Why Josephine Baker flew in and out of Croydon in a day.

Last Thursday, attendees at the Museum of Croydon were treated to an account of why Josephine Baker made a mad dash to Croydon Airport and then to London to attend a charity performance by Dr Gemma Romain. We have blogged before about the remarkable photographs of Baker that Croydon Airport Society has in its archives (one that has not previously been blogged is below). It was on the basis of these that we invited Dr Romain, curator of Spaces of Black British Modernism (Tate Britain October 2014 - 5 October 2015), to research and present a talk for us.

Our Archives

This is a new blog from Croydon Airport Society to share stories, pictures and snippets from its rich archive about people, planes and events. It is part of the Revealing the Hidden Heritage of Croydon Airport project, which has been funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. It is called 'Croydon Calling' as the phrase and the airport was famous in the 1920s and 30s when it was Britain's only international airport.

Josephine Baker with Captain Walter Roger, 1928

Just as an example, this is a photograph from the files of a pilot, Captain Walter Rogers who flew planes for Imperial Airways and shows him with stage star and artist Josephine Baker in 1928 at Croydon Airport. There will be much more information coming up on an event around another group of photographs showing Baker shortly.  . .

Many of the images in the archive have unknown photographers or are press agency photographs: part of what we are doing is working out which images we can share online. We think this photograph was taken for Captain Rogers privately by an unknown photographer and thus is an 'orphan work'. If anyone knows any differently, please let us know!