John Cromwell

In their seventh and final collaboration, master impresario David O. Selznick (GONE WITH THE WIND, THE WIZARD OF OZ) wrote and produced while John Cromwell (THE PRISONER OF ZENDA, ABE LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS) directed this beloved World War II blockbuster about life on the home front. Claudette Colbert stars as Anne Hilton, an attractive housewife whose husband is fighting in Europe. SINCE YOU WENT AWAY examines the day-to-day lives of Anne and her fellow war brides as they find employment in ammunition factories, take in boarders to make ends meet, and try not to think about what might be happening to their husbands in combat..

When an industrious slave named Willis Hodges Cromwell earned the money to obtain liberty for his wife - who then bought freedom for him and for their children - he set in motion a family saga that resounds today. His youngest son, John Wesley Cromwell, became an educator, lawyer, and newspaper publisher - and one of the most influential men of letters in the generation that bridged Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois. Now, in "Unveiled Voices, Unvarnished Memories", his granddaughter, Adelaide M. Cromwell, documents the journey of her family from the slave marts of Annapolis to achievements in a variety of learned professions. John W. Cromwell began the family archives from which this book is drawn - letters and documents that provide an unprecedented view of how one black family thought, strived, and survived in American society from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. These papers reflect intimate thoughts about such topics as national and local leaders, moral behavior, color consciousness, and the challenges of everyday life in a racist society.