""Edna Thomas" was an American actress who is her best known for playing Lady Macbeth in a WPA Theater Project

"Edna Thomas, Macbeth Star Virginia Born: Born at Lawrenceville, Actress has Reached Great Heights." New Journal and Guide (1916-2003), Apr 18, 1936.

b Lawrenceville VA family moved to Boston, MA, when she was one -- educated there about 5'6" Married Stanley Lewis of prominenet Boston family (married young??) After ten years he died and she moved to NYC Married Lloyd Thomas

Rosamond Johnson Music Settlement - convinced to do a benefit there Lester Walton, manager of Lafayette Players, saw her perform and offered her a contract.

took two years to convince her to audition - two weeks later had a leading role in "Confidence" by Frank Wilson.

then proceeded to play Cecelia in a jazz version of "Comedy of Errors" also in Eugene O'Neil's "The Dreamy Kid," curtain raiser for "Emperor Jones" David Belasco's "Lulu Belle" and "Old Man Satan"

Lady MacBeth in WPA Shakespearian drama Premiere Tuesday, April 14 1936 at the New Lafayette Theater

""Once A Pancake"-- Edna Thomas: Turns from Directing to Acting again." New York Amsterdam News (1938-1941), Feb 11, 1939, City edition.

1939 - at same theater played Lavinia in "Androcles & the Lion"

Started at Lafayete Stock Co in 1918 after Rosamond Johnson Music Settlement benefit

with Lenore Ulric in Lulu Belle -- while that was going on Theater Guild asked her to read for Bess

Bess in Porgy - adaptation of novel written by the American author DuBose Heyward

-did not have southern accent, learned by practicing poems by Paul Lawrence Dunbar.

Very excited to play a role written for a Black woman, but then Heyward thought she was "too refined" and too light skinned. Heyward asked her to play Clara instead, but she refused.

Ulric got angry about this and asked Thomas to go on the road with her instead, continuing with Lulu Belle, which she did. Later played Bess in Europe and the US.

Also got to do a "Negro play" - played Ella in Run Lil' Chillun by Hall Johnson.

Last important role was in Theater Union's Stevedore.

"Stage Lures...: Former Virginian Couldn't Resist Footlight-Urge ... Edna Thomas." New Journal and Guide (1916-2003), Feb 11, 1939.

"Androcles & the Lion" also WPA

--relinquished job of assistant director of the Negro Theater to play the role

Said her early days acting were the most stimulating: playing one character while learning another. With Lafayette Players played over 100 characters

Porgy: "too refined, too white" wanted "a natural"

"Edna Thomas Executive in Actors' Guild: SHE'LL SERVE ACTORS' GUILD." The Pittsburgh Courier (1911-1950), Aug 19, 1939, City Edition.

Noble Sissie - president of Negro Actor's Guild -- announced Thomas -> acting executive secretary to direct the affairs of the guild. The executive board of the Negro Actors Guild of America had asked her to take the position.

--definately most famous for playing Lady Macbeth

WPA Players Set to Give 'Macbeth' with Tropical Locale to Give Color: Edna Thomas to Essay the Role of Lord's Lady--Known as Veteran PREMIER THURSDAY Jack Carter in Title Role--150 in Shakespeare's Immortal Tragedy." The New York Amsterdam News (1922-1938), Apr 04, 1936.

attempt to break down the stereotype of Black actors in theater

"JULIETTE VELTY APPEARS.: FRENCH ACTRESS GIVES A RECITAL OF DRAMATIC READINGS. EDNA THOMAS IN NEGRO SPIRITUALS." New York Times (1923-), Feb 13, 1928.

Early-ish in career (1928) billed herself as "The Lady from Louisiana" and performed spirituals and songs of the South at the Booth Theater.

Sang spirituals and Black musicians from the American Expeditionary Forces's songs

""I was Fired," Declares Gus Smith, Ex-FTP Head: Edna Thomas Acts as Head Supervisor Predecessor Scores Geo. Kondolf." New York Amsterdam News (1938-1941), Jun 10, 1939, City edition.

Claims Thomas' appointment as head of WPA Federal Project Negro productions was a good and deserved thing, even if Smith had been driven out. Smith accused. George Kondolf, local head, of being anti-Black and having no faith in the troupe

"20 Years in the Theatre Only Heghtens its Lure: EVEN A THREE-YEAR ABSENCE FAILED TO DIM EDNA THOMAS'S LOVE FOR THE BOARDS." Afro-American (1893-1988), Feb 11, 1939.

Bibliography

"Edna Thomas Tops Shaw's Play Cast: All-Colored Cast to Open at Lafayette One Hundred Race Stars Featured in Theatre Opus." New Journal and Guide (1916-2003), Dec 17, 1938.

" a and the lion" cast of 100, even more lush than Macbeth

"Edna Thomas New Head of WPA Negro Theatre." New Journal and Guide (1916-2003), May 27, 1939.

Collins, Charles. "Give 'Macbeth' Jungle Set for Colored Cast: WPA Stage Direction Tends Toward Fantasy. "MACBETH."." Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963), Sep 01, 1936.

GILL, GLENDA ELOISE. "SIX BLACK PERFORMERS IN RELATION TO THE FEDERAL THEATRE." Order No. 8209985, The University of Iowa, 1981.

Five were in the Federal Theatre Project of 1935-1939 (Canada Lee, Edna Thomas, Rex Ingram, Thomas C. Anderson, and Arthur "Dooley” Wilson). The sixth, Ethel Waters, ironically could not work for the FTP because she had been too successful as a performer in the New York supper clubs, on the segregated vaudeville circuit, and on the Broadway stage.

p3 Well-known before the Federal Theatre because of her work on Broadway, in important black theatre, and in vaudeville, Edna Lewis Thomas was in only two FTP productions, as Lady Macbeth in Macbeth and Lavinia in Androcles and the Lion. Following the Federal Theatre, Mrs. Thomas saw little action on the stage or in film. She was one of the Ten Percenters hired on the project.

p8-9 Orson Welles and Abe Feder clashed so violently on the lighting of Macbeth that the wounds never healed. Edna Thomas' rehearsal notes reflect this difficulty, though she was fair-skinned. But lights on 9 blacks with even a hint of Negro blood must be carefully controlled.

p. 13 Edna Thomas also related that Orson Welles became exasperated at how long it took some performers to catch on.

The Ethiopian Art Players, with whom Edna 19 Thomas performed in Comedy of Errors, had nothing like the .power of the Shuberts. A critic like Woollcott appeared very out of tune with black theatre in spite of his wit and veracity. But he did predict that a Negro Folk Theatre could never expect full recognition until it was able to offer satisfactory plays of Negro life.

Edna Thomas Will Conduct The Actors' Campaign for Re-Election of Roosvelt

New Journal and Guide (1916-2003); Norfolk, Va. [Norfolk, Va]. 12 Oct 1940: 19.

Browse this issue

Colored WOmen's Division of the Democratic National Committee for the Re-Election of President Roosevelt

-Thomas volunteered to be a part of the campaign

--described self as non-partisan, want most able to govern

--"saved this nation from something worse than revolution" -- provided a lot of employment for Black Americans who did not find help elsewhere

--"not only is Miss THomas a great actress, but is well known for her liberal and sympethetic attitude in connection with the advancement of her people."

Edna Thomas Quits "Porgy" For Evelyn Preer's Old Position In "Lulu Belle"

The Pittsburgh Courier (1911-1950), City Edition; Pittsburgh, Pa. [Pittsburgh, Pa]. 17 Sep 1927: A3.

e

Edna Thomas

Author: J W R. Pub: The Billboard (Archive: 1894-1960); Cincinnati Vol. 39, Iss. 23, (Jun 4, 1927): 17.

Sang in her concerts: Let My People Go, Kentucky Babe, I Wanter beReady, I Got Shoes, Swanee River

Honor Mrs. Edna Thomas on Eve of Her Departure

The Chicago Defender (National edition) (1921-1967); Chicago, Ill. [Chicago, Ill]. 07 Jan 1928: 7.

(apears to be a social column) Joined in carroling and then a party at a socialite's home -- while on tour w LuLuBelle

"Mamba" Goes on Road; Edna Thomas Takes Fredi's Guild Job

Afro-American (1893-1988); Baltimore, Md. [Baltimore, Md]. 19 Aug 1939: 11.

THEATRE SURVEY SHOWS NEGRO HAS FIRST 'ANGEL': New Deal Offers Many Creative Opportunities Complete Freedom of Cultural Expression Found in All Negro Theatre Projects -- Writers Find Lucrative Markets Interesting Shots of WPA Theatre Shows

Ottley, Roi. The New York Amsterdam News (1922-1938); New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 24 Oct 1936: 10.

Poster for the the Federal Theatre Project production of *Macbeth* at the Lafayette Theatre, Harlem

Photograph of Edna Thomas as Lady Macbeth in the Federal Theatre Project production of *Macbeth* at the Lafayette Theatre

The Soapbox: Drama Conscious Harlem Old Emporiums Are Gone No Isms in "Macbeth" "It's Truly Wonderful"

POWELL, A CLAYTON, Jr. The New York Amsterdam News (1922-1938); New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 09 May 1936: 12.

"she can justly be called the first lady of Negro theater."

"Macbeth": (Adelphi Theatre)

Dash, Thomas R. Women’s Wear Daily; New York Vol. 53, Iss. 6, (Jul 8, 1936): 30.

Played for 10 days at the Adelphi Theater on W 54th st

Experimental Theatre Two Plays: Edna Thomas Supremely Beautiful and Enchanting as Madonna

E G P. The New York Amsterdam News (1922-1938); New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 28 May 1930: 8.

Harlem Experimental Theater

"The Duchess Says Her Prayers" by Mary Cass Canfield

Edna played Madonna

RUSSIAN SONG RECITAL.: Euphaly Hatayeva in Wide Range of Works--Edna Thomas Heard.

New York Times (1923-); New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 30 Jan 1928: 18.

"Lady from Louisiana" toured Europe

Negro Actors Guild Charges Army Camps Barring Their Group: Letter Is Sent By Edna Thomas To F. Osborne Race Performers Not Included In Entertainment Units

Atlanta Daily World (1932-); Atlanta, Ga. [Atlanta, Ga]. 14 July 1941: 2.

Wrote letter to Fredrick Osborne furious that Black entertainers not included in govt-sponsored entertainment for WWII troupes. As a result, Noble Sissie and Bill Robinson placed on Osborne's committee

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0858777/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm November 1, 1885 in Lawrenceville, Virginia, USA died of heart disease Edna Thomas was born on November 1, 1885 in Lawrenceville, Virginia, USA as Edna Lewis. She was an actress, known for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). She was married to Lloyd Carter Thomas. She died on July 22, 1974 in New York City, New York, USA.

Edna Thomas as Mexican Woman in A Streetcar Named Desire

https://www.playbill.com/person/edna-thomas-vault-0000041937

https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/thomas-edna-1886-1974 Debuted in Turn to the Right, Lafayette Players (1920); appeared as Lady Macbeth (1936); appeared in Androcles and the Lion with Dooley Wilson (1938), in Harriet with Helen Hayes (1944–45), in Strange Fruit (1945), and on Broadway and in the film A Streetcar Named Desire (1946).

Comedy of Errors in 1923 and Porgy in 1927. Like Langston Hughes and other figures of the Harlem Renaissance, Thomas enjoyed the support and friendship of the important white patron Carl Van Vechten, with whom she corresponded regularly. Opportunities for black actors fell drastically during the Depression, but Thomas' seasoned professionalism and reputation secured her roles in several productions in the early 1930s, including Comedy of Errors, Lulu Belle, and Shuffle Along, and leading roles in Hall Johnson's Run, Little Chillun (1933) and Paul Peters' Stevedore (1934). She also sang and performed in vaudeville.

The closing of the Project proved a hardship to Thomas and hundreds of other African-American actors; her next major role came in 1943 when she was cast in the Broadway play Harriet, about abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe (portrayed by Helen Hayes ). Thomas appeared the following year on Broadway in Strange Fruit, an adaptation of Lillian Smith 's controversial novel about interracial relationships. In 1946, the light-skinned Thomas performed in her final Broadway production, playing a Mexican woman in A Streetcar Named Desire; she was also cast in the same role for the 1951 Hollywood film, her only movie credit. Thomas then retired from acting and spent her last years in New York, where she died at age 88 in 1974.

Gill, Glenda E. White Grease Paint on Black Performers: A Study of the Federal Theater, 1935–1939. NY: P. Lang, 1988. Smith, Jessie Carney, ed. Notable Black American Women. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1992.

https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/edna-thomas--mary-jones-/report

"Mary has little in her early life which she can look back upon with pleasure. She was an illegitimate child, the daughter of a 12-year-old colored nursemaid and of a white man in whose home her mother was employed. . . . Mary's skin was of such a light color that she was conspicuous in a colored neighborhood where other children called her a half-white bastard.

. . . Mary's step-father . . . used to beat up the mother and this relationship added much to Mary's unhappiness as a child. Her mother really seemed more like a sister and as a matter of fact in early childhood Mary had been led to believe that her grandmother was her mother.

Mary's early training, especially her moral training, came from her grandmother. "I've always been lectured about virtue. If I were not good my grandmother said she would come back and haunt me." As a result of this training she remained a virgin until after her marriage. . . . "When I was six I saw mother in bed with men. I remember mother putting rouge on her cheeks. I cried and cried because I thought only bad women did that."

... The grandmother died when Mary was 13 and she was then turned over to a maternal aunt, Louise. . . . "She was very stingy. She used to make me feel that I ate too much. She was very critical of me. She always prophesied that I was going to be a bad girl." Three years later Mary was married to the spoiled son of a wealthy self-made negro. She was not especially in love with him but she and her Family felt that she should not neglect this opportunity for advancing her social position. The marriage proved to be a failure. Her husband never worked, drank to excess, gambled and frittered away whatever income they had. She was entirely dependent upon her father-in-law for support. She tried to be a good wife to her husband and to influence him to give up his dissipated mode of living but her efforts were of no avail. Two pregnancies were terminated by abortion because she felt she could not afford to have children.

Five years after marriage Mary had become thoroughly disillusioned but "I put up with him until after mother's death." The mother developed general paresis [paralysis] and Mary tried to take care of her. Even after she had to be taken to a state hospital Mary made daily visits. Her husband's dissipation gradually increased and shortly after her mother died he developed tuberculosis. She returned to him to nurse him until his death.

At 28 Mary was a widow and employed as a demonstrator. The manager of the firm was a dour, taciturn and indifferent man. She had never encountered an individual of this sort and she was fascinated by his indifference. She took the initiative in their courtship and marriage. They have been married for more than 20 years now and she has never succeeded in getting him to offer any expression of affection for her. "He would lose some of his manliness if he made such an admission." For many years after marriage she believed he was faithful to her but he was in the habit of staying out all night without explanation and she learned that he was interested in other women. This made her very unhappy. Although no contraceptive measures were used she did not become pregnant by her second husband. "I regret having no children. It's the one great unhappiness, particularly as I feel I would have made a very good mother." Soon after Mary remarried she took part in amateur theatricals. Her musical talents were soon recognized and her promotion was rapid. Her husband was jealous of her professional success but in recent years he has been dependent upon her for support.

Her prominence in theatrical work probably made her more attractive to women. She says, however, that all her life women had made advances to her but she would not consent "because it all seemed unnatural and abnormal." Finally at the age of 41 (about 1928), while dancing with a woman, "something very terrific happened to me—a very electric thing. It made me know I was homosexual." Since then she has had several alliances with both white and colored women and for the past five years she has been living with a white woman. This woman is "one of the finest women I have ever known. She has come to be very, very dear to me—not just for sex alone —it's a very great love." Mary has no regrets for having yielded to homosexual temptations. "This last relationship affords a tenderness I have never known." Nevertheless she believes she would have remained a conventional married woman if her second husband had not neglected her. "If marriage had been satisfactory I would never have had homosexual relations."[3]

Identifying "Mary Jones" as Edna Thomas The case history of "Mary Jones" first appeared in Dr. George W. Henry, "Psychogenic Factors in Overt Homosexuality," American Journal of Psychiatry, January 1937, vol. 93, no. 4, pp. 889-908, from which the present version was excerpted. A longer version of this history was included in George W. Henry, Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns, 2 volumes (New York: Hoeber, 1941), 2: 563-70. In the last publication the pseudonym "Mary Jones" was changed to "Pearl M." and instead of being identified as an actress, she was listed as a singer.

Henry L. Minton's book Departing from Deviance: A History of Homosexual Rights and Emancipatory Science in America (2001) in a backnote first identifies "Mary Jones" as Edna Thomas, "an African American actress who was prominent in Harlem homosexual circles." He adds that the case history of Thomas's lesbian partner was also included in Dr. Henry's book Sex Variants, vol. 2:672-81, as Pamela D."[4]

A summary of Edna Thomas' life is contained in a book by George Hutchinson, In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line (2006), based on the case histories published by Dr. Henry, and other sources.[5] Hutchinson's backnote source citations are deleted in the following excerpt:

Born to a single mother in Virginia in 1886, Thomas had limited knowledge of her family. Her mother had been a twelve-year-old nursemaid in Virginia when she'd been raped by a white employer while she was caring for his three-year-old girl. A year after Edna's birth, her mother moved with her to Philadelphia, and became established in a "respectable negro section" of the city, where a grandmother mainly cared for the little girl. According to Edna, she was cruelly abused by playmates for being illegitimate and for having blue eyes, golden hair, and nearly "white" skin. Until the age of eleven, "They all called me a half-white bastard," she told an interviewer in 1935 or 1936.

The mother finally married at the age of twenty-five, but according to Thom was was always promiscuous, taking up with both white and "colored" men, until she died at the age of thirty-eight. Her grandmother had also had two children, including Edna's mother, by white men early in life, and her (later) black husband was in jail during Edna's youth for murdering a black coachman. As if her bastard origins were not bad enough, the neighborhood children abused her for being the granddaughter of a murderer. Thomas had grown up in abject poverty on the border of "respectable" black society, alienated from any nourishing community or extended family. But she had somehow managed to develop a remarkable poise and seeming security that made her alluring to both whites and blacks as she grew to womanhood. After two years of high school, she married into a "higher" status at age sixteen and subsequently went through two abortions, feeling that she could not aford children. After ten years, her first huasband, who came from a "respectable" black family, died of alchoholism following their divorce.

Through the influence of her grandmother and father-in-law, Edna had developed "a strong feeling for the beterment of the negroes." As she matured, she "frequented high society, both white and colored. I never felt any social discrimination."

Thomas had as much experience [in the theater] as almost any active black female actors of the time. She had begun her career with solo recitables and concerts as the "Lady from Louisiana," singing "Creole" songs, spirituals, and popular local color songs like "Suwanee River." With the advent of the Negro Renaissance, however, she had begun acting. She joined the original Ethiopian Art Theatre in Chicago under Raymond O'Neill, which moved to New York in the early Twenties and raised awareness of the possibilities of "Negro drama." In addition to years of work with the Alhambra Players and the Lafayette Players, she played Bess in Porgy and Bess and Ruby Lee in Lulu Belle, plus lead roles in O'Neill's The Dreamy Kid" (1925), Hall Johnson's Run, Little Children (1933) and Stevedore (1934). She had also worked with Dorothy Peterson's Harlem Experimental Theatre in the late 1920s. She even had a budding film career, singing off-camera for Greta Garbo's character in Romance and playing Aeba in the 1926 film version of The Green Pastures.

In the midst of her 1920s stage career, she fell in love with the black talent manager Lloyd Thomas and pursued him until they were married. They were happy for several years . . . until he began seeing younger women while she was away on tour. Although they remained married, lived together, and respected each other, their romantic and sexual relationship ended. Around 1930, however, Olivia Wyndham, recently arrived from England and introduced to black society by A'Lelia Walker, fell violently in love with Edna and pursued her relentlessly until, in her [Thomas'] own words, she "yielded."

[Quoting from Edna Thomas' case history]

I had avoided her because white women are unfaithful. She was persistent, to the point of annoyance. She finally came to my house and I had the most exciting sex experience of my life. It has gone on for five years because it's so very satisfactory.

Pamela [Olivia Wyndham] is one of the finest women I have every known. She has come to be very, very dear to me, not just for sex alone. It's just a very great love. She is tender and gentle as I have never known any one else to be."

Hutchinson describes Thomas' lover: "Nine years younger than Edna Thomas, Olivia Wyndham had fallen in love with the moment they met, and began living with her in 1930." She practically worshipped Thomas:

"She [Thomas] has a very beautiful nature. Everybody adores her. She radiates goodness and sweeetness." In their sexual relationship, Wyndham always took the initiateve and would not allow Thomas to reciprocate, believing her "too pure."

Hutchinson says that Edna Thomas and the Black actress Fredi Washington founded the Negro Actors Guild in December 1937, to aid Black entertainers and actors. Thomas was one of the vice presidents, along with Ethel Waters, Frank Wilson, Louis Armstrong, Duke Elington, Paul Robeson, and James Weldon Johnson.

Hutchinson concludes that Edna Thomas "was by all odds the most magnetic and extradordinary figure, one of the great personalities of the city -- and of black perormance history -- who in the decades since has been all but forgotten."[6]

Late in life Thomas played a Mexican woman in Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire on the stage (1947) and in the film (1951). Notes This excerpt first appeared in Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac: A New Documentary (New York: Harper & Row, 1983), 526-528. At that time the identity of Mary Jones as Edna Thomas had not been established.

1 Henry, "Psychogenic Factors," 889-901.

2 Henry, 891.

3 Henry, 896-98.

4 Henry, Sex Variants, vol. 2, 672-81, and 281.

5 George Hutchinson, In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line. Boston: Belknap Press, June 29, 2006. Account of Edna Thomas' life, 440-445.

6 Hutchinson, 441.

Bibliography Adams, Michael Henry Adams. "Queers in the Mirror: A Brief History of Old-Fashioned Gay Marriage in New York, Part II." Huffington Post, posted: 5/25/2011. Accessed February 26, 2015 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-henry-adams/queers-in-the-mirror-a-br_b_227473.html

Garber, Eric. "A Spectacle in Color: The Lesbian and Gay Subculture of Jazz Age Harlem," in Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past, ed. Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus, and George Chauncey Jr. (New York: New American Library, 1998), 318-31. (Garber briefly refers to Edna Thomas as one of the homosexuals who attended parties in Harlem, but does not otherwise identify her.)

Davis, Thadious M. Nella Larsen, Novelist of the Harlem Renaissance: A Woman's Life Unveiled. Louisiana State University Press, 1996. (Does not discuss Edna Thomas's lesbian experience.)

Doyle, J. D. QueerMusicHeritage.com. [Recordings of Edna Thomas singing Black spirituals, etc.] Accessed March 4, 2015 from http://www.queermusicheritage.com/oct2010t.html

Emory University. Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library. Edna Thomas Papers, 1924-1935.

Henry, George W. "Psychogenic Factors in Overt Homosexuality," American Journal of Psychiatry, January 1937, vol. 93, no. 4, pp. 889-908.

Henry, George W. Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns, 2 volumes (New York: Hoeber, 1941), 2: 563-70.

Hutchinson, George. In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line. Boston: Belknap Press, June 29, 2006. Contains the most detailed account of Edna Thomas' life, 440-445.

Internet Movie Database (IMDB): "Edna Thomas," accessed March 1, 2015 from http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0858777/

Katz, Jonathan. Gay/Lesbian Almanac: A New Documentary (New York: Harper & Row, 1983), 526-528. Minton, Henry L. Departing from Deviance: A History of Homosexual Rights and Emancipatory Science in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, first edition December 15, 2001).

National Portrait Gallery (London). Basso Ldt. 12 Photographs of Edna Thomas. Accessed February 26, 2015 from: http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp51475/edna-thoma

New York Public Library. Edna Thomas Collection [graphic]. Edna Thomas, 1885-1974, collector. Accessed February 26, 2015 from: http://beta.worldcat.org/archivegrid/collection/data/753705894

Yale Univesity Library. Beineke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Carl Van Vechten. Photoraphs of Edna Thomas. Accessed February 26, 2015, from:http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Search/Results?lookfor=Edna+Thomas&type=AllFields&submit=Find

https://www.autostraddle.com/breaking-olivia-wyndham-and-edna-thomas-are-in-love-and-its-fucking-adorable-400447/ It’s therefore my extreme pleasure to inform you that select private confidants have revealed exclusively to Autostraddle that 42-year-old actress Edna Thomas has been successfully seduced by 33-year-old Olivia Wyndham Spencer, formerly known to gal pals and cocaine dealers as the “Queen of the London Lesbian Scene.” What’s more, Olivia apparently moved in to the apartment Thomas shares with her husband, Lloyd, in an arrangement referred to by a friend as “that strange ménage à trois of herself, her husband Lloyd… and Olivia Wyndham, emigre to Harlem who remained the girl who had been the brightest of London’s .”

Ladies, Edna Thomas, one of the finest actresses of the modern age, deserves nothing less than the entirety of Olivia Wyndham’s devoted attention and deep coffers. The daughter of a 12-year-old Black nursemaid and the white man she worked for; Edna married, at 16, the son of a wealthy self-made man. Unfortunately, he turned out to be perpetually drunk and consistently unemployed and, soon enough, dead. (Tuberculosis.) Edna remains close friends with his father, however, who often stops by her Facebook page to give her new profile pics a thumbs-up, tell Dad jokes or remind her that she is “lookin’ good, champ!”

Following her first husband’s death, Edna allegedly met and promptly fell in love with Lloyd Thomas, an orchid enthusiast and a member of Harlem’s black elite, who’d eventually hit his career peak as the co-owner of Club Ebony. Edna was working for CJ Walker(!!!!)— America’s first female self-made millionaire and one of the most successful African-American business owners of all time — as her secretary. Lloyd was managing her hair salon, which used to regularly crush Shane For Wax in our local alt-weekly’s annual “Best Queer-Friendly Business” Awards.

Edna and Lloyd soon married. Despite Lloyd’s unsolicited opinions about the vulgarity of commercial theater, Edna’s star began its ascent, although she was perpetually impaired by the dark menacing cloud of racism, subsequent showers of limited opportunities, and the burning hellfire of white supremacy. She recorded Southern love melodies with Columbia Records and earned rave reviews as a stage actress. Also a fan of champagne and poker, Edna and her husband had a thriving social life chock-full of people you wish you were friends with.

From here our many sources diverge in the woods on a snowy evening. By the time Olivia came ’round, Edna and Lloyd were already maintaining a sexless roommate relationship either because: 1) Lloyd was gay from the jump or 2) They did have sex at one point but stopped because he started riding the hobby horse with younger women while Edna was on tour and Edna was like “lol we’re never having sex again.”

Edna told a more-or-less reputable straight person that Lloyd was “dour, taciturn and indifferent.” Esteemed writer , a close friend of Edna’s, describes Lloyd as a “trifling” man who spent too much time in his bathrobe while Dorothy’s cousin Helene found him “one of the most intelligent men she had ever met.” Perhaps he contains multitudes. Let’s move on to the ladies.

when, approaching her early thirties at the end of the 1920s, she simply danced with a woman and thereafter told aforementioned friends that “something very terrific happened to me — a very electric thing.” That dance with a woman, she gasped, “made me know I was a homosexual.”

Although Edna toured in London with Porgy & Bess and ran in bohemian circles that intersected with Olivia’s, they didn’t meet until the noted Londonite arrived in New York in late 1929 to attend a photographer’s exhibition. Overseas, the unconventional Olivia had been a “wantonly promiscuous” member of the aforementioned “Bright Young Things,” a rowdy gang of hedonistic, sexually fluid, self-indulgent, intellectual and decadent socialites you may one day read about in an Evelyn Waugh novel or witness in that will not be available on any streaming platform. Olivia, born into a family of “aesthetically-inclined aristocrats,” grew up in country houses and has been described as both “sturdy and stocky” and as a person with “an extreme sensitivity to the sufferings (however slight and however brief) of other creatures, animal as well as human.” Furthermore, Olivia is said to have always possessed a captivating charm and an affectionate nature that “won her many devoted ‘best friends.” Emphasis on ‘best friends.’

Once ashore in New York, Olivia reunited with Noted Rich Person Howland Spencer, another “eccentric and sexually ambiguous” human, who she’d initially met during The Great War. The two decided to marry at his family’s estate that spring, and Olivia looked forward to acquiring her first beard.

But first! A’Lelia Walker was having a thing. Yes, the late great hair cream heiress A’Lelia Walker, who passed away mere months ago, a little over a decade after the death of her mother Madame CJ Walker. We all recall A’Lelia’s star-studded funeral, covered with breathless enthusiasm by this website, which truly marked the end of an era. Regardless, in brief: A’Lelia, a passionate supporter of the arts and thrower of parties, threw the party in which Olivia met her future roommates, Lloyd and Edna.

Olivia fell “violently” in love with Edna on the spot. Edna was “definitely” not interested. She confided to several sources in her immediate vicinity that, “I avoided her because white women are unfaithful.” As all previous and likely future installments of Vintage Vapid Fluff suggest, this was an accurate assessment of the situation.

“She was persistent to the point of annoyance,” Edna added, not one to mince words.

Olivia, challenged but not entirely thwarted, went through with her planned marriage to Spencer, and then dipped out for just a sec to triple-check on Edna’s disinterest. A source revealed exclusively to a distant friend who revealed exclusively to my roommate while I listened through the vent, that on that particular home visit, Edna reported having “the most exciting sex experience of my life.” Yes, Edna experienced her first orgasm of all time beneath the deft lesbian hands of the decidedly toppy Olivia Wyndham, a passionate taker of initiative. This must have been what Olivia’s cousin was referring to when he confided to my dog walker who told my ex-girlfriend that Olivia is notoriously “something of a bossy-boots.”

(there is more, just go to the page.....)

https://findingaids.library.emory.edu/documents/thomas1109/ --Edna Thomas' correspondence

https://mrmhadams.typepad.com/blog/2012/06/making-harlem-history.html

Wintz, Cary D., and Finkelman, Paul. Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance: K-Y. United Kingdom, Routledge, 2004. Friends with socialite A'Lelia Walker, wanted social status Comedy of errors -- "charmed" hard-to-please critic, Percy Hammond Macbeth debut in Harlem -- sold out for 10 weeks,

studied in public schools in Boston part of *original* cast of Streetcar Named Desire

Mitchell, Verner D., and Davis, Cynthia. Literary Sisters: Dorothy West and Her Circle, A Biography of the Harlem Renaissance. United States, Rutgers University Press, 2011.

Dorothy West and Helene Johnson boarded with Edna and husband Edna was social secretary for CJ Walker -- friends with Walker's daughter A'Lelia When started career as acrtess, Lloyd opposed it , worried about humiliating conditions on the road

Black World/Negro Digest - Apr 1966 - Page 34books.google.com › books Vol. 15, No. 6 · ‎Magazine

In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line

The Alabama A. and M. Thespians, 1944-1963: Triumph of the Human Spirit Author(s): Glenda E. Gill, J. Preston Cochran, Reverend McCalep, Barbara Crews and James Theodore Guines Source: TDR (1988-) , Winter, 1994, Vol. 38, No. 4 (Winter, 1994), pp. 48-70 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1146424

Edna Thomas one of the few Black actresses who had some success in "mainstream" theater.

Rich British Woman Forsook Own People To Reside In Harlem BERLACK-BOOZER, THELMA. New York Amsterdam News (1938-1941), City edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 24 Sep 1938: 1.

From The Brilliance Of Mayfair To--: SHE RENOUNCED BRITISH TRADITION FOR HER NEGRO FRIENDS Cooke, Marvel. New York Amsterdam News (1938-1941), City edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 22 June 1940: 13.

In Search of Nella Larsen : A Biography of the Color Line Book Cover Image by George Hutchinson PUBLISHER Harvard University Press DATE 2006-05-30 is in proquest

Community Empowerment and the Medicalization of Homosexuality: Constructing Sexual Identities in the 1930s Author(s): Henry L. Minton Source: Journal of the History of Sexuality , Jan., 1996, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Jan., 1996), pp. 435-458 Published by: University of Texas Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4629618

' George W. Henry, "Psychogenic Factors in Overt Homosexuality," American Journal
of Psychiatry 93 (1937): 889-908. A more extended version of this case study was included
in George W Henry, Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns, vols. 1 and 2 (New
York, 1941), 2:563-70. In the latter publication, Henry changed the pseudonym from
Mary Jones to Pearl M. and identified her as a singer rather than an actrcss. In actuality,
this woman was Edna Thomas, an Afro-American actress who was prominent in Harlem
homosexual circles (personal communication from Eric Garber, May 16, 1994). Thomas's
lesbian partner was also included in Henry, Sex Variants, 2:672-81, as Pamela D. For a
discussion of Harlem's homosexual subculture, see Eric Garber, "A Spectacle in Color: The
Lesbian and Gay Subculture of Jazz Age Harlem," in Hiddenfrom History: Reclaiming the
Gay and Lesbian Past, ed. Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus, and George Chauncey, Jr.
(New York, 1989), pp. 318-31.

But Was It "Shakespeare?": Welles's "Macbeth" and "Julius Caesar" Author(s): John S. O'connor Source: Theatre Journal , Oct., 1980, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Oct., 1980), pp. 336-348 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3206889

To One Not There: The Letters of Dorothy West and Countee Cullen, 1926-1945 Author(s): Verner D. Mitchell Source: The Langston Hughes Review , Winter/Fall 2010/2011, Vol. 24 (Winter/Fall 2010/2011), pp. 112-124 Published by: Langston Hughes Society; Penn State University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26434689 52) and Edna Thomas

(1886-1974). Thomas, a Bostonian and friend of Dorothy West's mother
Rachel, made a sensation in 1936 as Lady Macbeth in the all-black production
of Macbeth at Harlem's Lafayette Theater. Her husband Lloyd was co-owner of
Harlem's Club Ebony and manager of Madame C. J. Walker's Harlem salon.
Georgette Harvey, dubbed "la belle Harvey" by Wallace Thurman, spent much
of her career in Europe. After returning to America, she played Maria in the
Theatre Guild's 1927 production of Porgy and "from that time on," notes one
admirer, "could be seen at almost any time on Broadway in some successful
production" (Nugent 214). Denied the press access of white contemporaries,
these individuals, like many in black artistic circles, exist primarily in the let
ters of their contemporaries. Also present are several whose reputations have
proved more enduring such as Arna Bontemps, James Weldon Johnson, Lena
Home, Langston Hughes; as well as Rudolph Fisher, Aaron Douglas, Alberta
Hunter, Claude McKay, Richard Wright, Nella Larsen, Paul Robeson, Zora Neale
Hurston, and others.
1 West to Cullen, 14 May 1945, Tulane.
2 An internationally acclaimed sculptor, Augusta Savage helped to organize the Harlem Arts Guild and
later served as founding director of the Harlem Community Art Center. Her Paris