Lorenzo Tucker

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TopicsLocal PurposeHumanities

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Passage

Until my present study, African American entertainer Lorenzo Tucker had not been extensively discussed in histories of United States theater and film. Yet during a span of 60 years, from 1926 to 1986, he acted in 20 films and performed hundreds of times on stage as a dancer, vaudeville straight man, singer, on a part of U.S. entertainment history about which, so far, there has been insufficient scholarship.

I gathered much of the background material for my study of Tucker’s life through research in special collections of the New York and Los Angeles public libraries, including microfilmed correspondence, photographs, programs, and newspapers. Also examined—as primary source material for an analysis of Tucker’s acting technique—were the ten still available films in a group of personal, in-depth interviews I conducted with Tucker himself in 1985 and 1986.

There are both advantages and disadvantages in undertaking a biographical study of a living person. The greatest advantage is that the contemporary biographer has access to that person’s oral testimony. Yet this testimony must be approached with caution, since each person recounting his or her version of events for the historical record the duty of the biographer, therefore, to verify as much of the oral narrative as possible.

Information from Tucker has undergone careful scrutiny and has been placed up against the known facts for verification, and for the most part, information that could not be verified was not included in this study. But Tucker’s recollections of his personal life could not always be independently verified, of course, since most therefore, will weave together oral and other evidence to create the career biography of Lorenzo Tucker.

What this question is testing

Local Purpose

Your task

Identify why the author included the referenced detail at that point in the passage — its function, not its content.

Common trap

Answers that merely repeat or summarize the topic of the detail instead of describing the role it plays.

Winning move

Ask what job the detail does for the paragraph, then for the passage's broader point.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question

The author’s main purpose in mentioning Tucker’s collection of memorabilia (first paragraph)

Answer choices

Correct79% picked this
indicate a source from which the author drew information about Tucker's
Why this is right
This resonates with the bookend claim that comes after. It sounds somewhat like the 2nd of our predictions: - to explain half of the material that will be used to shed new light on an underserved part of US entertainment history. We can support this answer with the line "These artifacts help shed new light on a part of U.S. entertainment history about which, so far, there has been insufficient scholarship". What is "this part of U.S. entertainment history being alluded to?" It's referring to Lorenzo Tucker, as well as to the history of African American theater and film that he witnessed from the late 1920s until his death in 1986.
Skill tested: Local Purpose · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.
79%
Out of Scope: typical approaches1% picked this
provide a counterexample to a general claim about typical scholarly approaches to
There is no general claim about typical scholarly approaches to gathering data anywhere near the phrase we're being asked about.
1%
Doesn't Make Sense4% picked this
justify reliance on Tucker's personal
Our author told us that Tucker possesses tons of physical artifacts from this era of film / theater in order to justify that she would be relying on Tucker's personal memories instead? That doesn't make sense. She plans to use both his memories and this memorabilia. She says, "These artifacts, along with his memories, help shed new light". We could fix this answer by saying, "indicate, along with Tucker's personal memories, what evidence she'll be relying on".
4%
Out of Scope: nonprofessional interest14% picked this
give evidence of the range and diversity of Tucker's nonprofessional interests
Given that Tucker spent decades performing in and producing things for African American film / theater, he has a very professional interest in African American film / theater. His memorabilia is source material for this author's present study. It's not evidence of Tucker's accomplishments. It's just an invaluable archive of physical artifacts he amassed during his later years. And it's weird to say it relates to his nonprofessional interests when African American theater and film were his professions.
14%
Too Strong: typically3% picked this
indicate the nature of the data that are typically available to scholars who chronicle the
We have no support for the idea that in more than 50% of cases, scholars who chronicle the lives of entertainers have access to vast troves of memorabilia.
3%

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