Author Archive
Irrepressible excerpt published in New York Times Live
The southern belle who took London by storm 100 years ago, Henrietta Bingham grappled with issues — from sexuality to personal agency — as relevant to young women today as they were nearly a century ago…
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A Bloomsbury Tea (2010)
“A Bloomsbury Tea: Connecting Smith, Sexuality, Class and Bloomsbury.” Historian Emily Bingham will discuss the cultural, intellectual, and sexual intersections between Henrietta Bingham (who came to Smith in 1920), her English professor, Mina Kirstein Curtiss (Smith 1918), and members of the Bloomsbury Group during the 1920s. The presentation will be followed by a discussion led […]
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“Let’s Fly Away” (1930) by Cole Porter
Lee Wiley here sings the hit from Cole Porter’s 1930 Musical, The New Yorkers, starring Henrietta’s lover, Hope Williams as a New York socialite in love with a bootlegger. Hope flew away with Henrietta to her Wyoming ranch in the summer of 1932.
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Whistler’s Jug Band, “Folding Bed” (c 1930)
Henrietta patronized many of the famous jug bands of Louisville, but she must have particularly admired Buford Threlkeld, also known as “Whistler.” Seen here on the guitar, he was known for playing the nose whistle and performed a private all-night set for Henrietta and John Houseman in 1925. A rare video captures Whistler’s Jug Band […]
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“Prove It On Me Blues” (1928) by Ma Rainey
Rainey was the first black woman to record a blues record and sang openly about her bisexuality. The jug adds a Louisville touch to this recording.
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“Don’t Give My Lard Away” by The Dixieland Jug Blowers (1926)
A favorite tune of Henrietta’s by Jug band musicians she had known since her teenage years, includes the exhortation of a boy whose mother regularly entertains male companions. Henrietta put down the lyrics before this early recording, while she was living in Manhattan in the mid 1920s. An even racier version was recorded by […]
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“Eccentric Steps” in From Dover Street to Dixie (1923)
Remarkable footage of a dance number by Florence Mills’s husband, U. S. “Slow Kid” Thompson and Willie Covan in the show Henrietta attended in London in 1923. She and Mina Kirstein entertained members of the show at their home that summer in a party Duncan Grant called “absolutely perfect.”
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He May Be Your Man (But He Comes to See Me Sometimes) (1922)
Edith Wilson was born in Louisville in 1896 and broke into the early “cabaret blues” scene in New York about 1921, where she recorded with Johnny Dunn’s Original Jazz Hounds. Henrietta crossed paths with her fellow Kentuckian and one of the earliest female blues artists during Wilson’s tours as a performer in London and in […]
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“Darktown Strutters Ball” (1917) by The Original Dixieland Jazz Band
Henrietta was sixteen when this very early jazz recording became a hit. She bought the sheet music and may have tried it on her own saxophone.
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