William Grant Still and Verna Arvey Papers, 1921-1995
| Oberlin College Archives
Administrative/Biographical History
William Grant Still (1895-1978), who became known as the “Dean of African-American Composers," was born in Woodville, Mississippi, on May 11, 1895, the son of William Grant Still, a music teacher and bandmaster, and Carrie Lena Fambro, a schoolteacher. After graduating from high school (Little Rock, Arkansas, 1911), Still attended Wilberforce University (Wilberforce, Ohio) from 1911-15, but left without taking a degree in order to follow full time his main interest, the interest which he had pursued at Wilberforce by forming a band and a string quartet.
Moving to Columbus, Ohio in 1915 Still played in various dance bands, including one led by W. C. Handy, "the father of the blues." He had earlier taught himself clarinet and oboe and now was also performing on violin and cello. Two years later, he entered the Conservatory at Oberlin College (Oberlin, Ohio) to study composition, but in 1918, he left to join the United States Navy where he played violin in an all-black mess hall. After his discharge in 1919, he returned to popular music, now as an arranger as well as a performer, arranging for Paul Whiteman, Artie Shaw, Eubie Blake and others.
In 1922, Still resumed his formal education, this time at the New England Conservatory of Music (Boston, Massachusetts) where he studied composition with Edgard Varese whose influence is found in Still's early serious works to which he turned in the late twenties and thirties although he never abandoned popular music. Rather, throughout his career, Still moved easily between the two worlds. Until the early forties, he arranged and orchestrated for Broadway shows and several popular entertainers and conducted on radio shows for all three networks. During these same years, he composed From the Land of Dreams (1924), Darker America (1924), From the Black Belt (1927), and his best-known work, Afro-American Symphony (1930). Its performance by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra (Rochester, New York) in 1931 marked the first performance of a symphony by an Afro-American by a major orchestra. Still's other "firsts" include his being the first Afro-American to conduct a major orchestra (Los Angeles, California, 1936) and the first to conduct an all-white orchestra in the Deep South (New Orleans, 1955).
Honors and awards came early and continued throughout his life: a Harmon Award (1927), two Guggenheim Fellowships (1934-35), two Rosenwald awards (1939-40), and a Freedom Foundation award (1953). Although he never earned an academic degree, Still received seven honorary degrees including an Honorary Master of Music from Wilberforce University (1936), an Honorary Doctor of Music from Oberlin College (1947), and an Honorary Doctor of Law from the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, 1971). Oberlin College recognized him on three other occasions. The College premiered Still's From a Lost Continent as part of its Contemporary Music Festival in 1951. In 1970, when he returned to campus for his 75th birthday celebration, Still was honored with a concert of his own compositions which included the first performance of his Symphony #5, Western Hemisphere, and in 1995 it remembered him with a Centennial Concert of his works.
The diversity of Still's composition is impressive: nine operas, five symphonies, four ballets, numerous compositions for voice and for piano, chamber ensembles - and two for accordion. Although some Afro-Americans dismissed his serious music as "Eur-American," Still always insisted that his goal had been "to elevate Negro musical idioms to a position of dignity and effectiveness in the fields of symphonic and operatic music." In 1948 he wrote that he wanted his music to be a vehicle to bring about better racial understanding (qtd. Macdonald). In 1969, during a conference on black music at Indiana University he commented, "I made this decision of my own free will...I have stuck to this decision, and I have not been sorry." (DNB).
In 1915 Still married Grace Dorothy Bundy; they had four children: William Bundy, Gail Still [sic], June Allyn and Carolyn Elaine. The couple divorced in the late twenties. Still married again in 1939. His second wife, Verna Avery, an accomplished pianist and writer, wrote the lyrics for several of Still's works and assisted him in many other ways. The Stills had two children: Duncan Allan and Judith Anne.
William Grant Still died in Los Angeles on December 3, 1978. Verna Avery died there in 1987.
Sources Consulted
75th Birthday Concert in Honor of William Grant Still. Program and Program Notes.
Macdonald, Claudia, "Program Notes." William Grant Centennial Concert. May 27, 1995. An excellent three page analysis of Still's music.
Still, William Grant. Oberlin College Alumni Report Form. September 27, 1947.
Still, William Grant, Composer. Vita. n.d. (Post 1940.)
Still, William Grant. Dictionary of National Biography. [DATE.] Vol 20, pp. 776-77. The article contains valuable material on Still's life and works, including his musical styles.
William Grant Still and Verna Avery Papers. Introduction to the lives of Still and Avery and a description of their papers at the University of Arkansas. http://www.uark.edu/libinfo/speccoll/still/still1aid.html
Forms of Material (links to similar genres) Administrative InformationFor more information please see http://libinfo.uark.edu/SpecialCollections/findingaids/still/still2aid.html.
Material at the Oberlin College Archives (Accession 1983/41)
The material given to the Oberlin College Archives consists of clippings, programs, writings by and about William Grant Still and Verna Arvey, a book of Still’s music, press kits and publicity for the opera “A Bayou Legend,” photographs, a copy of an oral history with William Grant Still for the California Black Oral History Project at California State University, Fullerton in 1967, and copies of most of the scrapbooks listed below that are held by the University of Arkansas Libraries, Special Collections Division. The scrapbook copies are incomplete. They are stored off-site; researchers must give several days’ notice of intention to access them. Scrapbooks on microfilm are listed in Series 4, Subseries 1-3 of Manuscript Collection 1125, University of Arkansas Special Collections, below.
SERIES DESCRIPTIONS
Materials are arranged into three series. Series 1 is comprised of all material not from scrapbooks. Series 2 contains the copies from scrapbooks from originals held by the University of Arkansas, Special Collections. These copies are stored off-site; materials must be requested several days in advance of access. Series 3 represents microfilm copies of selected scrapbooks at the University of Arkansas, Special Collections, available in the Oberlin College Library.
PROVENANCE
The material at the Oberlin College Archives was received from Judith Anne Still of William Grant Still Music in Mission Viejo, California, in October and December 1983.
Material from the University of Arkansas, Special Collections
http://libinfo.uark.edu/SpecialCollections/findingaids/still/still2aid.html
The careers of William Grant Still and Verna Arvey were far-reaching as they related to not only the emerging status of African-Americans in classical music, but also as they related to United States social history, race relations and politics. The William Grant Still and Verna Arvey collection contains materials that span the 20th century, and it serves as a rare testament to a period of time in which little documentation exists for African-Americans in American history.
The papers consist of professional and personal correspondence of William Grant Still and Verna Arvey as well as biographical documents, including certificates, diaries, dreambooks, scrapbooks, and predictions. In addition, research files, literary manuscripts, and photographs further document the lives of Still and Arvey. Audio tapes and the musical scores of Still, many in collaboration with Arvey, librettist and lyricist, form another important component of these papers. The literary and musical manuscripts of other writers and composers found in the papers further enhance the collection.
The collection is very extensive, but not all-inclusive. Other materials from the Estate are available through William Grant Still Music [see Oberlin College Archivist for contact information]. The material in the William Grant Still and Verna Arvey Papers has been divided into four groups, each of which has been divided into its own series and subseries. Box numbers are consecutive throughout the collection, but series and subseries are numbered within each group.
Processed by Norma Ortiz-Karp, June 1992. Special Collections Division, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville, Arkansas. Scrapbooks volumes 85-101 processed by Todd E. Lewis and Jim Kelton, July 2006.
SERIES DESCRIPTIONS for Manuscript Collection MC 1125
University of Arkansas, Special Collections
(Items in bold are copied onto microfilm and available in the Oberlin College Library, Mudd Center)
Group 1. William Grant Still and Verna Arvey Biographical Materials, 1894-1991. Boxes 1-68. Contents of Group 1
Series 1. Personal and professional correspondence, 1925-1985. Boxes 1-51.
Series 2. Personal papers, 1894-1985. Boxes 52-53.
Series 3. Diaries, dreambooks, predictions, and address book, 1928-1982. Boxes 54-59.
Subseries 1. Diaries of William Grant Still, 1930-1959. Boxes 54-56.
Subseries 2. Diaries of Verna Arvey, 1928-1982. Box 56.
Subseries 3. Dreambooks of William Grant Still and Verna Arvey, 1939-
1979. Box 57.
Subseries 4. Predictions, 1936-1981. Box 58.
Subseries 5. Address book. Box 59.
Series 4. Scrapbooks, 1921-2002. Volumes 1-101/Microfilm Reels 1-15.
Subseries 1. Scrapbooks of William Grant Still, 1921-1981.
Volumes 1-48.
Subseries 2. Scrapbooks of Verna Arvey, 1922-1981.
Volumes 49-54.
Subseries 3. Other scrapbooks, 1930s-1972. Volumes 55-84.
Subseries 4. Scrapbooks of Judith Still's Childhood and William
Grant Still Music, 1982-2002. Volumes 85-101.
Series 5. Tax receipts and royalty agreements, 1924-1983. Boxes 60-65.
Subseries 1. Tax receipts, 1934- 1978. Boxes 60-64.
Subseries 2. Royalty and other agreements, 1924-1983. Box 65.
Series 6. Newspaper and magazine articles, 1937-1991. Boxes 66-68.
Subseries 1. General newspaper and magazine articles, 1937-1991.
Box 66.
Subseries 2. Political newspaper and magazine articles, 1964-1980.
Boxes 67-68.