Her Own Kind of Woman: The Life of Alberta Hunter

Popular debates about African American womanhood in the twentieth century have generated a primarily bifurcated discourse, an approach that leaves little room for exploring ways in which black women navigated the contested terrain of gender roles and sexual expression. The life of Alberta Hunter, an internationally known blues and cabaret singer from Memphis, Tennessee, complicated the two-pronged approach to analyzing these models of black womanhood. This dissertation seeks to provide the most comprehensive study to date on the life of Alberta Hunter. Her multifaceted response to pressures facing African American women tells us that the dominant historical models of black womanhood are insufficient explanations for the range of possibilities for some women during the twentieth century. Hunter intentionally used a blues aesthetic as well as respectability politics to assert herself as an entertainer and advocate for racial justice. An examination of how she envisioned and presented herself on and offstage challenges the accepted division between middle-class values and a working-class blues aesthetic and offers new paths toward understanding ways in which African American women accepted, challenged, and manipulated conventional gender roles throughout much of the twentieth century. Literature about the impact of global travel on African American men\u27s racial consciousness has increased recently. Perspectives of their female counterparts, however, remain limited. Alberta Hunter\u27s story is useful in filling in some historiographical gaos. As a woman who traveled extensively throughout the twentieth century, she was uniquely positioned to form a critique of American racism that transcended domestic borders. Hunter\u27s ideas shifted from a North-versus-South perspective to one that encompassed a global understanding of how systems of racial inequality impacted people of color throughout the world. Hunter\u27s international experiences serve as a privileged look into African American women\u27s traveles and perspectives of global injustice based on race. An examination of how Hunter contested inequality throughout her personal life and singing career offers insight into analyses of how African American women survived and challenged systems of oppression both in the United States and abroad