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Party of the Century: Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. Citation No citation. Accessed February 17, 2015 12:08:54 AM EST Citable Link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:13041037 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University's DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA (Article begins on next page) Party of the Century Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball Plans for a Museum Exhibition Prototype Sarah Jane Rodman A Thesis in the Field of Museum Studies For the degree of Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies Harvard University Extension School November 2014 © Sarah Jane Rodman 2014 Abstract Party of the Century: Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball is a cultural history exhibition designed to transport museum visitors back to Capote’s masked dance held in New York City on November 28, 1966 in the Plaza Hotel’s Grand Ballroom. The interdisciplinary installation aims to reanimate host Truman Capote (1924-1984), author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) and In Cold Blood (1966); his honoree, Katharine Graham (1917-2001), President of the Washington Post; and the convergence of 540 attending guests who traveled from around the world for the candlelit festivities. Few people stood in a more central position in the mid-1960s than Capote, one of the most well-known writers in his life time (Plimpton, “T.C.” 300). His acquaintances and networks spanned disparate realms: partygoers were accomplished and interesting people from all walks of life who influenced the world around them in profound ways. In the gallery, cross-media displays—assembled from archives and museums as well as public and private collections—highlight the party’s fashion, glamour, guest list, music, and reverie as well as establish the historical context of what was going on in the world at large. By examining the people who played a part in this once-in-a-generation gathering, visitors come face to face with the cultural, political, and social dynamics concurrently evolving over the 1960s decade. The evening’s legacy endures and continues to resonate: people now refer to the Black and White Ball as a touchstone for its time. A prototype, as imagined, the exhibition will open at a metropolitan museum with plans to travel afterwards to other venues. Acknowledgements Thank you to my Thesis Director “extraordinaire,” Phyllis Magidson, Curator of Costumes and Textiles, Museum of the City of New York. You extended to me your keen insights, high standards, good counsel, and constant faith. The time we spent together at the City Museum over this past year has been transformative. Thank you to Katherine Burton Jones, the Assistant Director/Research Advisor “par excellence,” Masters in Liberal Arts in Museum Studies Extension School, Harvard University. You encouraged me to listen to, and work with, my own voice and vision and then connected me to the Museum of the City of New York. Your support has been most fortunate. Thank you to my now-grown children, Charles and Summer Lee Sterling, for your love and independence. For once you both achieved your collegiate degrees; I was able to return to Harvard University to earn this one. And to the spirit of Truman Capote, thank you for your perpetual gifts of literature and friendship. IV Table of Contents Chapter I.............................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter II ............................................................................................................................ 6 Evaluation Process .......................................................................................................... 6 Preliminary Front-End Survey .................................................................................... 6 Summative Evaluation Phase .................................................................................... 14 Chapter III ......................................................................................................................... 16 Context of the Event ..................................................................................................... 16 Chapter IV ......................................................................................................................... 25 Exhibition Narrative...................................................................................................... 25 Chapter V .......................................................................................................................... 47 Outreach ........................................................................................................................ 47 Special Events ........................................................................................................... 48 Public and Education Programs ................................................................................ 49 Chapter VI ......................................................................................................................... 54 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 54 V Appendices ........................................................................................................................ 60 Appendix A ................................................................................................................... 60 Guest List for the Black and White Ball ................................................................... 60 Appendix B ................................................................................................................... 67 Chronicle of the 1960s Decade ................................................................................. 67 Appendix C ................................................................................................................... 78 Exhibition Schedule .................................................................................................. 78 Appendix D ................................................................................................................... 83 Evaluation Addendum .............................................................................................. 83 Appendix E ................................................................................................................... 89 Object Information Summary ................................................................................... 89 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 133 VI Chapter I Introduction Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball (The Ball) was a unique assemblage of a remarkable group of people. The masked dance Capote hosted for 540 of his friends at the Plaza Hotel in 1966, a “tour de force of social engineering” (Davis, “POTC” 133), has earned a place in the common vernacular as the “Party of the Century” (Life 109). In hindsight, Capote’s event can be regarded as a legendary “bal masqué” as well as a progressive vehicle heralding generational change. The exhibition aims to illuminate for museum visitors the particulars of the Ball as well as acquaint them with what was happening during the encompassing era. There is much to learn about the history of the 1960s decade by investigating the lives of Capote’s friends who traveled to the hotel’s gilded ballroom from the four corners of the globe (Capote, “Guests” 215). The Ball defined a seminal moment when traditional social conventions began to give way and the new youth-oriented counterculture generation was making its mark (Collins 131). Biographer Deborah Davis chronicled Capote’s ball in Party of the Century and Katharine Graham’s life in Katharine the Great. Davis commented in a 2012 interview, “1966 was an important year because we were on the cusp of the world changing. In a very historic way, he [Capote] was inaugurating in the new world” (qtd. in Gilkey N. pag.). Capote’s mix of guests was an unprecedented blending of disparate realms and mirrored the rapidly shifting 1 circumstances of the times. At the Black and White Ball, the “Old Guard” and the “Avant-Garde” danced together that night. The 1960’s decade opened with a civil rights sit-in on February 1st at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina and, later that year, John F. Kennedy's fabled November 8th Presidential election. It ended in 1969 with Woodstock, the first man landing on the moon, and 475,000 United States troops at war in South East Asia. Andy Warhol biographer Steven Watson summarized the era in his book, Factory Made, “The Sixties is not just the name for a decade but for a real-yet-mythical era of rebellion, America’s great rupture” (32). The year the Ball took place, 1966, was one full of change. Charismatic United States Congressman John Lindsay had been elected Mayor of New York. On his first day in office, January 1, 1966 he walked three miles to work. The Transport Workers Union of America, representing New York City’s mass transit