Marian Anderson Collection, 1939-2000

Marian Anderson, born on 27 February 1897, the eldest of three daughters, to John Berkley and Annie Delilah Anderson, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was an American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century. Famed conductor Arturo Toscanini once told her she had a voice "heard once in a hundred years." Most of her singing career was spent performing in concert and recital in major music venues and with major orchestras throughout the United States and Europe between 1925 and 1965. Although she was offered contracts to perform roles with many important European opera companies, Anderson declined all of these, preferring to perform in concert and recital only. However, she did perform opera arias within her concerts and recitals. She made many recordings that reflected her broad performance repertoire of everything from concert literature to lieder to opera to traditional American songs and spirituals. An African-American, Anderson became an important figure in the struggle for black artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States during the mid twentieth century. In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused permission for Anderson to sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall. Their race-driven refusal propelled Anderson into the international spotlight on a level usually found only by high profile celebrities and politicians. With the aid of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Anderson performed a critically acclaimed open-air concert on Easter Sunday, in 1939 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., to a crowd of more than 75,000 people and a radio audience in the millions. She continued to break barriers for black artists in the United States, becoming the first black person, American or otherwise, to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on 7 January 1955. Her performance as Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdi's Un ballo in maschera at the Met was the only time she sang an opera role on stage. In 1943, she was at last invited by the DAR to sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall to benefit the American Red Cross. Anderson said she had no sense of triumph, just that it was a beautiful hall and was happy to be singing there. Also in 1943, Anderson married architect Orpheus H. Fisher in Bethel, Connecticut. Together they purchased a 100-acre farm in Danbury, Connecticut, and named it Marianna Farm. It remained Anderson's home for more than 50 years. Anderson was also an important symbol of grace and beauty during the civil rights movement in the 1960s, singing at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. She also worked for several years as a delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Committee and as a "goodwill ambassadress" for the U.S. State Department. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, Anderson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1978, the National Medal of Arts in 1986, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991. Anderson's husband, Orpheus Fisher, died in 1986, after 43 years of marriage. She remained at Marianna Farm until 1992, and although the property was sold to developers, various preservationists as well as the City of Danbury, fought to protect the studio Fisher had designed especially for Anderson. They were successful and the Danbury Museum and Historical Society received a grant to relocate and restore the structure. It opened to the public in 2004. At the age of 96, Marian Anderson died of congestive heart failure on 8 April 1993 in Portland, Oregon, at the home of her nephew, conductor James DePreist. She was interred at Eden Cemetery, in Collingwood, Pennsylvania. Source: Wikipedia contributors, "Marian Anderson," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Marian_Anderson&oldid=407874954 (accessed January 18, 2011).