[African Americana]. [Louisiana]

The Only Original University Singers of New Orleans [caption title]

New York: Bogardus, [ca. 1880]. Cabinet card photograph. Slight fading to image. Light dust soiling. Good plus. Item #6439

Scarce image of the University Singers of New Orleans, founded in 1877 as a jubilee touring group to raise money for the Louisiana Colored Orphans' Home and the LaTeche Seminary. The group had eight founding members, pictured here -- Alexander Brown and Joseph Dupuy, bass; Charles Ardis and George Benn, tenor; Cora Smith and Sarah Merritt, alto; and Lizzie Parker and Tillie Jones, soprano. Jones eventually became the first Black woman to perform at Carnegie Hall, in 1892. seated at the center of the photo is the company's white director, Dr. William David Godman. The "Only Original" singers performed as the pictured group until 1882. We locate two copies of a similar image to the present photograph, in which the arm positions of the two seated men is slightly different, at UCLA and the Smithsonian African-American Museum.

Price: $500.00