Eileen Stanza Southern

Background

Eileen Stanza Jackson was born on February 19, 1920, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the eldest of three daughters of Walter Wade Jackson and Lilla Gibson Jackson. She spent her childhood in Minneapolis, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Chicago, attending public schools and developing as a pianist. Her parents encouraged their daughters' musical interests and welcomed traveling Black musicians into their home. She began studying piano as a child, gave her first full-length recital at the age of twelve, and made her concert debut with the Chicago Musical College symphony orchestra at Orchestra Hall in 1938. During the 1940s she toured as a concert pianist and performed at Carnegie Hall in 1948 after winning a national competition.

Education

Southern studied piano at the Chicago Musical College and pursued undergraduate and graduate study in music history at the University of Chicago, earning a Bachelor of Arts in 1940 and a Master of Arts in 1941. Her master's thesis examined the use of Negro folksong in symphonic forms. After moving to New York, she studied musicology at New York University under Gustave Reese. She completed a doctorate in musicology in 1961 with a dissertation on the fifteenth-century Buxheim Organ Book; the dissertation was published in 1963 as The Buxheim Organ Book. Her academic development joined the study of Renaissance music with sustained research into African American musical traditions and cultural history.

Career

Southern began her academic teaching career in 1941 at Prairie View University in Texas. She taught at Southern University in Louisiana from 1943 to 1945 and again from 1949 to 1951, and at Claflin College in South Carolina from 1947 to 1949. During the 1940s she also maintained a career as a touring concert pianist. After moving to New York in 1951, she taught music in the city's public schools while pursuing graduate study at New York University. She joined Brooklyn College of the City University of New York in 1960 as an instructor and advanced to assistant professor of music. In 1969 she moved to York College, CUNY, where she became associate professor of music, professor of music, and chair of the music department. Southern began teaching at Harvard University as a lecturer in 1974 and joined the tenured full-time faculty in January 1976 as a professor of music and Afro-American studies. She chaired Harvard's Department of Afro-American Studies from 1976 to 1980 and continued teaching until retiring in 1987 as professor emerita. Her professional work combined Renaissance musicology with pioneering research on African American musicians, performance, theater, oral history, visual culture, and the preservation of Black cultural traditions. In 1973 she and her husband, Joseph Southern, founded The Black Perspective in Music, which she edited until the journal ceased publication in 1990. At Harvard she also supported the department newsletter Nimba, developed lecture series, and participated in university committees and advisory work.

Achievements

• Became the first African American woman tenured in Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1976.

• Wrote The Music of Black Americans: A History, first published in 1971, a landmark comprehensive study that helped establish Black music studies as a major field of scholarship.

• Founded The Black Perspective in Music in 1973 with Joseph Southern, creating the first long-running academic journal devoted to the study of Black music.

• Became the first African American scholar to publish an article in the Journal of the American Musicological Society.

• Produced influential scholarship on Renaissance music and African American music, including biographies, annotated bibliographies, music editions, and studies of Black musical theater and visual culture.

Works

• annotated bibliography

  • Afro-American Traditions in Song, Sermon, Tale, and Dance, 1600s–1920: An Annotated Bibliography of Literatures, Collections, and Artworks

    (Compiled with Josephine Wright.)

    1990

• biographical dictionary

  • Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians

    (Reference work documenting African and African American m...)

    1982

• edited collection

  • Readings in Black American Music

    (Edited collection of readings on Black American music; re...)

    1971

• edited volume

  • African American Theater: Out of Bondage and Peculiar Sam, or, The Underground Railroad

    (Edited volume presenting two nineteenth-century African A...)

    1994

• history

  • The Music of Black Americans: A History

    (Landmark history of African American music; revised editi...)

    1971

• illustrated scholarly study

  • Images: Iconography of Music in African-American Culture, 1770s–1920s

    (Co-authored with Josephine Wright and examining visual re...)

    2000

• music edition

  • Anonymous Pieces in the MS El Escorial IV.a.24

    (Edited edition of anonymous Renaissance pieces preserved ...)

    1981

• scholarly monograph

  • The Buxheim Organ Book

    (Study and edition based on Southern's New York University...)

    1963

Membership

Southern belonged to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the International Musicological Society, the American Musicological Society, the Renaissance Society, Alpha Kappa Alpha, and the Sonneck American Music Society. She served on the American Musicological Society's board of directors from 1974 to 1976 and on the Sonneck American Music Society's board from 1986 to 1988. She was an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa at Radcliffe College and participated in Harvard's Advisory Board for the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute in Afro-American Research, the General Education Committee, and the Harvard Faculty Club.

• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People , United States

• International Musicological Society

• Honorary member; served on the board of directors from 1974 to 1976.

  American Musicological Society , United States

• Served on the board of directors.

  Sonneck American Music Society , United States

  1986 - 1988

• Renaissance Society

• Honorary member at Radcliffe College.

  Phi Beta Kappa , United States

• Alpha Kappa Alpha , United States

Personality

Southern was described as persistent, exacting, and deeply committed to rigorous scholarship, particularly in the face of racial and gender discrimination in academic institutions.

Quotes from others about the person

• Samuel A. Floyd Jr. characterized Southern as a "quiet revolutionary" whose scholarship challenged prevailing assumptions about Black music and Black musicians.

Interests

• Piano performance, Renaissance music, African American music, music history, oral history, and the preservation of Black cultural traditions.

Connections

Southern was married to Joseph Southern, a professor of business administration, for approximately sixty years, and they founded The Black Perspective in Music together in 1973. They had a son, Edward J. Southern, and a daughter, April S. Reilly. Her parents were Walter Wade Jackson and Lilla Gibson Jackson, and her sister Stella Hall was based in Chicago.

Father:

Walter Wade Jackson

Chemist and educator who encouraged Southern's education, travel, and musical development.

Mother:

Lilla Gibson Jackson

husband:

Joseph Southern

Professor of business administration; co-founded The Black Perspective in Music with Southern in 1973.

Son:

Edward J. Southern

Daughter:

April S. Reilly

Sister:

Stella Hall

Based in Chicago.

References

• Eileen Southern personal archive, 1936–1993 Harvard archival biography documenting Southern's family background, education, teaching career, Harvard appointments, awards, and professional papers.
• Eileen Southern and the Music of Black Americans: Bibliography Harvard digital exhibition bibliography listing Southern's books, editions, articles, chapters, reviews, and editorial work.
• Eileen Southern and the Music of Black Americans: Life + Career Harvard digital exhibition describing Southern's upbringing, musical training, education, academic career, journal founding, and scholarly achievements.
• Eileen Southern dies at 82 Harvard Gazette obituary documenting Southern's death, career, principal publications, family, and major honors.
  2002
• Eileen Jackson Southern Harvard memorial account describing Southern's education, concert-piano career, academic appointments, scholarship, journal editorship, and honors.
  2007