So what if she was satirized under pseudonyms in Harlem Renaissance novels, or known throughout that period as a bronze venus, dusky diva or outrageous party girl. She held many titles but Nora Holt was Nora Holt! She served drama from New York to Chicago. She gave 'em glamour in Paris, London and Shanghai, too! She was a definite handful as well as an eye full. But there was so much more to "The Mama That Can't Behave" than what met you at face value.
She knew how to handle her business!
Nora Holt was born Lena Douglas sometime around 1890 in Kansas City, KS. She had five or six husbands but decided to keep the name of her fourth husband, the elderly (but very wealthy) hotel owner George Holt. In the meantime, she graduated Western University at Quindaro, KS in 1917 with a bachelor's degree in music. In 1918, she added another degree from Chicago Musical College, thus becoming the first African American woman in the United States to earn a Master's Degree!
When her fifth marriage to Joseph Ray, the African American assistant to millionaire tycoon Charles Schwab ended in divorce, Nora moved to Harlem and carried on uptown and hung out downtown with her very good friend, the infamous novelist and Negrophile Carl Van Vechten.
She co-founded the National Association of Negro Musicians, and became an editor and music critic for the New York Age and the Amsterdam News. Nora Holt composed over 200 works of orchestral & chamber works, but all of her manuscripts were later stolen and she never returned to composition. Undetered, she continued to study and teach music for decades. In 1950, Jet Magazine announced that Nora Holt was in the process of writing her memoirs which promised to be even more spicy than the recently published autobiography from singer Ethel Waters. The book never materialized, but every note, every decade just went higher and higher until she passed away in 1974.
In 2008, a man inherited a collection of African American memorbilia stored in an old garage - included in the collection is a most intriguing autograph book filled with the signatures of some of the most prominent names of the early 20th century. History Detectives, the popular PBS fact-finding show becomes involved and produces one of their most-watched segments, and thus renews interest in Nora Holt - the original owner of the book.
More than just another Harlem socialite, international jet setter, or quick study on History Detectives, Nora Holt was an intelligent, shrewd and BRILLIANT BLACK BUSINESS WOMAN! She knew how to whip the double whammy of beauty and brains back and forth.
Photograph by James Marquis Connely, 1930
Quite an intriguing woman. Was she a lesbian?
Posted by: Brandon | May 18, 2011 at 11:02 AM