African Americana

10 3/4 x 20 in. letterpress broadside (edges scuffed with bits of missing paper, no text missing; overall browning). Featuring portraits of the singers surrounding a central portrait of their manager. Stamp at top: “Union Hall, Orford / Friday Evening Nov. 30, 1883.” Likely Orford, New Hampshire.

On verso: "C.S. Dwinell's Twelft Annual Tour, with Great Success!" Following this is a list of tunes (90 of them) that the group performed. 

Broadside also has a brief description of the group: “They have excellent voices and harmonize well, and I know of no entertainment so well adapted to benefit all classes and creeds as this, and I heartily recommend them to the sympathy and patronage of he public wherever they may go. Rev. George Dobson, Norwich, Ct.” Plus several other “testimonials.” The center of the portraits is of their manager, C.S. Dwinell, surrounded by six of he singers. Between the two upper right portraits is penciled "Dinah" and by the lower right portrait "Topsy." The vignette below the portraits is of African-Americans picking cotton, with an overseer on horseback holding a long gun (as it likely was during the years of slavery).

A group called the Jubilee Singers were established by Fisk University treasurer George White in 1871 as a fund-raising exercise for the new university. That group was composed of Fisk students, all formerly enslaved, plus advisors. They traveled the country and eventually Europe, becoming so popular they were asked to play for the President of the US, the Queen of England, and other dignitaries. Much of their program was spirituals, in keeping with their secondary goal of positively representing African-Americans. They were successful enough to be able to fund the construction of Jubilee Hall, the first building on the Fisk campus.

The success of the Fisk Jubilee Singers spurred others to form “Jubilee” groups, often without the higher principles of the original group, many of these followers being simply bands of minstrels (some likely associated with vaudeville). The Norfolk Jubilee group, however, seems to have been on the same plane as the Fisk group, wanting to represent formerly enslaved people to the greatest advantage.

NOTE the penciled names near the portraits.