Manet Harrison Fowler
{{short description|American opera singer (1895–1976)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Manet Harrison Fowler
| image = Manet_Harrison_Fowler,_Dramatic_Soprano.jpg
| alt =
| caption = Fowler in 1930
| birth_name = Minnia Helen Harrison
| birth_date = August 30, 1895
| birth_place = Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.
| death_date = February {{death year and age|1976|1895}}
| death_place = New York, U.S.
| nationality = American
| alma_mater = Tuskegee Institute
| other_names =
| occupation = Musician, Educator
| years_active =
| known_for = Manet’s African series paintings grace the galleries of Chaney College, Tuskegee and Yale.
| notable_works = African series, Dante by the Bridge
| spouse = {{marriage|Stephen H. Fowler |1915|1965}}
}}
Manet Harrison Fowler (August 30, 1895 — February 1976) was an American musician, dramatic soprano, artist, voice coach, piano teacher, conductor, music educator and midwife. She was a child prodigy, giving piano recitals at the age of six. A native of Fort Worth, Texas she founded the Mwalimu School for the development of African Music and Creative Art in 1928 and relocated to New York City during the Harlem Renaissance. She was President of the Texas Association of Negro Musicians (TANM), the first state branch of the National Association of Negro Musicians.
Early life
Minnia (later respelled "Manet") Helen Harrison was born in Fort Worth, Texas, to Louisiana natives Taylor Henry Harrison, an African American and Carrie Vickers Harrison, a creole of African, French and Irish descent. She showed talent for music from an early age, playing piano at church from age six. Manet attended the Tuskegee Institute, and graduated in 1913. She pursued further studies in visual arts at The Art Institute of Chicago and in music at the Chicago Musical College and American Conservatory of Music. A well known painter of her time, she was also an opera singer performing around the country as a dramatic soprano.Laurie Jasinski, [http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ffo66 "Manet Harrison Fowler"] Handbook of Texas Online (Texas State Historical Association 2013).
Career
Fowler taught music at Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College, and directed a church choir in Fort Worth. She was co-founder of the Texas Association of Negro Musicians in 1926, and she served on the board of the National Association of Negro Musicians, as scholarship committee chair,[https://newspapers.library.in.gov/cgi-bin/indiana?a=d&d=INR19330715-01.1.6 "Scholarship Head"] Indianapolis Recorder (July 15, 1933): 6. via Hoosier State Chronicles{{open access}} and edited its journal, The Negro Musician.Cary D. Wintz, Paul Finkelman, eds., [https://books.google.com/books?id=z6Cs0Y1pvRAC&dq=Manet+Harrison+Fowler&pg=PA523 Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance: A–J] (Taylor & Francis 2004): 523. {{ISBN|9781579584573}}
In 1928, she started the Mwalimu School.John H. Thompson, "AFRICA: Its Civilization, Art And Culture Being Kept Afresh In America By A Lone Texas Woman" Chicago Defender (May 13, 1939): 13. She moved the Mwalimu program to Harlem in 1932, where (as the Mwalimu Center for African Culture) it became a contribution to the Harlem Renaissance. Literary figures such as Carter G. Woodson taught at Mwalimu in Harlem. The school also offered a community kitchen, a library of works by black authors, and lessons from bodybuilding to comparative religion.Lucien H. White, [http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%2011/New%20York%20NY%20Age/New%20York%20NY%20Age%201938-1939%20%20Grayscale/New%20York%20NY%20Age%201938-1939%20%20Grayscale%20-%200512.pdf "Mwalimu Festival Chorus To Give Concert of African Music at Town Hall Mar. 31"] New York Age (April 1, 1939): 7. The school's Mwalimu Festival Chorus performed often in New York, and made recordings, under Fowler's direction;[https://findingaids.library.emory.edu/documents/fowler978/ Manet Harrison Fowler Papers, 1913-1960], Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University. they were called "one of the outstanding Negro choral groups in technical proficiency" by Alain LeRoy Locke.Alain Locke, [https://books.google.com/books?id=vdAZAAAAIAAJ&dq=Manet+Harrison+Fowler&pg=PA199 "Negro Music Goes to Par"] Opportunity: Journal of Negro Life (July 1939): 199.
In 1930, a pageant Fowler wrote, produced, and directed, The Voice, was performed by over 2000 cast members at the National Baptist Convention in Chicago."Mme. Manet Fowler to Direct Baptist Pageant" Chicago Defender (August 9, 1930): 6. She also wrote Up From Slavery, and another musical piece, African Suite.Library of Congress, [https://books.google.com/books?id=tzghAQAAIAAJ&dq=Manet+Harrison+Fowler&pg=PA5 Catalog of Copyright Entries: Music] (1970): 5. Several paintings by Manet Harrison Fowler are in the Juneteenth Museum in Fort Worth.Jeff Prince, [https://www.fwweekly.com/2008/10/29/going-once/ "Going Once..."] Fort Worth Weekly (October 29, 2008). A portrait she painted of her daughter Manet Helen Fowler is in the permanent collection at Yale University Art Gallery.[https://www.newhavenhotel.com/events/new-haven/-536526 "Gallery Talk, A Portrait that Paints a Collection: Manet Harrison Fowler in the African Galleries"] New Haven Hotel Events Calendar (July 12, 2017).Manet Harrison Fowler, [https://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/166156 "Portrait of Manet Helen Fowler"] (1951), in Yale University Art Gallery.
In 1972, Fowler was honored alongside Duke Ellington, Ramsey Lewis, Everett Lee, and Margaret Rosezarian Harris at the annual awards dinner at the Waldorf Astoria, New York for the National Association of Negro Musicians.[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/17425315/nanm_awards_1972/ "Bonnie's Kids Opens Friday"] Pittsburgh Courier (August 19, 1972): 12. via Newspapers.com{{open access}}"NANM Honors Duke Ellington and Margaret Harris at Confab '72" Chicago Daily Defender (July 22, 1972): 23.
Personal life
Manet Harrison married fellow educator Stephen Hamilton Fowler in 1915. They had five children, including Manet Helen Fowler, the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D in cultural anthropology in the U.S. and George H. Fowler, former Commissioner of the NYS Division of Human Rights and the first African American named to a cabinet rank by Governor Nelson Rockefeller.”Rockefeller Names Negro To Industrial Post” ‘’Jet Magazine (January 22, 1959): Manet Harrison Fowler was widowed in 1965,"S. H. Fowler, Civic Leader, Dies in N.Y." Chicago Daily Defender (November 2, 1965): 21. and died in 1976, aged 80 years, in New York. The Manet Harrison Fowler and Manet Helen Fowler Papers are archived together at the Beinecke Library at Yale University.[http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/about/blogs/african-american-studies-beinecke-library/2010/08/03/manet-harrison-fowler-and-manet Manet Harrison Fowler and Manet Helen Fowler Papers] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140125011930/http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/about/blogs/african-american-studies-beinecke-library/2010/08/03/manet-harrison-fowler-and-manet |date=2014-01-25 }}, James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Another collection of her papers is at Emory University.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- Manet Harrison Fowler Papers. James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
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Category:American operatic sopranos
Category:Musicians from Fort Worth, Texas
Category:Tuskegee University alumni
Category:20th-century American women