Former Residence of Alberta Hunter (1926-1940s)

Alberta Hunter, who would become an internationally acclaimed singer, was born into poverty in Memphis in 1895. Her father died before she was old enough to remember him and her mother worked as a maid in a brothel. When she was only 11 years old, Hunter was drawn to Chicago because she'd heard that singers could make $10 a week there. One of her teachers gave her a ride to the city and for much of the rest of her life, Hunter was a performer.

Her first years in Chicago were predictably precarious. She worked as a dishwasher in brothels and after-hours bars and recalled being informally "adopted" by pickpocket women. Her career as a singer began at Dago Frank's, a seedy brothel which was owned by the mobster Frank Cirofici. It could not have been an easy existence for a young woman on her own. Dago Frank's attracted a dicey crowd, but it also hired visiting performers, and from them, Hunter learned songs and began writing her own. She eventually made her way to other, more respectable venues, including the Dreamland Cafe, where she performed alongside Louis Armstrong and other established singers and musicians.

By 1919, Hunter was an established singer herself. While still a young performer, she made recordings with Armstrong, W.C. Handy, Sidney Bechet, and Fats Waller. She eventually became disenchanted with the violence that often erupted in Chicago blues clubs and moved to New York City. By that time, she was an internationally recognized performer and regularly toured Europe. In 1926, she bought #53 in the apartment building at 133 West 138th Street, which was home to a number of African American performers at the time. Hunter was briefly married as a young woman, but the marriage ended in divorce. She shared the Harlem apartment with her mother, with whom she was very close. Although Hunter did not publicly address her sexuality, she had a long-term, on-again, off-again relationship with a woman named Lottie Tyler, who often accompanied her on tour.

Hunter owned the apartment until at least 1945. In the mid-1950s, following the death of her mother, Hunter decided to "help humanity," and became a nurse. She worked, largely anonymously, as a scrub nurse on Roosevelt Island for two decades. Coworkers and patients knew nothing of her past glory as a singer, and Hunter said she never so much as hummed a tune during her years as a nurse. After retiring, she attended a birthday party for a friend and spontaneously sang a few songs. In an unlikely turn of events, her songs at the birthday party led to a comeback for Hunter, who did a six-week stint at the Cookery in Greenwich Village in 1977. Her run in the Village also led to Hunter's being commissioned by Robert Altman to record songs for the soundtrack of his film, "Remember My Name." Hunter died in 1984.

Alberta Hunter, Memphis Blues Hall of Fame . Accessed December 6th 2020. https://memphismusichalloffame.com/inductee/albertahunter/.

Alberta Hunter Residence , NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project . Accessed December 6th 2020. https://www.nyclgbtsites.org/site/alberta-hunter-residence/.

Wilson, John. Alberta Hunter, 89, Cabaret Star, Dies, New York Times . October 19th 1984. Accessed December 6th 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/19/obituaries/alberta-hunter-89-cabaret-star-dies.html.