- The Civil War Metaphors and Symbolism in Classical Music for Our Times-Walt Whitman’s “When Lilacs Last in The Dooryard Bloom’d”:From Paul Hindemith to George Walker.
- 1619 Project- “Ive Been In The Storm So Long”, Slave Songs, Runaway Slave Ads and Black Lives Matter.
- Racial Uplift 1900-30, A Dissonance in Ideologies about the future of Black Culture and Black Music.
- The African American Singer 1920-1960:Song and Singer as Messenger for Civil Rights: The Legacies of Roland Hayes, Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson.
- Baltimore-Freddie Gray:Black Maleness and Race in Early Recorded Sound.
- The Phonograph and Phonograph Record 1900-20: A breeding ground for The Red Summer of 1919.
- I Dream A World-African American classical composers and musicians 1900-1990.
- Historical Conductors: An exploration of creative approaches to the Classics in Classical Music through historic recordings .
- Billy Strayhorn-Duke Ellington: A Legacy of Creative Revolutions.
The Lectures Series and The Archive of Race and Performing Arts
Manhattan School of Music
Harlem:The Lost Generation of Black Classical Musicians 1918-1925 In The Shadow
of WW1 and The Great Migration
March 15, 2020
C-Span American History Channel presents
Bill Doggett in A Conversation on
The Black Minstrel Show
In Mass Media
with Author, Tim Brooks
#DiversityInclusion and The Classical Performing Arts,
A Legacy of Color
#BaltimoreFreddieGray
Black Maleness & Race in Early Recorded Sound
was the Conference closing presentation for
The Association For Recorded Sound Collections Conference Baltimore, Maryland
May 12th 2018
About The Bill Doggett Race and Early Sound Performing Arts
and Politics Archive
Inspired by the legendary Black-Puerto Rican archivist, Arthur Schomburg,
The Doggett Archive is a focused documentation of the African American and African Diasporic presence in Early Recorded Sound, The Classical Performing Arts and Freedom Struggles.
The Archive features a focus on ideas about Race and Racial identity in Early Recorded Sound {1900-1940}.
The contemporary value of these recordings acts as both a documentation and historic window into Race.The earliest recordings set in motion pre Civil War ideas about “Blackness” put into wax cylinders and early flat discs.These recordings made to help sell the “Ipod” of 1900, the phonograph record machine or Victrola created a mass produced technological commercialization of nostalgia for “the happy slave”, the tragic and ignorant yet crime focused free Negro male of “black face” Minstrelsy and more.These recordings of “Black faced White Vaudevillians” became the foundation of what would become iconic 1930s-1970s “Black humor” i.e. 1930s Step n Fetchit, 1940s Mantan Moreland ,1950s TV “Amos and Andy” forward to 1970s TV’s “Sanford and Son”
Their importance for contemporary discourse is invaluable.Please visit my website link below that offers a fuller Showcase of this topic with mp3 transfers of some of the recordings in this Archive.
I have lectured on this subject in Conferences and Residencies across the US showcasing live demos of these recordings on a table top Victrola {suitcase Victrola].
https://www.billdoggettproductions.com/Early-SOUND-Recordings-Archive.htmlAdditionally, there is a special “Newseum” of rare 1804 Charleston newspapers advertising the arrival of Slave Ships and the sale of Africans, Abolitionist era newspapers including the very rare 1850-1866 “Anti Slavery Standard”, Reconstruction era “Harpers Weekly” showcasing legendary Thomas Nast illustrations and a exceptional group of extremely rare and fragile 1895-1910 “The Freeman” newspapers.The Freeman was the first regular “Colored Newspaper” in print after The Civil War .The Freeman newspapers are an invaluable primary research source for editorial content by”Colored writers/journalists” about Jim Crow politics.
The papers are also rich in period advertising content including advertising to recruit African American entertainers for traveling “black face” Minstrelsy shows.Also of note are the mid century Political pamphlets that argue for dignity, human rights and full integration
of The Negro Race in American society.As seen in some of the photos below are the Socialist progressive pamphlets which document and argue for
the Socialist/Communist solutions to “The Negro Dilemma”
Note, images are watermarked for ownership protection. These images are solely provided to document limited aspects of The Archive for future exhibition reference.
Written permission from Bill Doggett Productions must be obtained to reproduce.
