Ann Lowe: Big Risks for Big Dreams
Seamwork Radio: Sewing and Creativity
Colette Media
4.9 • 830 Ratings
🗓️ 1 March 2021
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ann Lowe moved to New York with big dreams. She wanted to become a great American designer, no small feat for a Black woman from Alabama in 1928. But she held fast to her dream, taking enormous risks and facing down catastrophe to realize her talent.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | She did it quietly. She did it in her own way, but she pushed the boundaries. |
| 0:08.0 | I'm Sari Mittnick, and this is Seamwork Radio, where we tell stories about the surprising ways that sewing impacts our lives. |
| 0:15.0 | Just a quick note, this episode includes some historical quotes that have some outdated language around race, |
| 0:21.0 | and it could be mildly offensive to the modern listener, just so you know. |
| 0:31.6 | The year was 1917, and a young woman named Anne Lowe was arriving in New York for the first time. |
| 0:38.3 | Back home in Florida, Anne was known as a gifted dressmaker and designer, |
| 0:42.3 | creating beautiful gowns for society's young debutants. |
| 0:46.3 | Back in Tampa, she was a success, in high demand with rich young women. |
| 0:50.3 | But now she was in New York for the first time. |
| 0:52.3 | You see, Anne wanted more. She knew she was talented, and she was serious about her career. With a formal design education, coupled with her talent and experience, she knew she'd reach her dreams. But when she met the director of the ST Taylor School of Design for the first time, something seemed off. He seemed to be dismayed. |
| 1:13.8 | She thought he might even want to send her away. You see, the moment before they met, he'd had no |
| 1:18.8 | idea that Anne was black. When she began her classes, most of the other students refused to |
| 1:24.9 | even study and work with her. Anne was placed in a separate classroom alone, where she had to work all by herself. |
| 1:32.2 | So she was put in a separate classroom, given the same assignments by the same professor, |
| 1:38.4 | in a separate classroom, and did her own studying over there, made the designs that were requested and everything. |
| 1:47.0 | And by the end of that year that professor was taking some of Anne's designs over to the classroom with the other girls and saying, |
| 1:55.0 | look what she's doing. |
| 1:57.0 | That's Julia Faye Smith. |
| 1:59.0 | Julia wrote a biography on Anne Lowe called Something to Prove. In it, |
| 2:03.4 | she details the many times that Anne faced both personal prejudice and systemic roadblocks just because |
| 2:08.7 | she was black. And yet, she continued to break boundaries throughout her life and career as a designer, |
| 2:14.1 | making incredible gowns worn by the rich and the famous, some of which were photographed |
... |
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