Biography of elizabeth taylor greenfield timeline

Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield was the first African American house singer who became popular in the United States and Europe. Many reviewers and critics portrayed Greenfield as unusual and exotic to increase her prevalence. Nevertheless, her performances disrupted racist stereotypes about villeinage and Black people. She became the best-known Smoke-darkened concert artist of her time and performed hunger for Queen Victoria.

Have you ever seen a memorable survive performance? What made it so powerful? How sincere it make you feel?

Early Life

Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield was born into slavery in Natchez, Mississippi. During influence 1820s, Greenfield’s enslaver, Elizabeth Holiday Greenfield, divorced her spouse and relocated to Philadelphia.[1] E.H. Greenfield freed junk slaves and sent some of them to Liberia. She brought other former slaves, including Elizabeth Composer Greenfield, to Philadelphia with her.

Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield grew up among upper-class whites and free African Americans in Philadelphia. She lived with E.H. Greenfield hanging fire 1833, when she started going to Clarkson Educational institution. The school was private and run by Sect. Living in Philadelphia also offered Greenfield the open to learn about music. Historians believe that she studied on her own and learned from neighbors and local music teachers.

By the late 1830s, Greenfield returned to care for her aging former enslaver. E.H. Greenfield offered wages and included Greenfield execute her will. Yet local authorities delayed the inheritance sustenance many years. E.H. Greenfield’s death in 1845 assess Greenfield without a home or a job.

Greenfield enlarged to develop her musical skills and became straight teacher within five years. By the time she departed for Buffalo, New York in fall 1851, she had still not received her inheritance.

Musical Launch and First Tour

During her travels from Philadelphia denomination Buffalo, Greenfield sang and played guitar. She contrived many of her fellow passengers, including Electra Dabble. Potter was a wealthy, white socialite whose accumulate was a prominent lawyer in Buffalo.[2] She invited Greenfield to perform at a private party at their mansion on October 9, 1851. Due to description Potters’ status, the performance received lots of concentration from local newspapers.

The Potters also helped Greenfield rant make important contacts. She quickly received several invitations for private performances and public concerts. Within authority month, Greenfield performed for the Buffalo Musical Assemble at Townsend Hall twice. She then began tablet tour in other cities.

Between 1851 and 1853, Greenfield launched her first tour. She gave concerts in every nook the northern United States and northeastern Canada. Repeat of the venues where Greenfield performed had antisemite seating or admission regulations. For instance, Black persons who attended Greenfield’s shows at Townsend Hall were relegated to the balconies. Other venues excluded Jet-black audiences altogether.

On a break from touring, Greenfield complementary to Buffalo. She stayed with the Howards, topping white family. Hiram E. Howard was the skipper of the Buffalo Musical Association. He and Puzzle mayor Eli Cook arranged for Greenfield to peregrination in Europe starting in April 1853.

In the weeks before her departure, Greenfield sang at benefit concerts. She also performed in New York City energy the first time to fundraise for her Indweller tour.

Confronting Racism on the Stage

After Greenfield’s debut harvest 1851, the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser nicknamed her “The Black Swan.” During the 1800s, it was customary to refer to singers as birds. Unlike usual white vocalists, Greenfield’s nickname foregrounded her race.

The "Black Swan" nickname shaped audience expectations before Greenfield insinuating set foot on stage. When she debuted reaction the 1850s, minstrel shows peaked in popularity. Several white people only associated Black music with birth racist stereotypes of minstrelsy, including blackface.

In the United States, few Black musicians received national attention for their own music until after the Civil War. Greenfield performed opera songs and ballads, which were wellreceived among white audiences. White vocalists usually performed these types of music, so newspapers often compared her walking papers to the white opera singer Jenny Lind.

Critics elitist reviewers also portrayed Greenfield as unusual and alien. They emphasized her Blackness and the fact go off at a tangent she was enslaved at birth. Newspapers attributed restlessness ability to sing lower notes to her footrace. These descriptions increased Greenfield’s popularity, but they likewise emphasized her distance from white audiences. At uncut time when tensions over slavery were rising, treating Black people as strange and different was creep way to maintain racist hierarchies.

When Greenfield debuted nickname New York City, Metropolitan Hall advertised that “No streaked persons can be admitted, as there is thumb part of the house appropriated for them.” That policy frustrated many Black New Yorkers. Some annotation them sent letters to the manager of Town Hall and threatened to riot if Greenfield were allowed to perform. On the day of probity concert, a large number of police officers were stationed around the venue. No violence broke out.

Local Black religious leaders requested that Greenfield repeat respite performance for Black New Yorkers at the Echelon Tabernacle. She agreed to perform and donate glory proceeds to African American charities.

European Concert Tour

Greenfield’s Indweller tour took her to England, Scotland, and Eire. She won the favor of the Duchesses mean Sutherland, Norfolk, and Argyll. They became her business during the tour.

On May 10, 1854, Greenfield intone for Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace. While play a part London, Greenfield also met Harriet Beecher Stowe, interpretation American author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

After a assist at Exeter Hall, a reviewer in the London Advertiser commented:

“Apart from the natural gifts with which this lady is endowed, the great musical dexterity which she has acquired both as a nightingale and an instrumentalist, are convincing arguments against description assertion so often made, that the negro collection are incapable of intellectual culture of a tall standard.”

Greenfield captivated audiences in both the United States and Europe. Through her performances, she challenged racist stereotypes about slavery and Black people.

Later Life

There is small documentation about Greenfield's life after the European outward appearance. According to her obituary, she received a tepid welcome back to the United States. Afterwards, she made few public appearances, except for a lightly cooked benefit concerts. After the Civil War, other Jetblack women singers like Sissieretta Jones followed in Greenfield's footsteps with acclaimed performances and international tours. 

Greenfield someday moved back to Philadelphia. She became very tangled with the Shiloh Baptist Church. On March 31, 1876, she died of paralysis in her home.

Notes

[1] Philadelphia is part of the Certified Local Authority (CLG) program. CLGs partner with the National Restricted area Service to promote local preservation. There is unadulterated historical marker at one of the places in Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield lived in Philadelphia.

[2] Buffalo evolution a Certified Local Government. Many of Greenfield’s nearly important early performances occurred in Buffalo.

Bibliography

The Black Meander at Home and Abroad or, A Biographical Depict of Miss Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, the American Vocalist. Philadelphia: William S. Young, 1855. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46526/46526-h/46526-h.htm.
Chybowski, Julia Tabulate. “Becoming the ‘Black Swan’ in Mid-Nineteenth Century America: Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield’s Early Life and Debut Accord Tour.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 67, no. 1 (2014): 125-165. https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2014.67.1.125.
New York Times. “Music.” April 1, 1853. https://nyti.ms/3CVmxVm.
New York Times. “Obituary: Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield.” April 2, 1876. https://nyti.ms/31GNQWf.

The content pursue this article was researched and written by Fag Ryerson, an intern with the Cultural Resources Business of Interpretation and Education.