Monthly Programs

Most months a member will give a presentation, discussing a current work in progress, the research and writing process, or an area of personal interest and expertise. A collegial Q&A ensues, and the speaker can, if they wish, ask for suggestions for improvement in case they will be giving the talk at other venues. These programs are usually held at 2:00 PM on the third Sunday of the month, except for December; exceptions can be made as necessary. A digital projector and screen are available. Another member volunteers to take notes and write a report for the newsletter, or the speaker may provide a synopsis instead.

We try to have a speaker each month, though this is not always possible. Ideally, we schedule the programs as far in advance as possible. Members who are interested in giving a talk or other program (such as a film or exhibit tour) should email president@tihs.org.

Videos of some presentations can be viewed on our YouTube Channel.


Next Monthly Program

Sunday, February 16, 2:00 pm, Monthly Program via Zoom.
A Program for Black History Month: 
Black Swan Records and the Harlem Renaissance The Story of the First Black-Owned Record Company, 1921-1923
A presentation by Bill Doggett
Black Swan Records was a beacon of promise, providing visibility through sound recordings for a generation of classically trained singers, musicians, and composers emerging out of the shadow of the Great Migration and the First World War. Obscure and forgotten in 2021, these gifted artists were cultural symbols of an earlier Black racial pride who had been rejected and forbidden to record by a white recording industry dominated by Victor, Columbia, and Edison. In a post-First World War era fraught with violent racial animus, Harry Pace's Black Swan Records put out “open for business” signs within weeks of May 30-June 1, 1921, when the prosperous Black district of Greenwood, Tulsa, Oklahoma, was destroyed by vigilante white supremacist mobs. What is profoundly significant in this remarkable story is that Pace, who obviously faced large systemic challenges by daring to defy the norms of an American society deeply enmeshed in racist ideology, still created a record company with a vision to create opportunity and visibility expressly for Black artists and did end up issuing important recordings of classical and blues/ jazz stars that today count as critically important documentation of that era. Bill Doggett is a published scholar on race and performing-arts history with a national profile. He is the author of the San Francisco Historical Society Journal's Summer 2015 feature, “Emancipation Proclamation: San Francisco and African American Concert Singers: In Paradisum 18802000,” and co-author of “Racial Representation in Popular Songs and Recordings 1901,” for the Fall 2019 Journal of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections. He was a 20202021 artist scholar for Manhattan School of Music's inaugural Cultural Inclusion Initiative, the 2021 annual William Levi Dawson Lecture presenter for Tuskegee University, and the 2017 annual Valente Lecture presenter for UC Davis's Music Department. His website is https://billdoggettproductions.com.
You are welcome to invite friends and colleagues to attend.
The presentation will be recorded, and posted on YouTube. If you don’t want to be on the recording, just make sure your video is off. And please remember to mute your microphone!
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