rights era whose \u201ccontributions to mainstream cinema have been either minimized or erased in the histories of Hollywood cinema.\u201d...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/african-american-actresses-the-struggle-for-visibility-1900-1960-by-charlene-regester\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-09-05T01:34:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-10-18T23:23:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2010\/09\/African-American-Actresses.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"310\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"475\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"African American Actresses: The Struggle for Visibility, 1900-1960 by Charlene Regester [in Library Journal] - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/african-american-actresses-the-struggle-for-visibility-1900-1960-by-charlene-regester\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"African American Actresses: The Struggle for Visibility, 1900-1960 by Charlene Regester [in Library Journal] - BookDragon","og_description":"Charlene Regester (African &amp; 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