Camilla Williams papers

The papers document the career of Camilla Williams, acclaimed operatic singer and concert artist, in the United States and abroad. The papers encompass 1.2 linear feet, which includes 0.2 linear feet of correspondence (letter, post cards, greeting cards, telegrams) and 1.0 linear foot of non-correspondence, including press releases, publicity notices, notes, foreign itineraries, invitations and collected materials about Williams' travels and about other people. The bulk of the papers date primarily between 1944 and 1975.

Correspondence is primarily between Williams and her husband, Attorney Charles T. Beavers, and her mother, Fannie Cary Williams, and other friends and relatives. However, there are also letters of interest from Eleanor Roosevelt and a letter from Father Divine (Reverend Major Jealous Divine). Other correspondents include Raymond Pace Alexander, Dick Campbell, Elmer A. Carter, Norman N. Fromm, Robert Kollitsch, Frederick D. Patterson, Carl Van Vechten, and Robert Wagner.

Perhaps the most informative groups of non-correspondence materials are the musical programs and the press clippings. These reveals that Williams tried to feature unusual selections in her recitals, performing such infrequently heard music as that of Samuel Barber, Arthur Bliss, John Alden Carpenter, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Leo Delibes, Gordon Jacobs, Charles Koechlin, Meyer Kupferman, Gian Francesco Malipierp, Gian-Carlo Saëns, Ludwig Spohr, Howard Swanson, Randall Thompson, and Clarence Cameron White. She also featured arrangements of spirituals and Black folk songs by a number of different persons, including Borislav Bazala, Edward Boatner, William Boatner, Margaret Bonds, Harry Thatcher Burleigh, William L. Dawson, M. Gardner, Roland Hayes, Hall Johnson, J. Rosamond Johnson, Camille Nickerson, Florence Price, Noah Ryder, Lily Strickland, John W. Work, and Clarence Cameron White.