Chicago Music Association collection

Collection

Identifier: 86

Staff Only

Content Description

This collection is comprised of 7.84 linear feet of printed items of the Chicago Music Association, the first incorporated branch of the National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc. and of collected printed items highlighting the musical activities of the members of the Association, the recipients of its yearly cash awards, and other professional African American musicians, singers and organizations. Formats in the collection include programs, playbills, flyers and newsletters. The bulk of the materials are programs dating from 1936 to 1974. Also present in the collection are ephemera and correspondence representative of the life of Clarice Saunders (nee Burnaugh), a prominent local organist and pianist and secretary of the Chicago Music Association. The collection ranges from 1936 to 1974 and is divided into three main series: Series 1: Chicago Music Association files, which includes materials produced directly by the Chicago Music Association; Series 2: Collected Items, materials tangentially connected to the association; and Series 3: Oversized Materials.

Dates

1936 - 1991, undated

Creator

Chicago Music Association (Organization)

Historical Note

The Chicago Music Association was the first incorporated branch of the National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc. The National Association of Negro Musicians was founded in Chicago in 1919 by Nora Douglas Holt and Henry Grant, along with numerous other musicians across the country. Holt, a composer and music critic for the Chicago Defender from 1917 to 1921 and later for the New York Amsterdam News, was instrumental in the establishment of the Chicago Music Association. Other founders were Wesley Jones, Estella Bonds, Clara Hutchison, T.T. Taylor, Martha B. Anderson Wynne, and Maude R. George. Among the delegates to the first convention of the Association held in the Chicago Wabash Street YMCA was a girl choir member from a Philadelphia church, Marian Anderson.