Scope and Content Note
The National Negro Opera Company was the first African-American opera company in the United States. The collection spans the years 1879-1997, with the bulk of the material dated 1930-1962. The collection documents not only the activities of the company, but also the life and career of its founder Mary Cardwell Dawson.
The Correspondence series includes business and personal correspondence to and from many prominent musical figures of the period, such as Marian Anderson, Muriel Rahn, Robert McFerrin, and Todd Duncan. It also includes items from political and community leaders, including Eleanor Roosevelt, P. L. Prattis, and Mary MacLeod Bethune. Of particular interest is correspondence with Clarence Cameron White, composer of Ouanga, an opera performed by the National Negro Opera Company in 1956.
Most of the photographs in the Photographs series feature individuals and groups involved in the activities of the National Negro Opera Company, the Cardwell Dawson Chorus, the NNOC's various membership guilds, and other affiliated groups. There are many inscribed photographs in the collection that are indicated as such in the finding aid. The series is primarily comprised of publicity stills of performers, but there is also a significant amount of production photographs of casts (in and out of costume), rehearsals, and performances. In addition, there are photographs of various city guild administrative boards and committees. Personal photographs of Dawson family members are also included. Although every attempt has been made to identify individuals found in the photographs, many images of individual and groups remain unidentified. As a result, the series is subdivided into two subseries: photographs that are identified and ones that have been unable to be identified.
The Programs and Promotional Materials series contains a substantial number of programs and related promotional materials, including posters, flyers, press releases, funding solicitation letters, letters announcing events, tickets, and invitations.
Both the Administrative and Financial Papers series provide a record of the National Negro Opera Company's business activities. Included among these materials are charters, by-laws, lists of officers and board members, planning information, minutes of meetings, and other documents relating to the company, to the National Negro Opera Foundation, and to other organizations and committees.
Datable and identifiable budgets and financial reports are arranged in chronological order, with undated reports filed separately. Several income and expense reports from productions are included. Bank statements and related materials are arranged in alphabetical order by institution. Contracts are filed alphabetically by contractee or subject. The majority of the contracts are arranged by performer, with other types of contracts filed within.
Materials relating to ticket sales retain any pre-existing groupings, but, due to incomplete labelling, no further attempt was made to arrange these materials. Similar treatment has been given to the bills and receipts and handwritten notes. Appointment books and calendars have been arranged chronologically. Miscellaneous administrative papers, including advertising, insurance, and other materials complete the Administrative Papers series.
The Clippings series contains items from the 1930s that chronicle Mrs. Dawson's activities prior to the founding of the National Negro Opera Company. It also contains reviews of performances from the 1940s and 1950s. The majority of these articles are drawn from major African-American newspapers, such as the Washington Afro-American and the Chicago Defender.
The Scrapbooks series includes pasted clippings dating from the 1940s and 1950s from a disassembled scrapbook. There are also paste-up pages containing items clipped from National Negro Opera Company programs. A scrapbook labeled "National Negro Opera Foundation, Inc." contains small advertising posters, clippings, and copies of early photographs cut from National Negro Opera Company publications.
The Address Lists and Address Books series includes a large number of address lists containing information that is sometimes partially identified and in various stages of completion. Longer, identified lists have been housed separately. The remaining lists have been separated according to those with designations and those without. In addition to loose-leaf address lists, the collection contains over forty bound address books, each of which has been assigned a number and filed in numerical order.
The Notebooks series (both disassembled and intact) contains financial and budget materials, secretarial and stenographer notes, telephone logs, and other items that highlight the daily office operations of the National Negro Opera Company and related organizations in which Mary Cardwell Dawson was involved.
Music in the collection is arranged alphabetically by composer. This series contains such items as songs by Lillian Evanti (a singer in NNOC's first operatic production), a manuscript arrangement by NNOC singer Roy O'Loughlin of O Hear Me Lord from R. Nathaniel Dett's Ordering of Moses, a song written for the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs by Eva Jessye, and manuscripts by Benjamin Francisco Jaime. This series also contains script fragments and synopses, nearly half of which consist of scenes from Ordering of Moses. The remainder of these are arranged alphabetically by title of production.
The Books series contains various items, including six musical textbooks, a 1951 National Council of Negro Women yearbook and Tones and Overtones, an Alabama State College, Department of Music serial that was used by Mary Cardwell Dawson. Several textbooks contain notes written by Dawson, with one book containing thirty handwritten lectures dating from around 1919-1920. A list of books not retained with this collection can be examined in the Music Division collections file folder for the National Negro Opera Company Collection.
The Realia series includes 275 metal printing plates, the majority of which contain reverse photographic images of individuals and groups. These images were reproduced in publications, newspaper articles, programs, brochures and other publicity materials. Most plates/blocks appear to be reverse images taken from original photographs found in the collection.
The La Julia Rhea Gift contains materials given to the Library of Congress Music Division by the family of Ms. Rhea, who was the first black artist to star with a major opera company. These materials document her career and her struggles in overcoming discrimination within the operatic profession. She appeared in the title role in the National Negro Opera Company's first production of Verdi's Aida on August 29, 1941. The gift includes autobiographical and biographical materials, a Town Hall program from November 9, 1943, scrapbooks, and clippings.
The Walter M. Dawson Papers series contains materials relating to Mary Cardwell Dawson's husband who was personally and financially supportive of his wife's musical endeavors. He served as the company's public relations director, publicity director, and comptroller during the National Negro Opera Company's active years. The National Negro Opera Company Collection as a whole contains materials relating to Walter M. Dawson's involvement with the company. The Walter M. Dawson Papers series, on the other hand, contains materials relating to Mr. Dawson's career as a master electrician with the General Services Administration. While this material does not directly relate to the National Negro Opera Company, it is of cultural and historical interest for drawing attention to Mr. Dawson's role in challenging discrimination in the federal government and electricians' unions. Having been denied membership in the AFL-CIO, he co-founded the Association of Electricians, Metropolitan Washington, D.C. Area, in 1958.