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Agnes Cully Peters Dressmaker for Marian Anderson: Newspaper Article #1

February 18, 2012 /
Over the next few weeks, I will be posting newspaper articles of my family, who were living in Harlem, New York during the 1920’s to the 1950’s. 

Below is an article of my maternal grandmother Agnes Mae Cully Peters, who was a fashion designer in new York in the 1930’s through the 1950’s.  Agnes was Marian Anderson’s fashion designer for a period of twenty years until she relocated to Los Angeles, California about 1952.

Agnes is seen measuring Marian Anderson, the Great Opera Singer of her time, who had been denied the use of Constitution Hall to hold a concert due to racism.  First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt disgusted by the Hall’s discriminatory practices opened the Lincoln Memorial for Marian to sing on Easter Sunday of 1939.

[Transcribed]


New York Amsterdam News
May 15, 1948
Pg. 9
[courtesy of ProQuest Historical Newspapers]

Marian Anderson, known not only as one of the world’s greatest singers but also as one of America’s best dressed women, gets together with her dressmaker, Agnes Cully Peters, on the new length of a street frock.  Mrs. Peters will show what the well dressed woman will wear for summer at her “New Look” fashion show scheduled for the Club Sudan, Sunday, May 23 from 8 to 11 pm. [A. Hansen-Photo]

Copyright by Yvette Porter Moore unless otherwise stated.

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