George P. Johnson Negro Film Collection LSC.1042

Finding aid prepared by Hilda Bohem; machine-readable finding aid created by Caroline Cubé

UCLA Library Special Collections

Online finding aid last updated on 2020 November 2.

Room A1713, Charles E. Young Research Library

Box 951575

Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575

spec-coll@library.ucla.edu

URL: https://www.library.ucla.edu/special-collections

Contributing Institution: UCLA Library Special Collections

Title: George P. Johnson Negro Film collection

Identifier/Call Number: LSC.1042

Physical Description: 35.5 Linear Feet (71 boxes)

Date (inclusive): 1916-1977

Abstract: George Perry Johnson (1885-1977) was a writer, producer, and distributor for the Lincoln Motion Picture Company (1916-23). After the company closed, he established and ran the Pacific Coast News Bureau for the dissemination of Negro news of national importance (1923-27). He started the Negro in film collection about the time he started working for Lincoln. The collection consists of newspaper clippings, photographs, publicity material, posters, correspondence, and business records related to early Black film companies, Black films, films with Black casts, and Black musicians, sports figures and entertainers.

Physical Location: Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.

Language of Material: English .

Conditions Governing Access

Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.

Portions of this collection are available on microfilm (12 reels) in UCLA Library Special Collections. Originals of boxes 1-47 not available for consultation due to fragile condition.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

CONTAINS DIGITAL MATERIALS: This collection contains both processed and unprocessed digital materials. For information about the access status of the material that you are looking for, refer to the Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements note at the series and file levels. All requests to access processed digital materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright to portions of this collection has been assigned to the UCLA Library Special Collections. The library can grant permission to publish for materials to which it holds the copyright. All requests for permission to publish must be submitted in writing to Library Special Collections. Credit shall be given as follows: The Regents of the University of California on behalf of the UCLA Library Special Collections.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], George P. Johnson Negro Film Collection (Collection 1042). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

George P. Johnson, purchase and gift, 1968-1971.
Gift of Charles Caballero, 1992.

Processing Information

Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.

Processed by Hilda Bohem.

UCLA Catalog Record ID

UCLA Catalog Record ID: 4233220

General note

* An Asterisk indicates that within these frames one will find biographical information concerning a performer and a list of his or her films. For example, Dorothy Dandridge's main entry is between frame numbers 275-358 *. For additional information concerning her life it would also be worthwhile to check information on each of her films. Information concerning each film is listed under the film's title.

Biography

George Perry Johnson was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, October 29, 1885; after his graduation from the Hampton Institute, Virginia (1904), he settled in Tulsa, Oklahoma and started the first Negro paper in the territory, The Tulsa Guide (June 9, 1906); moved to Omaha, Nebraska (1913) and was the first Negro employee at the U.S. Post Office in that city; he eventually moved to Los Angeles and continued working for the post office while he worked as a writer, producer, and distributor for the Lincoln Motion Picture Company (1916-23); after the company closed, he established and ran the Pacific Coast News Bureau for the dissemination of Negro news of national importance (1923-27); he started the Negro in film collection about the time he started working for Lincoln; he died October 17, 1977.

Scope and Content

Collection consists primarily of material related to the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, Johnson's brother, Noble Johnson, Oscar Micheaux, and the Oscar Micheaux Film and Book Company. Includes newspaper clippings, photographs, publicity material, posters, correspondence, and business records. Also includes materials related to early Black film companies, Black films, and films with Black casts, and Black musicians, sports figures, and entertainers. Also contains personal papers of George P. Johnson.

Expanded Scope and Content

The George P. Johnson Negro Film Collection was assembled over a period of more than fifty years by one of the industry's pioneer producers and distributors of Black films. It contains newspaper clippings, photographs, publicity materials, posters, and, in some instances, correspondence and business records of early Black film companies. Mr. Johnson often added his own remembered information about films or performers, typing this information on slips of paper or cards.

The collection has its greatest depth in material relating to Mr. Johnson's own Lincoln Motion Picture Company, to Noble Johnson who was George P. Johnson's brother, and to Oscar Micheaux and the Oscar Micheaux Film and Book Company whose moving pictures Johnson distributed. It also has hard-to-find material on Black musicians, sports figures, entertainers, and on Black films and on Black films and film companies and films with Black casts.

The register for the collection is a card file (shelf list) which is divided into two alphabets, one for personal names and one for films and film companies. This brings together films made by the Lincoln Motion Picture Company. All of the films in which Oscar Micheaux appeared are brought together under his name. There is no indication of how much material will be found for an entry. It may be anything from a single clipping to several folders full of material.

Revised October 1995

Organization and Arrangement

Arranged in the following series:

Research files (Boxes 1-47).
Newspapers and magazines (Boxes 48-50, 70).
Films and videotape (Boxes 51, 53, 63).
Personal papers, photographs, magazines, books, and files of Lincoln Motion Picture Company (Boxes 51-69).
Posters (Oversize folder 71).

Expanded Organization and Arrangement

The following statement appears at the beginning of each reel of microfilm of the George P. Johnson Collection:

George P. Johnson who started in the motion picture industry in 1961 as General Booking Manager for Lincoln Motion Picture Company, has assembled a collection primarily of ephemeral materials - correspondence, playbills, newspaper clippings, advertisement materials, photographs relating to Blacks in all fields of entertainment, sports and the arts. Its major strength is in the area of motion pictures. It contains records of films made by Blacks, films in which Blacks appeared, films with all Black casts, Black motion picture houses, booking agencies, music publishers, magazines and similar related subjects.

Mr. Johnson's materials revealing the history of the Lincoln Motion Picture Company are the highlight of the collection. Correspondence and other manuscripts focus on the problems, politics, psychological conflicts, deals, business failures, promotional techniques, and financial solicitations of the company and depict how this black enterprise managed to exist from 1916 to 1923. Information concerning the company itself is found throughout the collection, with concentrations of material found under the following headings. (see Index for reel and frame numbers.):

Birth of a Race (film)
Brooks, Clarence
Dudley, S.H.
Film Production Companies
Foster, William
Gant, Harry
Ireland, Thomas D.
Johnson, George
Johnson, Noble
Levy Robert
Lincoln Motion Picture Company
Micheaux, Oscar
Smith, James Rodney
Teycer, B.L.
Turpin, Charles H.
Vann, Robert

Some names and events are not listed separately in the index itself, but are included within certain broad headings listed below. Check this special list of headings for possible leads to additional information on related subjects. Reel and frame numbers are located in the index under the following headings:

Academy Awards
Actors Replaced by Other Actors
Afro-American Film Exhibitors
Black Film Theatres
Black Man in Films
Black Musicians' Union
Casting
Colored Americans War Film
Colored and Indian Film
Colored Champions of Sport
Comedians
Entertainers, Negro
Federal Theatre Project
Film Production Companies
Footlite Magazine
Harlem
Hollywood Maids
Hollywood Productions
Sambo Comedies
Lincoln Motion Picture Company
List of White & Black Companies Producing Black Films
Motion Picture Industry
Moving Picture Film Companies
Moving Picture Film History
Music Score Arrangers, Writers
Negro
Actors
Authors
Book Dealers
Boxers
Comedy Films
History
In Moving Pictures
In Radio
In Television
Newspapers
Theatre
Theatres
Westerns
100 years of Negro Entertainment, an Ebony article.
Outlet - a Western Monthly
Pacific News Bureau
Racism & Entertainment
Theatrical Booking Agencies
Unions
Vaudeville Stars
War Films

Existence and Location of Copies

Digitized materials are available electronically at https://digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/r9kf9000zz-89112.

Portions of this collection are available on microfilm (12 reels) in UCLA Library Special Collections.

Related Oral History

The following oral history is available through the UCLA Library Center for Oral History Research:

Collector of Negro film history [oral history transcript] / George P. Johnson, interviewee. UCLA Oral History Department interview, 1970. Available at UCLA Library Special Collections.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

African Americans in motion pictures.

African Americans in the motion picture industry.

Johnson, Noble

Lincoln Motion Picture Company

Micheaux Film Corporation

Micheaux, Oscar

Johnson, George P., 1885-1977

Research Files

General note

These have been microfilmed.

Further information can be found in the following sections:

Cambridge, Godfrey
Footlite Magazine

Subjects and Indexing Terms

Parker, Charlie

Reels - Positive Microfilm

General note

(Microfilm is for boxes 1-47 only of the collection)

reel 1

Abandoned to Boar's Tooth Ceremonial.

reel 2

Bob Mathias Story to Close Harmony.

reel 3

Cole, Carol to Davis, Robert.

reel 4

Davis, Sammy to Four Feathers.

reel 5

Four for Texas to Hoosman, Alabama.

reel 6

Horne, Lena to Khartoum.

reel 7

The Kid from Left Field to Lonesome Road.

reel 8

Lone Star Motion Picture Producers to Moving Picture History.

reel 9

Moving Picture Industry to The Nun's Story .

reel 10

Oceans 11 to Quinn, Carol.

reel 11

Rachel, Rachel to Still, William Grant.

reel 12

Stop the World, I Want to Get Off to end.

reel 8

Abrams, Dick

Abstract: Frame(s) 392-562.

reel 8

Abrams, Ed

Abstract: Frame(s) 392-562.

Abrams, Richard (Dick)

reel 1

unspecified

Abstract: Frame(s) 2-3.

reel 5

unspecified

Abstract: Frame(s) 294-5, Gunsanlus Mystery.

reel 11

Absent

Abstract: Frame(s) 353-363, Rosebud Film Company.

reel 1

Academy Awards

Abstract: Frame(s) 4-14.

The Accused

reel 1

unspecified

Abstract: Frame(s) 15.

reel 9

unspecified

Abstract: Frame(s) 4, Motion Picture Industry.

reel 5

Actors Replaced by Other Actors

Abstract: Frame(s) 469.

reel 1

Adams, Fay

Abstract: Frame(s) 16, Rhythm & Blues.

Adams, Joe

reel 1

unspecified

Abstract: Frame(s) 17.

reel 2

unspecified

Abstract: Frame(s) 311-312, Carmen Jones.

reel 2

unspecified

Abstract: Frame(s) 406-429, Ray Charles.

reel 1

Adams, Robert

Abstract: Frame(s) 18.

reel 9

Adderley, Julian Cannonball

Abstract: Frame(s) 667, New Face in Hell.

reel 3

Adderly, Nat

Abstract: Frame(s) 418, Miles Davis.

reel 1

Adventure

Abstract: Frame(s) 19.

reel 1

Adventures in Paradise

Abstract: Frame(s) 20, Juano Hernadez.

reel 1

Adventures of a Young Man

Abstract: Frame(s) 21, Juano Hernadez.

reel 1

Adventures of Ali Baba

Abstract: Frame(s) 22, Greg Morris.

reel 1

Adventures of Hajai Baba

Abstract: Frame(s) 23, Nat King Cole.

reel 1

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Abstract: Frame(s) 24.

reel 1

Adventures of Mark Twain

Abstract: Frame(s) 25.

Advise and Consent

reel 1

unspecified

Abstract: Frame(s) 26.

reel 2

unspecified

Abstract: Frame(s) 159, Merville Brown.

reel 1

A for Assasin

Abstract: Frame(s) 28, Raymond St. Jacques.

reel 1

Affair in Trinidad

Abstract: Frame(s) 27, Juanita Moore.

reel 1

Africa Addio

Abstract: Frame(s) 29.

reel 9

Africa - Blood & Guts

Abstract: Frame(s) 570.

reel 1

Africa - Texas Style

Abstract: Frame(s) 30.

reel 1

The African

Abstract: Frame(s) 31, Early Hyman.

reel 9

The African Elephant

Abstract: Frame(s) 542.

reel 1

African Fury

Abstract: Frame(s) 32.

General note