Virginia "Ginger" Osbourne
Photo included with student application. Courtesy of Western Regional Archives.
Courtesy of Western Regional Archives
FOCUS
General Studies
ROLE
Student
ATTENDANCE
1943 - 1944
BIRTH
1925-05-14
New York City, NY
DEATH
1984-12-17
Boston, MA
Virginia Osbourne was a student at the college from 1943 to 1944 where she took Weaving with Anni Albers. She also participated in the student-run maintenance crew and the entertainment committee.
Relationships
Sister: Fellow BMC student, Elizabeth Osbourne
Asheville Art Museum Collection
Writings about Ginger can be seen in digitized college bulletins on Asheville Art Museum's collection website: collection.ashevilleart.org. They can be found by searching these accession numbers or searching "Osbourne." Her name appears as Virginia and Ginger in collection items.
Ginger reported weekly updates for the maintenance crew while a student, so her name appears in dozens of college bulletins.
2017.40.131 November 1943 bulletin,
"REPORT OF ENTERTAINMENT COMMITTEE: There will be a program of dramatic readings in the Dining Hall on Saturday, November 6, at 8:00 P.M. “The Proposal” by Anton Chokhov, “The Man of Destiny” by Bernard Shaw and “Miss Julia” by August Strindberg will be read. Sam Brown, Virginia Osbourne, Addison Bray, Janie Stone, Ted Hines, Jack Gifford and Barbara Pollet will take the parts. The program will be under the direction of Eric Bentley."
2017.40.147 March 1944 bulletin, "Black Mountain College was represented last week end at the Conference of Southeastern College International Relations Clubs held at Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina in Greensboro. The delegation included: Mary Brett, Jerome Flax, Frances de Graaff, Mary Kriger, Virginia Osbourne, Marita Pevsner, Dorice Tentchoff and Lana Yarashint one of the sessions Mary Brett read a paper on “The Leadership Responsibilities of Britain, China, Russia and the United States in the Post-War World.” At all the sessions the Black Mountain College students participated in the discussion. During their stay in Greensboro the delegates had lunch on Friday and Saturday in Bennett College, a Negro School."
In a letter from Jeanne Hodges to Jane Slater, 1947:
"Ginger Osbourne is trying to break into the modelling business and is doing quite well, I think. She gets more beautiful every time I see her."
Author
Amanda Hartman
Amanda Hartman is the creator of BMC Yearbook, serving as the lead director, engineer, and researcher. She holds a MLIS in archive/ collections management, MA in art/ museum education, and BA in design. After working in museums and archives for a decade, she made the transition to tech and is now a software developer specializing in applications for museums, archives, and higher education.
Her interest in Black Mountain College began while working as a digital archivist with the Asheville Art Museum's BMC archive collection. She transcribed and digitized over 1500 documents created by the college. While working closely with these archives, she began independent research on the interracial program and Negro Week activities BMC, writing biographies of lesser known students and staff members. That research transformed into this BMC Yearbook project.
