Irvin C. Miller's Brown Skin Models. World's Greatest Colored Revue.

Kansas City: Quigley Litho Co, Circa 1930s to 1940s. Octavo, single folded leaf of newsprint paper, [4] pp of text and illustration. A scarce promotional leaflet for Irvin C. Miller's Brown Skin Models, a touring vaudeville show featuring African American performers, founded by African American actor and playwright Irvin C. Miller. The show was founded in 1925, inspired by Ziegfeld Follies and showcasing attractive African American women. The Chicago Defender newspaper celebrated the show for breaking from stereotypical "Plantation" shows; instead "the Brownskin Models co-produced a public, commercialized sexuality that made claims on both New Negro modernity and upper-class, artistic signifiers to rewrite the meanings of black femininity" (Brown, "The Commodification of Aesthetic Feeling: Race, Sexuality and the 1920s State Model").

This leaflet advertises a show held in Pueblo, Colorado, printing illustrations of the troupe alongside promotional language, i.e. "Direct From New York", "The World's Greatest Colored Show", "The Hottest Dancing Chorus", etc. Undated, but references the 1936 film "Green Pastures." Not in OCLC. Toned, with tape repairs in six locations that appear archival. Item #15833

Price: $350.00