Ophelia Devore
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Ophelia DeVore was the first African-American model in the United States. In 1946, she helped establish the Grace Del Marco Agency, one of the first modeling agencies in America focused on the ethnic market.
Life
DeVore was born on August 12, 1922 in Edgefield, South Carolina. DeVore was one of ten children of John Walter DeVore, who was German and French, and Mary Emma Strother, who was African-American and Indian. Her father owned a road contracting business and her mother was a teacher and church organist.
DeVore attended segregated schools until she was nine, and then moved to Winston-Salem to live with her mother’s brother, John. Two years later she was moved to New York City to stay with her great-aunt Stella Carter. This was to prevent any future educational interruptions due to her father's travel schedule.
She graduated from Hunter College High School and went on to New York University. There, she majored in mathematics and minored in languages.
In 1941, DeVore married Harold Cater. He was a fireman while she studied fashion, public relations, and advertising. Together, they had 5 children. They later divorced and she married her second husband, Vernon Mitchell, in 1968. He died in 1972.
The Grace Del Marco Agency
DeVore began doing occasional modeling when she was 16 years old. Because of the Great Depression, little work was available.
Around 1946, she and 4 friends established the Grace Del Marco Agency, one of the first modeling agencies in America focused on the ethnic market. This Black model agency paved the way for numerous African Americans in the industry.
In the agency's early days, it was a stepping stone for countless household names; Diahann Carroll, Helen Williams, Richard Roundtree, Cicely Tyson and others. Racism was rampant in New York’s fashion business and the Grace Del Marco Agency was one of the few places Black models could gain work.
Her agency's shows took place in churches, college campuses, and in the ballrooms of the Diplomat and Waldorf-Astoria hotels. Like many Blacks in the mid-twentieth century, DeVore’s breakthrough came in Europe; specifically through the French fashion world.
Initial impact to her Grace Del Marco Agency came with their entries at many of the Cannes Film Festivals during the 1950’s and 1960’s. Devore also seized the importance of media in her quest for business equity by co-hosting on ABC’s Spotlight on Harlem. Her intensity to "make it" demanded dedication and a non-stop work ethic; enough to cause a heart attack for DeVore while still in her twenties.
In the agency's later years it was renamed Ophelia DeVore Associates, and then the Ophelia DeVore Organization. In 1985, DeVore broadened her enterprise globally to include Swaziland as a client whilst also becoming publisher of her late husband’s newspaper The Columbus Times in Georgia.
Philosophy
DeVore has always maintained a role as activist for Black inclusion in the fashion industry whilst demanding a stronger investment by white American companies through advertising in Black businesses. Devore has said she created an industry concept designed to bring out the best in everyone.
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