“When White Men and Indians United Shall Praise:” Indigenous Inclusion in the Hartford Music Company
Program Type
Undergraduate
Faculty Advisor
Dr. Phoebe Robertson
Document Type
Presentation
Location
Face-to-face
Start Date
18-4-2024 1:00 PM
End Date
18-4-2024 1:30 PM
Abstract
The Hartford Music Company and Institute of Hartford, Arkansas has attracted increasing academic interest, particularly within the last twenty years. This southern gospel music publishing company and singing school based in southern Sebastian County published a collection of shape note hymnals which boasted some of the genre’s most prolific literature. Though a growing number of Arkansans are learning that these gospel staples came from their own hill country, many do not realize that several of these songs were premiered by or recorded by Indigenous people. While this may not initially seem particularly impactful, this genre developed its own distinct identity within the century between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. Segregated church congregations caused the genre to become closely associated with White composers, performers, and audiences, even being dubbed “White Spirituals” by George Pullen Jackson, a historian and pioneer of the genre during the twentieth century. Using archival research and interviews, I will expand upon the information about Indigenous involvement with the Hartford Music Company in David Deller’s article, “The Songbook Gospel Movement in Arkansas: E. M. Bartlett and the Hartford Music Company,” published by the Arkansas Historical Quarterly in 2001. The resulting presentation will explore the inclusion of Indigenous people in the Hartford Music Company and Institute in the context of both its White musical tradition and the social climate in southern Sebastian County in the early twentieth century.
Recommended Citation
Skaggs, Savannah N., "“When White Men and Indians United Shall Praise:” Indigenous Inclusion in the Hartford Music Company" (2024). ATU Research Symposium. 21.
https://orc.library.atu.edu/atu_rs/2024/2024/21
Included in
American Art and Architecture Commons, Christian Denominations and Sects Commons, Ethnomusicology Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, Musicology Commons, Native American Studies Commons
“When White Men and Indians United Shall Praise:” Indigenous Inclusion in the Hartford Music Company
Face-to-face
The Hartford Music Company and Institute of Hartford, Arkansas has attracted increasing academic interest, particularly within the last twenty years. This southern gospel music publishing company and singing school based in southern Sebastian County published a collection of shape note hymnals which boasted some of the genre’s most prolific literature. Though a growing number of Arkansans are learning that these gospel staples came from their own hill country, many do not realize that several of these songs were premiered by or recorded by Indigenous people. While this may not initially seem particularly impactful, this genre developed its own distinct identity within the century between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. Segregated church congregations caused the genre to become closely associated with White composers, performers, and audiences, even being dubbed “White Spirituals” by George Pullen Jackson, a historian and pioneer of the genre during the twentieth century. Using archival research and interviews, I will expand upon the information about Indigenous involvement with the Hartford Music Company in David Deller’s article, “The Songbook Gospel Movement in Arkansas: E. M. Bartlett and the Hartford Music Company,” published by the Arkansas Historical Quarterly in 2001. The resulting presentation will explore the inclusion of Indigenous people in the Hartford Music Company and Institute in the context of both its White musical tradition and the social climate in southern Sebastian County in the early twentieth century.