Light-skinned-ed Girl

Mixed Experience History Month: Edith Maude Eaton, writer

Edith Maude Eaton (1865-1914) was the daughter of a Chinese mother and an English (white) father.  Her family spent her early years in England until she was 7.  The family then immigrated first to New York State and then in the 1870s to the Montreal suburbs.

Eaton started her career as a typesetter at a Montreal newspaper at age 18.

In 1888, she published her first short stories.  She published under a pseudonym, Sui-Sin Far, which meant "water lily" in Chinese.  She is believed to be the first person of Asian descent published in America.

Her work, which centered on Chinese women characters and interracial and intercultural relationships, was published widely in magazines and journals and to much acclaim.

 "I give my right hand to the Occidentals and my left to the Orientals, hoping that between them they will not utterly destroy the insignificant 'connecting link,'" Eaton wrote in her story "Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian."

In 1912, she published her only book, Mrs. Spring Fragrance, a collection of short stories.

She died in 1914.

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Mixed Experience History Month is an annual blog post series celebrating the history of the Mixed experience.  Established on Heidi Durrow's blog Light-skinned-ed Girl  in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to illuminate achievements of multiracial and multicultural individuals (not tragic mulattoes) and people and events central to the Mixed experience.  Please look for more profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog, or Mixed Chicks Chat blog!  Thanks for reading.  You can also read past year's series: 2007, 2008, 2009.

Mixed Experience History Month: Charles Patton, blues pioneer

Charlie (Charley) Patton (1891?-1934), was a pioneering Delta blues musician who influenced John Lee Hooker and Howlin' Wolf.

Patton was mixed-- white, black and Cherokee.

He was already an accomplished musician and entertainer when he recorded his first songs with Paramount in 1928.

His most popular songs included "Pony Blues" and "Banty Rooster Blues."

He died in 1934 in Mississippi after living a hard life--as a smoker and as a someone who liked a good drink.

He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980.

Listen here to Charley Patton's "A Spoonful Blues."

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Mixed Experience History Month is an annual blog post series celebrating the history of the Mixed experience.  Established on Light-skinned-ed Girl blog in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to illuminate achievements of multiracial and multicultural individuals (not tragic mulattoes) and people and events central to the Mixed experience.  Please look for more profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog, or Mixed Chicks Chat blog!  Thanks for reading.

Mixed Experience History Month: John William "Blind" Boone, musician

John William "Blind" Boone (1864-1927) was the son of an enslaved black woman and a white Army bugler.

He lost his sight in infancy after contracting "brain fever" and his eyes were removed to reduce the swelling in his head.

Boone demonstrated great musical ability early in his life. At age three, he was known to create beats and imitate bird songs.  He soon learned to play the harmonica and then the piano.

His hometown raised money to send him to a school for the blind so that he could advance in his piano studies.  Boone found the school's rules too restrictive and discriminatory and left. 

He continued to pursue music on his own and began his career at age 15 after an African-American philanthropist took him under his wing.

Boone went on to become a wildly famous concert pianist and composer.  His was a household name as he toured across the country and the world.  He is considered a pioneer of ragtime music.  (Thanks to Steve at mixedracestudies.org for this suggestion.)

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Mixed Experience History Month is an annual blog post series celebrating the history of the Mixed experience.  Established on this blog in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to illuminate achievements of multiracial and multicultural individuals (not tragic mulattoes) and people and events central to the Mixed experience.  Please look for more profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May right here at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog!  Thanks for reading.

Mixed Experience History Month: Robert Smalls, hero & Congressman

Robert Smalls (1839-1915), a mulatto conscripted into the Confederate Army, became a war hero at age 23 when he hijacked a Confederate Army ammunitions transport ship and turned it over to the Union Navy.

He became a spokesperson against slavery and served admirably in the Union Navy as a ship captain.

In 1864, he led one of the first boycotts of public transportation in Philadelphia after being ousted from an all-white streetcar.  (In 1867, the city integrated its streetcars.)

Smalls opened a school and created a newspaper.  He later became a U.S. Congressman, defeating a white "reform" opponent, in 1874.  A life-long Republican, he served for five terms and helped convince Abraham Lincoln to accept African-Americans in the Union Army.

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Mixed Experience History Month is an annual blog post series celebrating the history of the Mixed experience.  Established on this blog in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to illuminate achievements of multiracial and multicultural individuals (not tragic mulattoes) and people and events central to the Mixed experience.  Please look for more profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May right here at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog!  Thanks for reading.

Mixed Experience History Month: George Crum, inventor

George Crum (1822-1914), the son of an African-American father and Native American mother, accidentally invented the potato chip in 1853 when he was working as a chef.

A dinner guest returned his order of fries because he found them too thick and soft.  Crum decided to slice the potatoes paper-thin and deep fry them until they were crispy.  To his surprise, the patron enjoyed the dish, as did many others.  Crum had a hit on his hands.  When he opened his own restaurant that catered to the wealthy including the Vanderbilts and the Hiltons, he had chips on every table.  Crum never tried to patent his invention.  He died in 1914 at the age of 92.

Mixed Experience History Month: Alexander Twilight, educator & minister

Alexander Twilight (1795-1857) was the son of a free mixed-race Revolutionary War veteran and a white (or light-skinned-ed) woman.

Twilight started working on a farm at age 8, but always made time to read and study mathematics.  At age 20 he enrolled in grammar school.  He then whizzed through the coursework of secondary school and two years of a college curriculum. 

In 1821, he enrolled at Middlebury College and graduated in 1823.  He was the first person of African-American descent to receive a bachelor's degree from an American university.

He went on to become an educator and minister.  And in 1836, Twilight was elected to the state legislature, another first for a person of African-American descent.

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Mixed Experience History Month is an annual blog post series celebrating the history of the Mixed experience.  Established on this blog in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to illuminate achievements of multiracial and multicultural individuals (not tragic mulattoes) and people and events central to the Mixed experience.  Please look for more profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May right here at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog!  Thanks for reading.

Mixed Experience History Month: Bob Marley, singer & musician

Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley (1945-1981) was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician born to a Jamaican father of English descent and a Jamaican mother of African descent. 

At 14, he left school to pursue music.  In 1962, he recorded his first singles.  Marley's first big success was with an album, Catch a Fire, released in 1973 with the Wailers.  Marley would go on to become internationally famous and beloved performing as Bob Marley & the Wailers.  His best known hits included "I Shot the Sheriff", "No Woman, No Cry", "Could You Be Loved",  "Jamming", "Redemption Song", and "One Love."  He died at age 36 after a melanoma was discovered in a wound.  The cancer quickly spread throughout his body.

Marley identified as black, but according to Wikipedia once said of his mixed background: "I don't have prejudice against meself. My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don't dip on nobody's side. Me don't dip on the black man's side nor the white man's side. Me dip on God's side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white."

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Mixed Experience History Month is an annual blog post series celebrating the history of the Mixed experience.  Established on this blog in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to illuminate achievements of multiracial and multicultural individuals (not tragic mulattoes) and people and events central to the Mixed experience.  Please look for more profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May right here at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog!  Thanks for reading.

4th Annual Mixed Experience History Month: Norbert Rillieux

Welcome to the 4th Annual Mixed Experience History Month.  Every May I profile notable historical figures who are part of the mixed experience.

Each weekday for the month of May you'll learn about important community leaders, artists, scientists, politicians, explorers and inventors.  (If you have someone you want to see profiled, please let me know.)

In the past three years I have profiled folks like artist Isamu Noguchi, writer August Wilson, and abolitionist Ellen Craft and scholar Gloria Anzaldua.

This year's Mixed Experience History Month begins with a profile of inventor Norbert Rillieux.

Rillieux (1806-1894) was the son of an African-American enslaved woman and a wealthy white engineer.  A native of New Orleans, Rillieux was sent to France for his education.  At age 24, he became a professor at the L'Ecole Centrale, France's top engineering school.

Rillieux returned to the United States and soon invented the triple evaporation pan for sugar processing.  His revolutionary invention--patented in 1834--greatly improved the quality, efficiency and safety of sugar refining.

In the 1850s, Rillieux returned to France to escape America's racism.  He died in 1894.  (Note: Rillieux is noted here to be a cousin of artist Edgar Degas.)