DCS: mattiwilda dobbs

With dreams of becoming a fashion designer, Mattiwilda Dobbs attended Spellman College in the early 1940s. Her instructors encouraged young Mattiwilda to pursue singing and she graduated in 1946 with a degree in music. She began performing in Europe, making her operatic debut in Holland in Stravinsky’s The Nightingale. In 1953, at the request of …

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DCS: mary eliza mahoney

The child of free blacks who moved North just prior to the Civil War, Mary Eliza Mahoney began working as an untrained practical nurse at twenty-years old. To supplement her income, Mary took on janitorial duties at the New England Hospital for Women and Children. In 1878, she was accepted into the New England Hospital’s …

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DCS: pete smith

Pete Smith began his career, humbly, as an aide on the vaudeville circuit. He soon found work with Louis B. Mayer as a publicity manager for Mayer’s studio. He was promoted to doing voice overs and editing on short subjects and sports-related newsreels. Based on his sense of humor, Pete was given his own series …

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DCS: louise harrison

Louise Harrison came to the United States from her native England in the 1950s. She settled in Illinois with her husband, a Scottish expatriate. She lived the unassuming life of a mid-Western housewife. In the early 1960s, Louise’s younger brother George formed a rock band with two young men he had recently met. The pair …

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DCS: cindy morgan

As a student at Northern Illinois University, Cynthia Ann Cichorski took DJ duties at the campus radio station. She parlayed her communications degree as a reporter for a local radio station using the more “radio-friendly name “Morgan.” After graduation, Cindy worked as the on-air weather forecaster at a Rockford TV station. Eventually, she made her …

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