American Historical Ephemera and Photography, Featuring African Americana

5 x 3 1/4 in. mounted albumen photograph (great tonality, few surface spots; mount with toning, spotting, and wear/loss to edges and corners). N.p., ca 1876. A formal group portrait of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, including Maggie Porter, E.W. Watkins, H.D. Alexander, F.J. Loudin, Thomas Rutling, Jennie Jackson, Mabel Lewis, Ella Sheppard, Maggie Carnes, and America W. Robinson. This portrait was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth while the singers were in London.

2 1/4 x 3 5/8 in. CDV on cardstock mount (toning, spotting, few stray marks; mount with discoloration and wear to edges and corners). Verso bears imprint: "American Missionary Association / Jubilee Singers, / Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn." There is one less subject in this portrait than the one above.

13 1/4 x 10 in. composite silver gelatin photograph (toning, soiling, abrading to surface obscuring at least one portrait, tearing and loss to edges and corners). [Tennessee]: Schumacher Studio, ca 1928. Photograph features more than 60 oval portraits of individual members of the "Graduating Class of 1928 / Fisk University."

Established three years after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, Fisk University was the first American university purposed to provide a liberal arts education to African American students. Due to diminished funding the institution soon struggled financially, leading a group of nine students to form an a capella group in hopes of raising money. The vocalists, many of whom were formerly enslaved, became known as the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Their performances (including most notably at the White House for Ulysses S. Grant and at Buckingham Palace for Queen Victoria) introduced audiences across the world to African American spirituals such as "Go Down Moses," "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," and "Did the Lord Deliver Daniel," with inspiring results. Mark Twain, who was a frequent audience member of the Jubilee Singers, wrote of the experience:

"I was reared in the South, & my father owned slaves, & I do not know when anything has so moved me as did the plaintive melodies of the Jubilee Singers. It was the first time for twenty-five or thirty years that I had heard such songs, or heard them sung in the genuine old way—& it is a way, I think, that white people cannot imitate—& never can, for that matter, for one must have been a slave himself in order to feel what that life was & so convey the pathos of it in the music."

While the original group disbanded in 1878, a new version was created in 1879 including some original members. The Fisk Jubilee Singers continue to perform to this day, building on and promoting the legacy of the original singers who used their common heritage and talent to support their groundbreaking institution nearly 150 years ago.