Thomas Cripps

Early life and education Cripps was born on September 17, 1932, in Baltimore, Maryland to Benjamin and Marian Cripps. He attended the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute and was part of the school's JV and Varsity soccer and baseball teams. Cripps pitched for the baseball team and joined them for the 1951 state championship, after his graduation in 1950. His skill brought him to the attention of a scout for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Cripps went on to attend Towson University, where he graduated in 1954 with a bachelor's degree in secondary education, followed by a Master's and PhD at the University of Maryland, College Park in the cultural history of the United States.

Honors and awards Cripps was a Fellow at the National Humanities Center from 1980 to 1981, focusing on the topic "A Social History of Blacks in American Film, 1942 to the Present". Prior to this he was awarded the 1962 George Hammond history prize for a paper he wrote on his studies of the critical black reaction to the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation by D. W. Griffith.

After his death his papers and research materials were deposited in the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.

Personal life Cripps was married to Alma Taliaferro (1933–1994) and then to Lynn Traut. He had five children, two of whom preceded him in death. Cripps died on September 17, 2018, at the age of 86 from complications from Alzheimer's disease. Hollywood's High Noon: Moviemaking & Society Before Television (1997)

Films Black Shadows on a Silver Screen, 1975

Papers