TINY TOTS IN TIARAS AND TUXEDOS

Hill relates her mother’s entrepreneurial and community legacy in this debut nonfiction work.

In 1951, the author’s father, Augustus Hill Sr., asked his wife, Kermit, to quit her government job and become a stay-at-home mother. As a person who always thought two steps ahead, she took his advice and shortly thereafter set up a daycare business, operated out of their St. Louis home. The Tiny Tot Nursery School would go onto become a staple of Black life in the city for decades to come. The highlight of Kermit’s school was its annual King and Queen Coronation, which grew into such a large event that, by the 1960s, it was held in a local middle-school auditorium. The event—a product of Kermit’s desire to “create a world where young Black children could be kings and queens,” writes Hill—featured preschoolers dressed as royalty, replete with crowns, carnations, tuxedos, black leather shoes, and elegant ball gowns. The author, who spent her childhood and young adult years working at Tiny Tots in various roles, effectively places her family’s story within the larger context of 20th-century Black history. Her mother, who was born in segregated Arkansas, was part of the Great Migration of Black people who left the rural South for jobs and opportunities in urban centers. Kermit’s business, set against the backdrop of the civil rights and Black Power movements, united her community behind notions of Black beauty and pride. Readers will find this to be an engaging book that often reads like a novel, as Hill tells the story in recreated scenes with dialogue based on Kermit’s meticulous written records and correspondence, which spanned multiple decades; it also features reflections of other family members and Tiny Tot alumni. Overall, this biography, memoir, and historical narrative is an important addition to the literature on mid-20th-century Black women entrepreneurs, accompanied by a wealth of photographs, news clippings, handwritten letters, and other visual elements.

An accessible, valuable addition to the histories of Black businesswomen in America.