Background
George Leonard White was born on September 20, 1838 at Cadiz, N. Y. , the son of William B. and Nancy (Leonard) White. From his father, a blacksmith who in his spare time played in a local band, he derived a love of music.
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George Leonard White
Edit ProfileEducation
He attended public school until he was fourteen, when his formal education came to an end.
Career
At twenty he was teaching in Ohio and had acquired considerable reputation as a choir leader. In the early days of the Civil War he joined the "Squirrel Hunters" to defend Cincinnati from the Confederates under Kirby-Smith. Later, as an enlisted man in the 73rd Ohio Regiment, he was at the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, and served until discharged for illness in 1864. After the war he went to Nashville, Tenn. , where he was briefly employed in the quartermaster's department, and then entered the service of the Freedmen's Bureau, under Clinton B. Fisk. In 1867 he was appointed instructor of vocal music at Fisk University, Nashville, which had just been founded by the American Missionary Association, and subsequently became a trustee and treasurer of the institution. In 1870, when it seemed likely that Fisk University must close unless money could be raised, White suggested taking a group of students on a concert tour. He finally won the consent of the trustees and in October 1871, with a band of nine singers, started out. Although they were penniless, only recently emancipated, untutored except for the training White had given them, they repeatedly won hostile crowds and indifferent audiences to enthusiastic admiration, and in March 1872 returned to Nashville with twenty thousand dollars they had earned over and above their expenses. After resting only a week, they started out again with some new recruits, going first to the World Peace Jubilee in Boston. Here their presence was the great feature of the occasion and they received an ovation. In April 1873 they sailed for England and in a tour of Great Britain met with the same astonishing success that had been theirs in America. Subsequently they toured England again and visited the Continent, raising in all more than $90, 000 for Fisk University and spreading through the civilized world a new understanding and respect for the character and the capacities of the freedmen. They finally disbanded in Hamburg in 1878. The testimony of all connected with the venture is that without White it could never have taken place. Forced by an accident in 1885, from which he never fully recovered, to give up his work with the Jubilee Singers, he taught music at the state normal school, Fredonia, N. Y. ; in 1886-87 he was at Biddle University in North Carolina; and in later years, with his wife, was connected with Sage College, Cornell University. He died at Ithaca, in his fifty-eighth year, after being stricken with paralysis.
Achievements
Personality
A man of faith, he had great courage and devotion to his work and to the students he had trained. He was extraordinary, too, in his musicianship; although almost entirely self-taught, he maintained standards of performance so high that only his personal influence over the singers kept them from wearying and rebelling.
Quotes from others about the person
"His ear was exquisite, " wrote an associate; "in passages of almost incredible power he would not tolerate anything that was not pure tone". "He would keep us singing all day until we had every passage to suit his fastidious taste, " said one of the singers.
Connections
At Saratoga, Minn. , August 11, 1867, White married Laura Amelia Cravath, a missionary of the American Missionary Association and a sister of Erastus Milo Cravath, first president of Fisk University. She died in Glasgow, Scotland, during the first tour of the singers. On April 12, 1876, during the second European tour, he married Susan Gilbert, a fellow teacher at Fisk, chaperon to the young women among the singers.
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Born
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Died
January 8, 1895 (aged 56) -
Nationality
American