Nationality American Role Playwright | Name Regina Anderson Occupation Librarian | |
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Full Name Regina M. Anderson Other names Regina M. Andrews (married name), Ursula Trelling (pen names) Known for Dedicated Librarianship, integral member of Harlem Renaissance, breaking the color barrier Spouse(s) William Trent Andrews, Jr. Children Regina Ann Andrews Baptiste Education Similar People Langston Hughes, Pearl Primus, Dennis Brutus, James Presley Ball, Ana Livia Cordero | ||
Regina M. Anderson (May 21, 1901 – February 5, 1993) was an African-American playwright and librarian. She was of Native American, Jewish, East Indian, Swedish, and other European ancestry (including one grandparent who was a Confederate general); one of her eight grandparents was of African descent, born in Madagascar. Despite her own identification of her race as "American", she was perceived to be African-American by others, and became a key member of the Harlem Renaissance.
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Biography
Born in Chicago, she studied at Wilberforce University, and Columbia University. She moved to New York and became a librarian at the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library, working under the supervision of Ernestine Rose. She shared an apartment in the Sugar Hill district of Harlem with Ethel Ray and Louella Tucker. The women opened the space to the community, hosting salons, events, and gatherings for artists. Located at 580 Saint Nicholas Avenue, the apartment became known as the "580" and the "Harlem West Side Literary Salon". Anderson helped to organize the Civic Club dinner of 1924 for black New York intellectuals and writers. Attended by 110 guests, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Jean Toomer, Countee Cullen, Charles S. Johnson, Hubert Thomas Delany, and Langston Hughes, the dinner was one of the coalescing events of the Harlem Renaissance.
Andrews and Du Bois co-founded the Krigwa Players (later Negro Experimental Theatre), a black theater company. The Players produced her plays Climbing Jacob's Ladder (about a lynching) and Underground (about the Underground Railroad).
Regina Andrews was one of ten African-American women whose contributions were recognized at the 1939 World's Fair in New York.
She was the first minority to climb the ranks and become a supervising librarian at the New York Public Library and her struggle to break the color barrier has earned her numerous accolades.
Andrews outlived virtually all of the other members of the Harlem Renaissance. She died in Ossining, a suburb of New York City.
Her husband was William T. Andrews, a lawyer and New York assemblyman.