Hampton & Tuskegee Institute and the Preservation of Black Sacred Music, "Religious Folk Songs of the Negro," 1909

Thomas P. Fenner Hampton Tuskegee Institute

Book

"Religious Folk Songs of the Negro as Sung on the Plantations," 1909, issued by Hampton Institute as its fourth publication of plantation religious songs and expanded with twenty five selections supplied through Fisk University, Tuskegee Institute, the Calhoun Colored School, and the Penn School. The volume records a formative stage in the institutional preservation of spirituals, when educators and musical directors sought to retain songs transmitted through enslaved communities while adapting their variable pitch, rhythm, and collective performance to printed scores. Thomas P. Fenner had prepared the musical portion of Hampton’s 1874 Hampton and Its Students; this new edition placed that earlier work within a broader network of Black educational institutions and repertories.

Fenner, Thomas P. Religious Folk Songs of the Negro as Sung on the Plantations. Hampton, Virginia: The Institute Press, 1909. New edition. Arranged by the musical directors of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute from Fenner’s original edition. Robert R. Moton’s “Note to New Edition,” dated May 11, 1909, states that the book was being published “for the fourth time” and identifies Professor F. J. Work of Fisk University, Mrs. Jennie C. Lee of Tuskegee Institute, the Calhoun Colored School, and the Penn School as sources for the added songs. The score opens with “Oh, Den My Little Soul’s Gwine to Shine,” introduced as the song of a boy sold away from his mother, and includes “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Nobody Knows de Trouble I’ve Seen,” “Roll, Jordan, Roll,” “Go Down, Moses,” “Steal Away,” and more than one hundred other indexed titles. Small penciled script, likely initials, appears at the front; folded corners on multiple leaves mark individual songs and preserve evidence of repeated consultation or performance use.

The preface describes two competing methods of presenting the music: retaining its “absolute, rude simplicity” or developing it through harmony without destroying its original character. Moton extends that problem in his 1909 note, explaining that Hampton singers followed the notation only generally and achieved better results after learning an air and singing it “as seems to them most easy and natural.” Such statements expose the limits of fixing an oral and embodied tradition on the page, while the printed dialect, editorial commentary, and institutional attributions document the cultural assumptions through which early twentieth century educators mediated African American sacred music. The book comprises 178 pages with printed music and lyrics, index, original burgundy cloth, and gilt cover lettering, measuring 5.5 x 9 x .5 inches. Some toning to the pages; small penciled script at the front; multiple folded corners marking songs; binding strong. Overall very good condition. A copy whose signs of use connect Hampton’s printed preservation project with the later selection and return of particular songs.

Item #23648

Price: $385.00