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393
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(MUSIC.)
The University Singers of New Orleans.
Pair of albumen cabinet
card photographs; one showing the singers themselves, the other posed with what seem to
be a few of the children of the Colored Orphans’ Home. Both mounts and images lightly
toned.
Philadelphia: Sawyer, circa late 1870’s
[600/900]
The “University Singers of New Orleans” were founded by the Methodist Freedmen’s School in
1877, specifically to raise funds to rescue a faltering Colored Orphans’ Home in Bayou Teche. We
were able to find one copy of one of these cards at the Schomburg Center, and another card showing a
different sitting of the same group at the Beinecke Library at Yale.
393
394
394
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(MUSIC.)
Two cabinet card
photographs: The Fisk Jubilee Singers
and one of Minnie Tate, a member
of the group.
Albumen photographs
with captions on the reverse; both photos
are sepia tones.
“Negative by Black,”Nashville, circa 1871
[800/1,200]
Two fine photographs from the Fisk Jubilee
Singers: the first photo shown here, that of the
group, does not include Minnie Tate, the subject of
the second photograph. And, strangely enough,
the reverse caption on the group photo states
Fisk Jubilee “Quartette,” yet there are five peo-
ple; the two men standing and three women
seated. The Fisk Singers’ rigorous tour schedule
took a terrible toll on the health of the singers
and their leader, George White. White lost his
wife to typhoid and nearly died himself of a
pulmonary hemorrhage. According to the official
history, contralto Minnie Tate’s voice was “torn
to shreds,” from having to shout to be heard, in
the large halls, in pre-loudspeaker days.