Hi! I'm Emily Needle, a second year undergraduate student reading History at Newcastle University in England, and I have a particular interest in American History. I found my love for it at GCSE (aged 15) when studying a course on the American West. Cowboys and Indians and all the other stereotypical stuff. And no other area of History has ever been as exciting to me since.
I'm really fortunate to have been awarded a vacation scholarship from my University which gives me a grant of money to carry out some research on a project I have designed myself. So I guess I just made this blog to document my trip. I will be in America for 5 weeks, or 37 days, (9th July - 15th August 2015) and my very wonderful other half Joseph is going with me to keep me in check, and for us to be able to have a holiday at the same time!
My research project utilizes the Jenkins Orphanage Band from Charleston (South Carolina) as a case study to explore some of the bigger questions surrounding the development and dissemination of Jazz in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century United States. I will (hopefully) examine the ethnic and economic profile of Jazz audiences in an attempt to assess the reception of Jazz, and the extent to which Jazz, developed in the segregated environment of the ‘Jim Crow’ South, was able to cross class and racial divisions among national audiences.
(I may have copied and pasted some of that from my application...)
The title of my project is 'From Rags Through Race to Ragtime: The Jenkins Orphanage Band and American Audience Response to Jazz in Turn of the Century Charleston' - hence the blog title.
The band itself was formed in the 1890s and came out of an orphanage founded in Charleston in 1891 by Reverend Daniel Joseph Jenkins. He discovered some young black boys sleeping on the street who said they had no parents, and he took them home and gave them some food. This continued, with more and more boys from around the city coming for food, until he managed to purchase a warehouse and turned it into Jenkins Institute. To raise funds for the orphanage Jenkins asked for people to donate old instruments, and the boys began to play on the streets of Charleston. At first they played traditional American tunes that the people would know, but the influence of their ancestors and the African Gullah rhythms they had been taught naturally infused in the music as they played. This new sound was something the American people had not heard before, and they loved it. The popular dance 'The Charleston' originated in this city and came from an series of steps known to African-Americans as they danced to this new type of music which eventually became known as 'Jazz'. The band soon became so popular that they toured all round the US, and visited London and Paris. Musicians such as Jazz trumpeters William 'Cat' Anderson and Jabbo Smith were Jenkins orphanage alumni. The band disbanded in the 1980s.
It is this band that forms the core of my research. So little is known or has been written about them and I feel it is so important for their story to be heard. As a musician myself and a lover of Jazz music, it seemed natural for me to combine my love of American history and music to discover the history of these orphan boys who captured so many hearts. The backdrop of the US South during this period is one of extreme racial tension and violence. The civil war ended in 1865 and slavery was deemed unconstitutional, and yet black people's lives were scarcely much better than their ancestors' had been. Laws against their freedom and citizenship were introduced and the increasingly segregated South became known as 'Jim Crow'. It fascinates me how the American public could love this band so much, and yet at the same time a few streets away white mobs were murdering black people for crimes such as simply living in the same area as them. Finding a newspaper from 1911 advertising a concert the Jenkins band were doing in New York, underneath an article about the first lynching in Pennsylvania the previous day, really put everything in perspective for me.
Of course only a few weeks ago 9 people were shot in one of Charleston's oldest black churches, by a white man associated with beliefs about white supremacy. This hate and racial prejudice still continues. It is bizarre and wrong that in 2015 the subject I am researching as 'history' has been brought alive again in such a raw and painful way.
I am travelling down the East Coast this summer to try and answer some of the questions I have about the connections between Jazz and race, and to hopefully enlighten other people too. This research will form the basis of my dissertation as I start my 3rd and final year of my undergraduate degree in September. For the vacation scholarship I have to produce an academic poster from my findings. I don't pretend to be an expert on music, or Jazz, but my boyfriend is studying music at the Royal Northern College of Music and knows a lot more than I do and so it will be so helpful to have him with me.
We will be visiting Washington D.C, New York City, Philadelphia (PA) , Richmond (VA), Williamsburg (VA), Charleston, Birmingham (Al) and New Orleans.
I'm not sure how often I'll post, and there is a chance of course that I will find not much of interest. But I doubt that. Though there are no academic books I can find about Jazz music in Charleston and on the Jenkins Orphanage Band, I know the material is all there, waiting to be studied and collected. From the research I have been doing online in the last few weeks there is a mountain of information available. I will be visiting the Library of Congress, the archives in Birmingham, and in Charleston the Avery Research Centre, the Charleston Jazz Initiative, and the College of Charleston collections which includes the documents from the Jenkins Institute.
Everyone I have been in touch with about my research has shown such kindness and given me a lot of help and advice that I am very grateful for. I will be meeting some incredible people whilst in the US who are very high in their respective fields, and I am humbled to be starting out my research and following in their shoes as a mere undergraduate.
To anyone reading this who is a first or second year student at Newcastle University, I highly recommend that you look into the vacation scholarships and apply for one. It's a really incredible opportunity! And of course you decide yourself what you are going to study, so you can do it on anything.
If after my project, just a few more people are aware and appreciative of the impacts of Charleston on the history of Jazz music, and on race relations, then I'll be happy.
So please follow my blog to keep up-to-date with what me and Joseph are up to in the US! This project really means a lot to me as you can probably tell. And we are incredibly, incredibly excited for this trip!
Here, have a photo so you know what we look like!
Emily x
The title of my project is 'From Rags Through Race to Ragtime: The Jenkins Orphanage Band and American Audience Response to Jazz in Turn of the Century Charleston' - hence the blog title.
The band itself was formed in the 1890s and came out of an orphanage founded in Charleston in 1891 by Reverend Daniel Joseph Jenkins. He discovered some young black boys sleeping on the street who said they had no parents, and he took them home and gave them some food. This continued, with more and more boys from around the city coming for food, until he managed to purchase a warehouse and turned it into Jenkins Institute. To raise funds for the orphanage Jenkins asked for people to donate old instruments, and the boys began to play on the streets of Charleston. At first they played traditional American tunes that the people would know, but the influence of their ancestors and the African Gullah rhythms they had been taught naturally infused in the music as they played. This new sound was something the American people had not heard before, and they loved it. The popular dance 'The Charleston' originated in this city and came from an series of steps known to African-Americans as they danced to this new type of music which eventually became known as 'Jazz'. The band soon became so popular that they toured all round the US, and visited London and Paris. Musicians such as Jazz trumpeters William 'Cat' Anderson and Jabbo Smith were Jenkins orphanage alumni. The band disbanded in the 1980s.
It is this band that forms the core of my research. So little is known or has been written about them and I feel it is so important for their story to be heard. As a musician myself and a lover of Jazz music, it seemed natural for me to combine my love of American history and music to discover the history of these orphan boys who captured so many hearts. The backdrop of the US South during this period is one of extreme racial tension and violence. The civil war ended in 1865 and slavery was deemed unconstitutional, and yet black people's lives were scarcely much better than their ancestors' had been. Laws against their freedom and citizenship were introduced and the increasingly segregated South became known as 'Jim Crow'. It fascinates me how the American public could love this band so much, and yet at the same time a few streets away white mobs were murdering black people for crimes such as simply living in the same area as them. Finding a newspaper from 1911 advertising a concert the Jenkins band were doing in New York, underneath an article about the first lynching in Pennsylvania the previous day, really put everything in perspective for me.
Of course only a few weeks ago 9 people were shot in one of Charleston's oldest black churches, by a white man associated with beliefs about white supremacy. This hate and racial prejudice still continues. It is bizarre and wrong that in 2015 the subject I am researching as 'history' has been brought alive again in such a raw and painful way.
I am travelling down the East Coast this summer to try and answer some of the questions I have about the connections between Jazz and race, and to hopefully enlighten other people too. This research will form the basis of my dissertation as I start my 3rd and final year of my undergraduate degree in September. For the vacation scholarship I have to produce an academic poster from my findings. I don't pretend to be an expert on music, or Jazz, but my boyfriend is studying music at the Royal Northern College of Music and knows a lot more than I do and so it will be so helpful to have him with me.
We will be visiting Washington D.C, New York City, Philadelphia (PA) , Richmond (VA), Williamsburg (VA), Charleston, Birmingham (Al) and New Orleans.
I'm not sure how often I'll post, and there is a chance of course that I will find not much of interest. But I doubt that. Though there are no academic books I can find about Jazz music in Charleston and on the Jenkins Orphanage Band, I know the material is all there, waiting to be studied and collected. From the research I have been doing online in the last few weeks there is a mountain of information available. I will be visiting the Library of Congress, the archives in Birmingham, and in Charleston the Avery Research Centre, the Charleston Jazz Initiative, and the College of Charleston collections which includes the documents from the Jenkins Institute.
Everyone I have been in touch with about my research has shown such kindness and given me a lot of help and advice that I am very grateful for. I will be meeting some incredible people whilst in the US who are very high in their respective fields, and I am humbled to be starting out my research and following in their shoes as a mere undergraduate.
To anyone reading this who is a first or second year student at Newcastle University, I highly recommend that you look into the vacation scholarships and apply for one. It's a really incredible opportunity! And of course you decide yourself what you are going to study, so you can do it on anything.
If after my project, just a few more people are aware and appreciative of the impacts of Charleston on the history of Jazz music, and on race relations, then I'll be happy.
So please follow my blog to keep up-to-date with what me and Joseph are up to in the US! This project really means a lot to me as you can probably tell. And we are incredibly, incredibly excited for this trip!
Emily x
On the recent Charleston shootings, you say: "It is bizarre and wrong that in 2015 the subject I am researching as 'history' has been brought alive again in such a raw and painful way". A point very well made, Emily, and an important link between the history we are making right now, every day of our lives, and interpretations we make of our past history.
ReplyDeleteThe most important feature of history, for me, is its interpretation - in other words being able to put ourselves in the shoes of anyone who lived at the time and in the midst of their particular historical circumstances.
It is said that history has always been written by the 'winners'! My feeling is that this is changing and, as long as social media remains open and (reasonably) unrestricted - particularly here in Blogosphere - the opportunity to record the unbiassed truth, the unexpurgated facts, increasingly presents the human race with the opportunity to make real (humane) progress.
You write well, M'am. If this start is anything to go by, I look forward to reading the rest.
P.S. Just a thought: you probably already do this, but I got into the habit of clicking the 'Reader' button on the right hand end of the URL bar, highlighting, copying and pasting each blog into a separate document and, if it's really important e.g. for your studies, print it out or at least digitally archive it.