Biography
Chronology of the Life of Teenie Harris
1908
Charles Harris is born on July 2, the third child of William Franklin “Monk” and Ella Mae “Olga” Taliaferro Harris of Pittsburgh. His older brothers are George (b. 1893) and William, known as “Woogie” (b. 1896). George is a relatively prolific amateur photographer, and his uncle William Taliaferro is listed as a professional photographer in city directories and the 1920 and 1930 censuses.
1910
Pittsburgh census lists Olga Harris as divorced, living with her sons and six boarders at 2443 Wylie Avenue, Hill District.
c. 1910–1911
Charles “Teenie” Harris at age three holding camera, courtesy Charles A. Harris While still a toddler, Harris is nicknamed “Teenie Little Lover,” which will eventually shorten to “Teenie.” A family photograph shows him at age three holding a camera.
1917
Attributed to Charles “Teenie” Harris, Self-portrait of Charles "Teenie" Harris standing outside of Masio Hotel, Hill District, c. 1927–1934, 1996.90.9 Olga Harris and her son George open the Masio Hotel at 1211 Wylie Avenue. It takes in boarders, mainly laborers from the south attracted by jobs in the industrial north; it includes an indoor golf facility and a billiard parlor.
c. 1918
Charles “Teenie” Harris at age 16 with bicycle, courtesy Charles A. Harris Teenie and/or his older brother George take photographs that will later become the earliest images in the Teenie Harris Archive.
c. 1921
Unknown photographer, Young men and women, including Charles "Teenie" Harris in center front, c. 1920, 2001.35.8298 Harris completes the eighth grade at Watt School (now Robert L. Vann Elementary School) in the Hill District. This marks the end of his formal education.
1924
Gus Greenlee opens the Paramount Club next door to the Masio Hotel.
mid-1920s
Unknown photographer, Copy of a photograph of Pittsburgh Crawfords baseball team on steps of Crawford Recreation Center, Hill District, 1926. Standing left to right: Nate [last name unknown], team cofounder Bill Harris, Harry Beale, Buster Christian, and Jasper Stevens; seated left to right: William Smith, Tootsie Deal, Julius [last name unknown], Whitey Turner, Reece Mosby, Bill Jones, cofounder Charles "Teenie" Harris, and Johnny Moore Harris is cofounder and shortstop of the Pittsburgh Crawfords sandlot baseball team. He plays until the late 1920s, when Gus Greenlee acquires the team and turns it into a Negro League powerhouse. Harris also works in the Masio Hotel.
1926
Unknown photographer, Copy of a 1929–1931 photograph of Charles “Teenie” Harris in Hotel Bailey basketball uniform, c. 1950-1970, 2001.35.6605 Harris plays on the Paramount A. C. basketball team, later becoming the Hotel Bailey Big Five Team. His father, Monk Harris, is again listed in city directories as part of the family.
c. 1926
Bill Snyder, Gus Greenlee, William "Woogie" Harris, Joe Robinson, an unknown man, and Leon "Pigmeat" Clark, seated around table with birthday cake in Crawford Grill No. 1, c. 1942, 2001.35.3492 Gus Greenlee and Woogie Harris introduce “the numbers” to Pittsburgh and make fortunes; Harris works for them as a numbers runner and chauffeur and remains active in the numbers until the late 1930s.
1927
Young men and women, including Ruth Butler on left in middle row, on porch of wooden house, c. 1925, 2001.35.8223 Harris marries Ruth M. Butler (1910–2003), and their son, Charles A. Harris, is born. They live at Watt Street and Bedford Avenue in the Hill District.
1928–1929
1938 Cadillac car parked in driveway of William "Woogie" Harris's house with Charles "Teenie" Harris and his son, Charles A. "Little Teenie" Harris standing next to it, Frankstown Road, Penn Hills, 1940, 2001.35.6199 Woogie Harris and Gus Greenlee buy homes in white residential area of Penn Hills; their properties are vandalized. Teenie Harris is listed in the Pittsburgh city directory as chauffeur.
1933
Three men, including William "Monk" Harris on left, seated in front of Masio Hotel, c. 1927–1932, 2001.35.2145 In February, gossip columnist announces Harris is separating from his wife, Ruth; their son, Charles, stays with his father. William Harris, Harris’s father, dies on March 20, and the family closes the Masio Hotel. Teenie Harris and his son move in with Olga Harris at Woogie’s property at 7604 Mulford Street, Homewood, Pittsburgh, which becomes the family home. Harris buys a Packard, the first of a series of luxury automobiles that would become his trademark. Another Woogie Harris property at 7101 Apple Street in Homewood becomes the home of the National Negro Opera Company; it also serves as residence for black athletes and entertainers barred from white hotels until the 1960s. In December, the newly renovated Crawford Grill reopens with fanfare at 1401 Wylie Avenue.
1934
Visitors, including Betty Harris in center, in Sinclair Oil Company dinosaur exhibit at 1933–1934 Chicago World’s Fair, 1934, 2001.35.3027 Harris and Ruth Butler Harris divorce. Family trip in September to Chicago World’s Fair is recorded in photographs by Teenie Harris.
c. 1935
Group portrait of Centre Avenue YMCA basketball team, possibly including Red Dorman standing third from left, and coach Charles "Teenie" Harris wearing suit, posed in Centre Avenue YMCA, January 1939, 2001.35.11609 Harris plays on the Iron City Elks basketball team, and brings the New York Renaissance and Celtics teams to play in Pittsburgh. He also coaches the Savoy women’s basketball team.
c. 1936
According to published interviews with Harris, Pittsburgh Courier offers Harris position of staff photographer, but he declines due to low pay.
1937
Teeny Harris collage, c. 1937–1939. Gelatin silver print and magazine clipping. 1996.90.37 The first issue of Flash Newspicture Magazine is published in March. On October 18, Flash publishes photo of Harris posing with Rolleicord medium-format camera. One week later, on October 25, the first credited Harris photo, of an evening at the Ritz Club, Pittsburgh, appears in Flash. Using $350 given to him by Woogie, Harris opens a photographic studio at 2128 Centre Avenue in the Hill District. He initially names it Flash Studio. The Flash circulation office is nearby at 2132 Centre. November of this year produces the earliest dated Harris negatives in 4 x 5–inch format, probably shot with a Speed Graphic camera that Harris would use until the 1970s.
1938
Marva Louis in Herron High School for Centre Avenue YMCA Junior Hostesses Fashion Revue, April 1938, 2001.35.35616 Harris is listed in the city directory: “Harris Studio (Charles T. Harris), Harry Beale manager, commercial photographers, agency for Flash and Candid Magazine, 2128 Centre Avenue.” The February 5 Pittsburgh Courier publishes uncredited Harris photographs of Lena Horne’s departure from Pittsburgh to Hollywood. The first photo with Harris byline in the Pittsburgh Courier appears May 7 and shows Marva Louis, wife of boxer Joe Louis, at a benefit fashion show. Harris is listed as staff photographer on Flash magazine masthead while freelancing for the Courier. Reporter-photographer Joe Sewell, photographer Alex Rivera, and gossip columnist Julia Bumry also work for both publications. Harris organizes and coaches the Flash basketball team.
1939
Unknown photographer, Charles "Teenie" Harris posed with another man on sidewalk in front of Harris Studio, Centre Avenue, Hill District, c. 1940–1945, 2001.35.6604 Harris Studio listing in city directory advertises “Commercial photographs, portraiture and commercial motion pictures taken and shown.” The last known credited Harris photo is published in Flash in January, and the final issue of Flash appears on August 31.
1939–1940
Publication dates of photography books in Harris’s possession: Photo Tricks and Effects by Jacob Deschin, Tricks for Camera Owners [unknown author], and Filters and Their Uses by W. Bradford Shank.
1940
Group portrait of Army sergeants, left to right: I. Dunham, L. Jones, Ralph Johnson, Thomas Thompson, and Robert Page, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 1940, 2001.35.6677 Harris receives his first known major assignment from the Pittsburgh Courier and travels to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in August and September with reporter Wendell Smith to investigate training conditions for black troops.
1941
Credited Harris photos in the Pittsburgh Courier increase from one or two per issue to four or five per issue, suggesting Harris’s staff photographer position may have started in January. His salary is $35 per week and does not include equipment, supplies, or expenses. Studio work provides most of his income. Jack Strothers works for Harris as studio assistant, possibly in darkroom and on occasional assignments for club images or Courier work.
1943
Jessie Vann standing beside Liberty ship Robert L. Vann , with Mable Page Johnson, P. L. Prattis, and C. C. Spaulding, Portland, Maine, October 10, 1943, 2001.35.9386 Pittsburgh Courier sends Harris to Detroit in June to document aftermath of Detroit race riots, after local Courier photographer Langford James is injured by police. In October, Harris travels to Portland, Maine, to document the christening of Liberty Ship SS Robert L. Vann, named for owner of the Pittsburgh Courier.
1944
Portrait of Elsa Lee Elliott Harris with University of Pittsburgh and Cathedral of Learning in background, Oakland, c. 1944–1945, 2001.35.24402 Harris marries Elsa Lee Elliott (1920–1997) on January 26. They have four children: Ira Vann Harris (b. 1944), Lionel L. Harris (b. 1945), Crystal Harris (b. 1951), and Cheryl A. Harris (b. 1954).
mid-1940s
Dewey “Pimpy” Smith works for Harris as studio assistant, possibly in darkroom and on occasional assignments for club images or Courier work.
1945
Children gathered around cotton candy booth, possibly at Westview Park, c. 1945, 2001.35.3146 Harris exhibits his photographs at the First Annual Photographers Show at the Centre Avenue YMCA in February and receives award for his photograph Cotton Candy.
1948–1952
Pittsburgh mayor David Lawrence gives Harris the nickname “One Shot” in appreciation of his efficiency as a news photographer.
1950s
Credited Harris photos in the Pittsburgh Courier average over nine images per issue.
1950
Hand-colored portrait of Ella Mae “Olga” Taliaferro Harris, courtesy Charles A. Harris Harris’s mother, Ella Mae “Olga” Taliaferro Harris, dies on March 11; Harris and his family continue to live at family home at 7604 Mulford Street, Homewood.
1953
Interior of Charles "Teenie" Harris's basement at 7604 Mulford Street, with model train, photographic enlarger, chemical trays and darkroom equipment, and photographic negative and paper boxes stacked on shelves, c. 1945–1975, 2001.35.13892 Harris closes the Harris Studio at 2128 Centre Avenue and moves the darkroom to his home.
1955
Group portrait of Pittsburgh Courier newspaper employees, seated from left: Hazel Garland, John Clark, Willa Mae Rice; standing: Charles "Teenie" Harris, Frank Bolden, Ralph Koger, Rev. Burt Logan, and George Barbour, posed in Pittsburgh Courier office, c. 1955, 2001.35.44731 The first listing appears in Pittsburgh city directories for Harris as “photographer, Pittsburgh Courier.”
1957
Yvonne Young standing next to Pittsburgh Courier newspaper reporter, Downtown, February 1959, 2001.35.49036 Pittsburgh Courier launches “Pittsburghers Speak Up,” a regular column featuring man-on-the-street interviews on current topics accompanied by photographs. Harris will shoot over three thousand street portraits for this column between 1957 and 1977.
1960s
Pittsburgh Courier publishes almost ten Harris images per issue in the 1960s.
1966
John H. Sengstacke, publisher of the largest national chain of black newspapers, purchases the bankrupt Pittsburgh Courier, and starts a new corporation to publish the renamed New Pittsburgh Courier. There is no gap in publication. As a result of the bankruptcy, Harris loses his pension. Harris begins more frequent use of a medium-format camera and occasional use of a 35mm camera.
1967
Charles "Teenie" Harris's house, 7604 Mulford Street, Homewood, c. 1962, 2001.35.57533 Harris’s brother William “Woogie” Harris dies on October 11, leaving two properties. Ada, his widow, turns the deed to the Mulford Street home over to Harris the next year.
late 1960s
"Black Monday" demonstration with protesters Mike Desmond, Rev. Jimmy Joe Robinson, Nate Smith, and Byrd Brown in front of others, including Lloyd Bell, Dr. Norman Johnson, Aaron Mann, Louis Boykins, Vince "Roots" Wilson, police officer William "Mugsy "Moore, James "Swampman" Williams, and Matthew Moore, Freedom Corner, Lower Hill District, September 1969, 2001.35.10584 Harris documents meetings of local civil rights and protest organizations and covers marches and demonstrations for the New Pittsburgh Courier.
1970s
Harris’s salary from New Pittsburgh Courier is about $100 per week. From 1970 to 1975, the New Pittsburgh Courier publishes an average of four to six Harris images per issue.
1972
New Pittsburgh Courier honors Harris as “Citizen of the Week” for having photographed the black scene over the previous thirty years.
1972–1973
Harris is one of the subjects of He’s a Black Man!, a radio series sponsored by Sears Roebuck that features distinguished black men and women in Pittsburgh. Aired in 1972, the series was followed by an awards banquet in March 1973.
Early to mid-1970s
Harris begins more frequent use of 35mm camera and color film.
c. 1976
Harris retires from the New Pittsburgh Courier but continues to freelance for the newspaper. There is a steep drop in number of published Harris images.
1979
Harris’s brother George Harris dies.
1983
Last known use of a Harris image in the New Pittsburgh Courier occurs on April 23; it depicts a couple celebrating their sixtieth wedding anniversary.
1986
Harris signs a management agreement and contract with Dennis Morgan, Pittsburgh artist and entrepreneur. Through the urging of University of Pittsburgh sociology professor Rollo Turner, Morgan moves Harris’s negatives to the University of Pittsburgh for safekeeping and study until 1988. The first public exhibition of Harris’s photographs, Blacks in Pittsburgh, 1930–1950: The Crossroads of the World, is organized by Morgan and advised by Turner. It opens in June at the Carl M. Smith Cultural Center, 2161 Wylie Avenue, Hill District, Pittsburgh.
1988
Dennis Morgan starts a commercial operation, which he calls “The Pittsburgh Courier Photographic Archive,” that will sell prints and license images by Harris and several other regional black photographers. After selected Harris images are licensed to Corbis and other digital photo libraries, the work attracts national attention.
1991
The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission issues a resolution recognizing Harris’s “Outstanding contribution made to the documentation of the African American Community in Pittsburgh.”
1992
Pittsburgh City Councilman Duane Darkins issues a resolution declaring that Harris’s “works are a permanent record of African Americans’ achievements and contribution to mankind.”
1997
Carnegie Museum of Art purchases twenty-seven vintage Harris prints for its exhibition Pittsburgh Revealed and accepts the gift in honor of Rollo Turner of approximately 3,500 vintage Harris prints. The museum hires Harris as a consultant to assist with the catalog of the work. The exhibition Pittsburgh circa 1930–1970: Photographs by Charles “Teenie” Harris opens at the Silver Eye Center for Photography and the Kingsley Center. Harris receives Lifetime Achievement Award from Silver Eye Center for Photography for “photographic contribution to the history of Pittsburgh.” Harris’s wife, Elsa, dies on November 25.
1998
Harris sues Dennis Morgan for noncompliance with their 1986 contract; a lengthy lawsuit spearheaded by lawyer Cindy Kernick and assisted by Donna Dobrick eventually returns the negatives to the photographer’s estate. Along with the Pittsburgh Courier, Harris is awarded the 1997 George Polk Career Award in Journalism from Long Island University. Feature-length documentary about Harris’s life and work, One Shot by Pittsburgh filmmaker Kenneth Love, previews on June 11 at Carnegie Museum of Art. Harris is too ill to attend event. Harris dies in the early morning of June 12. He is buried at Homewood Cemetery on June 16.
2001
The Unsung Hero Award is presented posthumously to Harris by the Congressional Black Caucus Spouses and Museum of Americas.
2002
Harris is recognized with the President’s Award from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania.
2005
Harris is inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame.
2009
January 15 is declared “Teenie” Harris Day by the City of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. Harris receives the Spirit of King Award presented by the Port Authority of Allegheny County, The Kingsley Association, and the Pittsburgh Pirates.