Thomas W. Talley | |
|---|---|
 Talley circa 1902 | |
| Born | October 9, 1868 Shelbyville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Died | July 11, 1952 (aged 83) Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Fisk University |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Fisk University |
Thomas Washington Talley (October 9, 1868 – July 11, 1952) was a chemistry professor at Fisk University and a collector of African American folk songs.
Thomas Washington Talley was born on October 9, 1868, in Shelbyville, Tennessee. He was one of eight children born to former slaves, Charles Washington and Lucinda Talley. [1]
Talley attended public school for six years, followed by high school and college at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he received an A.B. in 1890 and a master's degree in 1893. Starting in 1888 he participated in the Fisk music program, singing with the New Fisk Jubilee Singers and the Mozart Society, as well as the Fisk Union Church. He also conducted the Fisk choir for a number of seasons. [2]
Talley received a Doctor of Science degree from Walden University in 1899. After completing his doctorate, Talley went on to participate in post graduate programs at Harvard University in 1914 and 1916. He completed his dissertation at the University of Chicago years later in 1931, at the age of 61. [1] The title of his dissertation is Theories relating to the constitution of the boron hydrides. [3]
Talley held teaching positions at several black colleges: Alcorn A&M College in Lorman, Mississippi, in 1891; at Florida A&M in Tallahassee, Florida, in 1893; and Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1900. [2]
From 1903 to 1942, Talley taught chemistry and biology at Fisk University. [1] He also chaired the chemistry department at Fisk for 25 years. [2] Talley-Brady Hall on Fisk's campus is named for Thomas Talley and St. Elmo Brady, another Fisk alumnus and chemist who was a student of Talley's. [4]
Talley began collecting rural black folk songs later in his life. Talley's first collection, published in 1922, Negro Folk Rhymes (Wise and Otherwise) contained 349 secular folksongs and spirituals. Already being well-known as the first such collection assembled by an African-American scholar, [2] the book was seen at the time as a "masterpiece of the field". [5] It was not only the first compilation of African-American secular folk songs, but also of folk songs of any kind from Tennessee. [2] An edited edition of Negro Folk Rhymes was re-released in 1991. Additional published works about music by Talley include The Origin of Negro Traditions and A Systematic Chronology of Creation. [1]
The publication of Negro Folk Rhymes marked a turning point in the study of African-American verse. Before its publication, little note had been taken of black secular traditions. Talley's book, along with a later collection by Howard Odum and Guy Johnson, called attention to these works. [6]
Talley married Ellen Eunice Roberts on August 28, 1899. The couple had two daughters. [2]
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary Black elite. Washington was from the last generation of Black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. They were newly oppressed in the South by disenfranchisement and the Jim Crow discriminatory laws enacted in the post-Reconstruction Southern states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Spirituals is a genre of Christian music that is associated with African Americans, which merged sub-Saharan African cultural heritage with the experiences of being held in bondage in slavery, at first during the transatlantic slave trade and for centuries afterwards, through the domestic slave trade. Spirituals encompass the "sing songs," work songs, and plantation songs that evolved into the blues and gospel songs in church. In the nineteenth century, the word "spirituals" referred to all these subcategories of folk songs. While they were often rooted in biblical stories, they also described the extreme hardships endured by African Americans who were enslaved from the 17th century until the 1860s, the emancipation altering mainly the nature of slavery for many. Many new derivative music genres emerged from the spirituals songcraft.
Fisk University is a private historically black liberal arts college in Nashville, Tennessee. It was founded in 1866 and its 40-acre (16 ha) campus is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sterling Allen Brown was an American professor, folklorist, poet, and literary critic. He chiefly studied black culture of the Southern United States and was a professor at Howard University for most of his career. Brown was the first Poet Laureate of the District of Columbia.
Aaron Douglas was an American painter, illustrator and visual arts educator. He was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance. He developed his art career painting murals and creating illustrations that addressed social issues around race and segregation in the United States by utilizing African-centric imagery. Douglas set the stage for young, African-American artists to enter the public-arts realm through his involvement with the Harlem Artists Guild. In 1944, he concluded his art career by founding the Art Department at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. He taught visual art classes at Fisk until his retirement in 1966. Douglas is known as a prominent leader in modern African-American art whose work influenced artists for years to come.
John Wesley Work III was an American composer, educator, choral director, musicologist and scholar of African-American folklore and music.
Lewis Wade Jones was a sociologist and teacher.
The Fisk Jubilee Singers are an African-American a cappella ensemble, consisting of students at Fisk University. The first group was organized in 1871 to tour and raise funds for college. Their early repertoire consisted mostly of traditional spirituals, but included some songs by Stephen Foster. The original group toured along the Underground Railroad path in the United States, as well as performing in England and Europe. Later 19th-century groups also toured in Europe.
"Wade in the Water" is an African American jubilee song, a spiritual—in reference to a genre of music "created and first sung by African Americans in slavery." The lyrics to "Wade in the Water" were first co-published in 1901 in New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers by Frederick J. Work and his brother, John Wesley Work Jr., an educator at the historically black college in Nashville, Tennessee, Fisk University. Work Jr. (1871–1925)—who is also known as John Work II—spent thirty years collecting, promoting, and reviving the songcraft of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers, which included being a member and director of the Fisk Jubilee Quartet. The Sunset Four Jubilee Singers made the first commercial recording of "Wade in the Water" in 1925—released by Paramount Records. W. E. B. Du Bois called this genre of songs the Sorrow Songs. "Wade in the Water" is associated with songs of the Underground Railroad.
Saint Elmo Brady was an American chemist who was the first African American to obtain a Ph.D. in chemistry in the United States. He received his doctorate at the University of Illinois in 1916.
John Wesley Work Jr. was a musicologist, who was the first African-American collector of folk songs and spirituals, and also a choral director, educationalist singer and songwriter. He is now sometimes known as John Wesley Work II, to distinguish him from his son, John Wesley Work III.
Alrutheus Ambush Taylor (1893–1954) was a historian from Washington D.C. He was a specialist in the history of blacks and segregation, especially during the Reconstruction Era. The Crisis cited him as a "painstaking scholar and authority on Negro history". An African-American, he taught at Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama, at the West Virginia Collegiate Institute in West Virginia, and at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Following a grant from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund, Taylor began researching the role of African Americans in the South during Reconstruction. He authored The Negro in South Carolina During the Reconstruction in 1924, The Negro in the Reconstruction of Virginia in 1926, and The Negro in Tennessee, 1865-1880 in 1941.
Nathaniel Oglesby Calloway was an American chemist and physician. Calloway was the first African American to receive an academic doctorate from an institute west of the Mississippi River and the first African American to receive a PhD in chemistry from Iowa State University (ISU).
Jennie Jackson was an American singer and voice teacher. She was one of the original members of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, an African-American a cappella ensemble. She toured with the group from 1871 to 1877. In 1891 she formed her own sextet, the Jennie Jackson Concert Company.
Rutherford Hamlet "Lubby" Adkins was an American military aviator and university administrator who served with the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. He flew fourteen combat missions with the Tuskegee Airmen. He came home to complete his education and earn multiple degrees: he was the first African American to earn a PhD from The Catholic University in Washington D.C. Adkins went on to serve in many positions in higher education including as President of Knoxville College and Fisk University.
Thomasina Talley Greene (1913–2003) was an African-American concert pianist and music educator who opened a music studio in 1942 in Jefferson City, Missouri. She was honored as a 1963 Missouri Woman of Achievement for her outstanding contribution to the arts, including a memorable recital at Lincoln University.
The American Negro Exposition, also known as the Black World's Fair and the Diamond Jubilee Exposition, was a world's fair held in Chicago from July until September in 1940, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the end of slavery in the United States at the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865.
Kenneth F. Space (1903–1971) was a pictorial journalist, documentary filmmaker, cinematographer and commercial photographer in the 1930s and 1940s. He is most known with his photographic and documentary film work capturing African American life in the American South for the Harmon Foundation.
Clinton J. Calloway was an American educator and school administrator. He was a leader of efforts to open and improve rural schools in Alabama and other areas in the American South.
Frederick Jerome Work was a collector, arranger ("harmonizer"), and composer of songs in the United States. He was part of a family of musicians and published a collection of "Negro spirituals" with his brother John Wesley Work.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
