Editing Billie Holiday (section)

== Philadelphia Birth ==

Eleanora Fagan was born on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, to Sadie Fagan and Clarence Holiday. Her birth took place at Philadelphia General Hospital, though details of her earliest months remain unclear due to inconsistent records and Holiday's own conflicting accounts in later years. Her parents were unmarried teenagers—Sadie was nineteen, Clarence only seventeen—and the family circumstances were unstable from the beginning. Clarence Holiday, who would later become a jazz guitarist, was largely absent, and Sadie struggled to support herself and her daughter.<ref name="nicholson">{{cite book |last=Nicholson |first=Stuart |title=Billie Holiday |year=1995 |publisher=Northeastern University Press |location=Boston}}</ref>

The family left Philadelphia when Billie was still an infant, relocating to Baltimore, where she would spend most of her childhood. The move severed her connection to Philadelphia, though her birth certificate and early records confirm the city as her birthplace. Baltimore's influence on her early life—including the traumatic experiences she later described in her autobiography—shaped the emotional intensity that would characterize her singing, but Philadelphia can claim the distinction of being where America's greatest jazz singer entered the world.<ref name="blackburn"/>