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Augusta Clark

American politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ15992863
Source-derived summary

Augusta "Gussie" Clark (March 5, 1932 – October 13, 2013) was an American librarian, lawyer and politician. Clark was elected to an at-large seat on the Philadelphia City Council in 1979, becoming the second African-American woman to serve on the city council. (Ethel D. Allen, who served on the council from 1972 to 1979, was Philadelphia's first African-American councilwoman.)

Clark served on the Philadelphia City Council from 1980 until her retirement in 2000.

Biography

Early life

Clark was born Augusta Alexander on March 5, 1932, in Uniontown, Alabama, to Harrison and Lula B. Alexander. She was raised in Fairmont, West Virginia, and earned her bachelor's degree from West Virginia State College, now known as West Virginia State University. She met her future husband, Leroy W. Clark, while both were students at West Virginia State, though they did not marry until 1960, when both were living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The couple had two children, Mark and Adrienne. She had moved to Philadelphia after college for professional reasons. She was a member of the Bright Hope Baptist Church from 1954 until 2013.

Career

Clark moved to Philadelphia when she was hired as an assistant on the now defunct Color magazine.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Augusta Clark” as american politician. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1932, 2013, 1979, 1972—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1932-03-05. The account is most persuasive where Augusta, Clark and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american politician. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15992863. VIAF identifies the subject as 919150033023311180008. The Library of Congress control number is n2017041549. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1932, 2013, 1979 and 1972.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Augusta Clark”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Augusta Clark primary sources, Augusta Clark archive and Augusta research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Augusta Clark”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Augusta Clark” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.