March 24, 2021 • 44 mins
Sissieretta Jones was a Black operatic and popular music singer in the early 20th century. And she was famous in her day, but then kind of vanished from the papers when she retired. Her last years were lived in relative obscurity.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy P. Wilson. So we
have talked a number of times on the show about
how we collect and manage our topic lists. Uh. And
(00:22):
there are times, I know, for me, when I come
across something in the wild and I just scribble it
down and then I don't have any idea what that
was about, right, And I think you mentioned a similar
thing happening recently. Tracy did so. A few days back.
I was reviewing a notebook that I had recently been
using to keep my to do lists and my schedules
(00:42):
in because I kind of do. I'm reticent to call
it a bullet journal. It's really just like my weird
if Faulkner kept a bullet journal kind of stream of
consciousness of like all my to do stuff. So it's
at least in one place for the important things. Um.
And then I go back and I review them and
make sure I've captured anything that needs to get carried
(01:03):
over into the next one. And I'm a little slow
to do it with my transfer from one to the next.
This time but I was looking over this last book
and in literally in a margin sideways, I had just
written the word Cisseretta, and I didn't know what it was.
I couldn't remember where it came from. Uh So I
looked it up, and I sure, I'm glad I did,
(01:25):
because it turns out that at some point in the
last several months I had apparently stumbled across Ciceretta Jones,
who was a black operatic and popular music singer in
the early twentieth century, and she was very famous in
her day, but then she kind of vanished from the
papers and all press coverage when she retired, and her
last years were lived in relative obscurity, which meant that
(01:46):
when she died, nobody really knew very much about it,
and it didn't get a lot of coverage, and she
really hadn't been uh as celebrated throughout history as she
certainly deserves. So she is due for a little bit
of a ten and that's what we are talking about today.
Matilda Ceceretta Joiner was born January five, eighteen sixty eight,
(02:07):
in Portsmouth, Virginia. We don't have any recording or anything
of how she said her own name I've heard people
say it's Ceceretta and Cecyretta. We're just gonna stick with
Ceceretta for the sake of consistency. The date of that
also has some question marks, because some records have eighteen
sixty nine rather than eighteen sixty eight is the birth
(02:27):
yere Ceceretta was born into a religious family. Her father,
Jeremiah Malachi Joiner, who went by Jerry, had been enslaved
at birth but was a freeman when Ceceretta was born.
He worked as a carpenter and as a minister at
the African Methodist Church. Her mother, Henrietta, worked as a
washerwoman and also saying in the church choir. Ceceretta went
(02:49):
by both Matilda and Cissy with her family. Yeah, we'll
talk about her name a little bit more, uh, in
just a bit, and we should also mention like it's
worth noting that she was more just a few years
after the Civil War ended, so like at a time
when the country was really going through significant change. Jerry
and Henrietta had two more children in addition to Cicceretta,
(03:11):
but both of them died when they were still young.
In eighteen seventy six, After the loss of Ciceretta's brother,
the family moved to Providence, Rhode Island. Jerry had been
offered a position at a church in Providence, and he
saw this as an opportunity for a better life in
this other state. Cceretta was enrolled once they moved at
Meeting Street Primary School, which was integrated as we're all
(03:34):
Rhode Island schools, following the passing of a statute by
the Rhode Island General Assembly on March seventh, eighteen sixty six,
that had stated that quote no distinction be made on
account of the race or color of the applicant. So
it seems like at this point the Joiners were really
settling into a stable community that had better opportunities than
(03:55):
they had had back in Virginia, but things were strained
at home. We don't really know the specifics of the situation,
but by eighteen seventy eight, Cinceretta's parents were living separately
and she was living with her mother. The Joiners formally
divorced more than a decade later, in eighty nine. Court
records indicate that Jerry had accused his wife of adultery.
(04:18):
It's not really clear how much involvement Jerry had in
Cincceretta's life after the Joiners separated. But while the loss
of siblings and moving in this tumultuous family life for
part of her early years, there was one thing that
had been consistent for just about as long as she
could make noise, and that was that Cisterretta saying she
(04:38):
loved to sing. She would later say to a reporter, quote,
when I was a little girl, just a wee slip
of a tad, I used to go about singing. I
guess I must have been a bit of a nuisance then,
for my mouth was open all the time. In addition
to just singing on her own whenever she could, she's
saying at school, she's saying in church, she's saying at
events for school and church, everyone could hear that she
(05:02):
had a really exceptional voice, even when she was a child.
She described being nervous about performing initially when she was young,
but then, as she put it, quote, timidity was soon
replaced by competence. And somewhere along the line, someone talked
to Henrietta about how beneficial it would be for Cincceretta
to get formal training for her natural talent. There's a
(05:24):
story that she told later in life that someone at
church was like, your little girl just hit a high seat.
Please find her a school. And so in three, fifteen
year old Cinceretta started taking lessons at the Providence Academy
of Music. It is a little unclear how these lessons
were paid for. Henrietta would have had a very hard
(05:45):
time covering this cost, but the as a consequence, there's
been some speculation about whether someone from the community may
have helped out with money, or even perhaps people in
church kind of contributed into a fund, or if there
was just some other arrangement at this school, but we
really don't know. In addition to the start of her
formal training, Ceceretta also had another major life change at fifteen,
(06:08):
when she rather suddenly married a hotel porter who worked
at the narragans At Hotel. His name was David Richard Jones.
Ceceretta actually lied on her marriage license. She said that
she was eighteen and her new husband was twenty one.
Seven months into the marriage, the Joneses had a child
that was a daughter that they named Mabel Adelina and Ceceretta,
(06:29):
though did not give up her singing lessons. David, who
had worked his way up from that porter position to
a waiter position at the hotel, continued to work to
support them, and Henrietta assisted with childcare so they can
make this whole thing work, and they all lived together
at Henrietta's house. Not only was c Seretta studying, she
(06:49):
was also performing regularly at church concerts as well as
in small secular performances. Sometimes her name was listed for
these as Mrs Richard Jones. And one thing to note
about names here, we've been referring to the singer as Cinceretta,
but for the early part of her career she used
her first name Matilda, as well as Mrs Richard Jones
(07:10):
or Matilda S. Jones. We're using the name that she
became famous for, just to keep things kind of consistent,
because there are a number of different ways she was billed,
one of which is really famous but also pretty gross,
and we will get to that and just a bit
when she herself made this switch. So she appeared in
five at the Providence Armory Hall alongside established singer Flora Batson,
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and Batson really offered a glimpse of possibility to cis Seretta.
Regarding her potential career. Flora at this point was breaking
the color barrier and performing in front of white audiences,
singing classical music and not the expected, jokey and often
demeaning minstrel material that had been the only avenue available
for black performers for a long time. And this also
(07:57):
offered Ceceretta a look at the possibility of having a
real career in music at a time when a lot
of black women were really only able to find employment
as domestic workers or just doing things like taking in laundry.
In December of eighty five, she got the chance to
perform with another black singer who similarly was expanding her
career beyond what was expected, and that was Marie Selka.
(08:22):
Selca was famous and being built in a concert with
her was a really big deal, and eventually the three
singers Bats and Silica and Jones would be constantly compared
to one another in the press. But just as Ceceretta
was really getting some acclaim and some name recognition, her
daughter Mabel got sick and Mabel did not recover. She
(08:43):
died in February eight eighty six at the age of two,
and the cause of death was listed as pharyngitis and croup.
For several months, Cisaretta stopped all performing and grieved, but
by late spring she was ready to sing again, and
at that point she started to once again perform in
concerts around Providence. In the fall of that year, there
(09:04):
was more training, although the particulars around that are a
little bit unclear. We know that Cecaretta traveled to Boston,
according to an article from the time, it was to
study at the Boston Conservatory of Music, but other write
ups that were published after the facts say that she
was trained at the New England Conservatory of Music. There's
really no corroborating evidence for either version of this story,
(09:27):
though she doesn't appear in the records of the New
England Conservatory and the Boston conservatories records have not survived
to be checked. Yeah, so we don't know. Because this
it is possible that she could have studied at the
New England Conservatory and just not been noted as a student,
like as a a side deal with one of the teachers.
We just have no idea what happened there. But by
(09:48):
the end of eighteen eighty six, Jones had completed her
studies in Boston and she was back in Providence once
again giving performances. She and her husband had a lot
more in mind for her, though. She started appearing on
regional tours, often with Flora Batson, and in eight she
made her New York City debut in a concert with
Batson at Steinway Hall that was at a benefit for
(10:11):
the Odd Fellows Building Fund. A lot of her early
performances like this were benefits. Cisceretta was billed as the
rising Soprano of Providence and the concert ended in the
red because inclement weather kept people from attending, But the
reviews of Jones in particular were glowing, and this led
to a similar concert booking in Philadelphia soon after. So
(10:34):
it's unclear which of these shows that talent agent William
Risden saw, but he was really impressed with Ceceretta when
he did see her, and this led to a contract
with his agency, which was Abby's Chauffele and Growl. Risen
had quite a plan in mind for her. And we're
gonna pause here for a word from our sponsors, and
when we come back we will talk about the whirlwind
(10:56):
tour that Cisceretta found herself on in On August one,
c Seretta Jones attended her first rehearsal with the Tennessee
Jubilee Singers. This was an all black group of musicians
(11:17):
and singers and they were leaving the next day for
a tour through the Caribbean and South America. Members of
the press had been invited to hear the group perform
after just a small amount of rehearsal on that same day,
and once again Ciiceretta's voice captivated them. So it's from
the coverage of this event that it seems like she
(11:37):
got the nickname that stuck with her for the rest
of her life. This was a nickname she really disliked,
and that was the Black Patty, whose nickname was a
reference to Italian opera singer Adelina Patty, who was really
famous at the time. She's still one of the most
celebrated sopranos and opera history. Jones would later tell a
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reporter that the reason she just liked this name was
that she felt like it might make people think she
was comparing herself as an equal to this famous singer.
What she really wanted to do was to make her
own name without using the appeal of someone else. Did
not help that her tour manager seized on the nickname
and use it to promote the tour that she had
(12:19):
signed on for. I mentioned this to Holly before we
got in here looking at pictures of her, So many
of them are labeled as Black Patty rather than with
her actual name. Oh yeah, and he I mean, every
one of her managers used that because it was a
ticket draw. We'll talk about it a little bit more.
It's horrifying there. The other two singers that we mentioned,
(12:43):
Batson and Sleeka, similarly were called other things related to
Adelina Patty. I think one of them was sometimes called
Creole Patty, and I don't remember the other one offhand.
But it was just like a very common thing in
a little bit gross because it completely demeaned these three
black women who were phenomenal talents. Um. Yeah, we'll talk
(13:07):
about that some more in a bit. So this uh
contract that Jones had signed was for two years. Keep
in mind she was only twenty at this time, she
had not traveled very far, and she suddenly found herself
as the star in an international tour. And on August two,
the day after that one day of rehearsal, she boarded
(13:27):
the steamer Athos along with her fellow performers, her husband,
and their tour manager, James R. Smith, who was white,
and they all headed to their first stop in Jamaica.
They stayed in Jamaica until October because they kept selling
out their shows. Then they went on to Panama. There
stay there was a lot shorter than anticipated because they
had low sales numbers. It was kind of the opposite experience,
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but by November they were back in Jamaica. Then they
moved on to Barbados. Barbados loved her so much that
the governor and citizens of Bridgetown presented her with a
gold medal, and this was a start of a trend
in Trinidad. She was given another medal and when they
got to Guiana, which was at the time British Guiana,
they had to cancel the first performance because most of
(14:12):
the performers were terribly seasick. They had had a rough
ride on the way and they just could not make
that first show. And after a rough start and weak
initial turnout, which was by some attributed to racism and
by others just a mix up of what was actually
going on with the booking, Madam Jones, as she preferred
(14:33):
to be called, received a third gold medal. As the
tour continued, she continued to be adored by audiences right
up until the group made their return to New York
that happened in February of eight nine. They had met
with such great success and by the time she got
back to the US, Jones had been given eight different
(14:54):
medals as well as other gifts. But they also experienced
a lot of racism in these travel In some cities
that racism impacted their ticket sales and others they had
been turned away from hotels, but this was a profitable venture,
so their bosses were happy. Smith gave interviews this was
again the tour manager, where he talked about a planned
(15:15):
tour for Europe. But then everything changed when he abruptly
sold the rights to the Tennessee Jubilee Singers concerts to
a man named George M. Dusenberry. And the reason for
this sudden split was accounted for very differently by the
parties involved. Smith said that the performers had become combative
(15:35):
with him and that they refused to give him any
credit in their success. Several of the performers, when they
were asked questions about it, told a very different story.
Saying that Smith was not paying for all of their
expenses as had been stipulated in their contract, and that
turned out to be the truth. They had paperwork to
back that up. And when the dust all settled, their
(15:57):
contract was canceled and the performers all went their separate ways.
And I feel like this is a dispute that we
would see happen now. It plays out over and over
throughout Cceretta's career with various troops. But also yes, it
continues to be like a career in the arts often
involves issues with business dealings. After appearing in a number
(16:22):
of concerts back in Providence, Ceceretta started a new tour.
She was reunited with one of the singers from the
Tennessee Jubilee group that was Lewis Brown. They started a
new tour, this time with the black manager named Benjamin Lightfoot.
The itinerary took them through Virginia, Maryland, Washington, d c, Delaware,
and Connecticut. This time their name was Couty Star Concert Company.
(16:46):
Lewis Brown did not complete the tour though, and was
replaced and Jones's husband David added two dates at the
end in Baltimore. They wrapped up this tour at the
end of June nine. Yeah, they were definitely reaching a
point where her life was kind of like one tour
after another, And they had a false start for an
Autumn eight nine tour of the West Indies that would
(17:08):
have been managed by Florence Williams, who had worked as
a reporter for The New York Age. So Ciceretta continued
to sing instead throughout the US Northeast on bookings that
had been arranged by her husband, David. But in the
spring of eighteen ninety those contract disputes that had ended
the fall plans were revisited, and soon Williams and the
Joneses were able to come to an agreement under the
(17:31):
name the New York Star Concert Company. They left for
Jamaica in March, although the name changed to the Star
Tennessee Jubilee Singers on the way to their first destination.
Williams was able to write up the tour as it
went for publication in the New York Age, and this
tour was a great success. Audiences had remembered Ceceretta, they
were eagerly anticipating her return. By the time they got
(17:54):
back to New York in July of eightee Ceceretta had
been applauded by heads of stay and given more lavish
gifts than on her first Caribbean and South American tour,
and because of the press that had been picking up
those New York age stories and then publishing them again
in other places throughout that tour, that was going home,
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so when she got home, Jones actually had even more
buzz than when she left. She gave concerts in New York, Brooklyn,
and Philadelphia when she returned, often selling out, and in
the case of an October eight show that took place
in Brooklyn, they had to add seats to the aisles
to accommodate the oversold crowds, and it turned out that
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some attendees just had to stand for the entire show
because there was just nowhere left to sit. This is
also when she switched over to using her middle name
Cceretta instead of going by Matilda. And this was a
name that she just thought sounded more musical. Yeah, not
not any other Cceretta's going around, so it also just
made her stand out. And this also marks the period
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where she received her first invitation in to perform at
the White House on February, she sang in a lunchtime
concert there for President Harrison and his guests, although how
she was invited and how this whole thing came to
be was completely unknown. Any correspondence about this request has
been lost, and she has also said to have sung
(19:19):
for three other presidents, but similarly details on those appearances
and how they were arranged has also been lost. She
did decide that she would wear all those medals that
she had been gifted on tour while she sang. They
were pinned onto her bodice, and this would become a
really iconic look for the singer. Her appearances in d C,
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both for the White House and for general audiences, also
got a lot of press coverage. A lot of this coverage, though,
is pretty problematic because it praises her, but it's also
inherently racist, kind of summing up to this idea of
she's black, but she's also pretty and very talented. Yeah,
it's a reading those is a little stomach turning because
(20:00):
it is sort of like, in spite of the fact
that she is this, she's also this, so we're fine
with it. It's really also in that tone that's very
pat yourself on the back for accepting someone else. It's
a gross, gross tone. But the outcome of this ongoing
rise in recognition that Jones was getting was a very
(20:21):
major booking. She was given top billing at the Grand
African Jubilee at Madison Square Garden. This was a three
day event at the end of April of that year,
and when Cisceretta took the stage, that meant that she
was appearing before a mixed race audience and estimated thirty
seven hundred of the five thousand audience members that were
(20:42):
present were white. She wore a pale gray gown. She
had all of her medals once again pinned onto her bodice,
and she opened her performance with a selection from the
opera Robert Le Diable, which was one of the first
of the Paris Opera's Grand operas. She also sang Suwani
River and an assortment of other songs, and when she finished,
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the crowd gave her a standing ovation. She returned to
the stage later in the evening with the selection from
La Traviata and once again had the delight of the audience,
and after the show, she was asked to give an
interview in her dressing room for the New York Herald,
which she did h and the next day. While some
performances of the Jubilee got mixed or even bad reviews,
(21:26):
cinceretta singing was praised universally. The right up in the
New York Dramatic Mirror read that the evening quote would
be worthy of a little note were it not that
it brought to the attention of New Yorker's a singer who,
leaving her color altogether out of the question, has one
of the most pleasing soprano voices ever heard in this city.
(21:47):
Another write up stated that, and I love this. The
soul of a nightingale seems to have lodged in that throat.
This reminds me of the way that people talking about
Um Jenny Lynde, although Jenny Lynde is way more famous
name today, probably because of racism UM, but like a
similar focus on like what a beautiful nightingale like voice
(22:13):
she had, Pith Madison Square Garden performance is the moment
in Cinciretta jones career that really marks a shift. It
had a very significant before and after this moment. She
later said, quote, I woke up famous after singing at
the Garden and didn't know it. Sisterretta's voice was undeniably spectacular.
We unfortunately do not have any recordings of it, and
(22:35):
I wish we did, because the way people talk about
it is rhapsodic. And the thing is, everybody kind of
recognized that she would have been able to handle operatic roles,
which is something that she wanted to do, and there
were even rumors that she was being considered for roles
at the Met and with other companies, but opera companies
at this point, we're not going to hire black singers,
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even for roles that were actually written as black characters.
And aside from the racism in casting, there was this
other problem, which is that there were plenty of other
performers that were already established who had made clear that
they would not ever appear on the stage with a
black opera singer. She's sang in numerous concerts after that
night at the Garden, but it was two months later
(23:17):
that promoter Major James B. Pond reached out to her
about managing her career. She agreed, and soon she was
on a one year contract with him. POD was a
really big deal because agency handled people like Mark Twain
and Charles Dickens on their tours, so this really seems
like a step up. In June, Jones sang in the
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lower level venue at Carnegie Hall for a benefit concert,
not the main stage. This appearance happened very very shortly
after she signed her contract with Pond, and it seems
most likely that it had been booked before he was
managing her performance schedule. Pond booked a group of white
European musicians for Cincaretta to perform with. This was the
first time that she had not been part of an
(24:00):
all black group of performers, and he kept them all
really busy. This also marked a shift from performing for
primarily black audiences to primarily white crowds. She noted to
a reporter when asked about the shifting demographic of her
ticket buyers, quote, I do not feel as much at
home with them yet. I'm a little shy lest they
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should not like me, but so far they have proved
most kind. Pond famously booked Cisceretta at the Pittsburgh Exposition
in September. This was a week long booking and she
gave concerts for thousands of people each day, usually doing
one in the afternoon and one in the evening and
on her final night at the Expo booking, the venue
(24:42):
was so packed and so stifling as a consequence that
several people are said to have fainted, and when it
was over, she was applauded for a full five minutes.
The Expo continued after that first week, and Jones went
on to perform in other East Coast venues. Then the
expo manager begged Haunt to book her for another week
there at the Expo, and this was really no small ask.
(25:05):
As part of the terms of the second week of
Expo appearances, the expo manager had to buy out all
the other appearances that she had been scheduled for that week,
but she was a big enough draw that it was
worth it, so they did exactly that. She's said to
have commanded a two thousand dollar fee for the week,
which was enormous for the time and particularly so for
(25:26):
a black performer. At the start of Cisceretta was booked
at the Central Music Hall in Chicago, and she was
still being promoted as Black Patty during this time and
for the rest of her career, and she still disliked it,
but it did help draw crowds. Although a critic noted
in Chicago that the name kind of had a negative
impact on the audience's impression of her work, like he
(25:48):
just felt like it's set up, this weird framing of
it that was unnecessary. But regardless of whether ticket buyers
merely went out of curiosity and draw of that name
or because they knew about her a new she was
a gifted singer, she continued to win audiences over with
her beautiful voice an incredibly expressive performance, moving from operatic
(26:08):
pieces to popular songs and back, although in Chicago she
did get a handful of harsher critiques than she was
usually accustomed to. That same year, in Jones, sang on
the main stage at Carnegie Hall as part of a
fundraiser for a project helmed by composer Will Mary and
Cook was attempting to stage an all black opera titled
(26:32):
Scenes from Uncle Tom's Cabin at the upcoming World's Columbian
Exposition in Chicago. Yeah, she agreed to be part of
that opera. She also agreed to be part of this fundraiser,
Like her name being attached to it was really helping
it get support. But then during a performance in Louisville, Kentucky,
that year, she encountered this very strange setup of segregated
(26:54):
seating that really bothered her enough that she mentioned it
in an interview while she was in the city. The
orchestra seating at this particular venue was reserved exclusively for
white patrons and the gallery was for black patrons. But
because this particular concert had not drawn much of a
white audience, she sang to a hall that was half
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empty at her level, while the gallery above was full,
and the black attendees were not allowed to move down
to the empty orchestra seats, and she was quoted as saying,
I have never met with anything like it before. I
think people of my race ought not to be shut
out that way. On April, her manager, Pond, filed a
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motion to prevent Jones from appearing in concert unless he
had arranged it. This happened because she and David had
technically broken their contract by booking a couple of side gigs.
But as this case unfolded, it turned into this ugly
back and forth between the Jones and Pond, including sworn
affidavit's that Pond's own boss had told them the terms
(27:59):
of their contract couldn't be fulfilled by the company. This
case dragged out into the summer, with first a ruling
in favor of the Joneses and then a second ruling
in favor of Pond. So though this strained the relationships,
Seretta sang only when Pond arranged for it, and then
in exchange he had to pay her a hundred and
(28:21):
fifty dollars a week. Since the country was entering a
financial depression, the case could be made. This outcome was
kind of favorable to the singer, at least just in
strict financial terms. Yeah, it offered some stability at a
time when bookings were not necessarily going to be as
consistent because the people just couldn't afford tickets to go
(28:42):
to shows. So, going back to that all black opera,
when the World's Columbian Exposition was supposed to see the
premiere of Scenes from Uncle Tom's Cabin, Cincretta was not
at the ex Bow, neither were many of the other
prominent black performers or speak years. As the date had approached,
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which had been named Colored Folks Day by Expo officials
who wanted to turn the premiere into a bigger themed event,
Criticisms over how the Expo had handled the entire thing
and its prejudice treatment of black participants and attendees led
a lot of the promised speakers and performers to cancel.
The opera did not happen, and in fact, Cisceretta was
(29:24):
booked for another show in New York, and although there
had been advanced notice of her cancelation, a crowd still
came to see her in a huge, confused and largely
concocted set of stories emerged about why she wasn't there.
She did sing at that expo, although not for another month,
and she did manage to pack the house despite that
(29:45):
earlier kerfuffle, so apparently audiences did not hold the whole
confusion against her. So we're about to get to another
new phase of c Seretta's career, where she joins a
new manager and goes on an international tour. But first
we can hear from the sponsors that helped keep Stuffy
Myth and History Class going. By mid eighteen ninety four,
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for reasons that are unknown, the relationship between Pond and
the Joneses was severed and cisseretta schedule was then being
managed by a man named Rudolph Vocal and under Vocal
Cisceretta went on a tour of Europe, which is something
she had wanted for a very long time. The new
company that Vocal formed was called the Black Patty Concert Company,
(30:33):
and that company staged its first performance consisting entirely of
classical pieces, at Carnegie Hall on November eight. So, after
a number of concerts in the New York area and
then the surrounding states, their European tour began on February eleven,
as they headed to their first show in Berlin. The
(30:53):
reviews were just wonderful. One German reviewer wrote, quote, her
voice has hour and fire, and the florid passages remind
one of the rapid flow of a mountain brook. There
was also a lot of talk about her appearance in
the press, including again many cringe inducing discussions of whether
(31:15):
she should be called Black Patty because she appeared to
be of mixed race. In their opinion, yeah, there was
so much discussion about the shade of her skin and
what that meant, and it's gross. Let men talk a
little bit more about it in our behind the scenes,
but those descriptions are upsetting. Her reviews when she got
(31:37):
to London were a little bit more critical. There were
some more direct comparisons to Adelina Patty, and Jones was
found lacking by some reviewers, not all. This was also
the period where she started to tell the press that
she did not like that nickname Black Patty because to her,
it made her seem full of herself. After London, Jones
(31:58):
continued to move through Europe, appearing in Paris before moving
on to Monte Carlo and Milan, and then going back
to Germany. The entire tour had been different from her
work before this, and that she was billed not only
with other musical acts, but with more of a Vaude
billion mix of performers. She did the same when she
returned to the US, initially appearing at Procter's Pleasure Palace
(32:22):
on twenty three Street in Manhattan for an extended arrangement. Yeah.
So at this point, you know, you're with like comedians
and jugglers and animal trick acts and all kinds of things. Um,
this was all going pretty well though, But after the
Plessy versus Ferguson case was decided by the U. S.
Supreme Court in eight, which of course upheld segregation as constitutional,
(32:48):
it pretty quickly became more and more difficult for black
performers to book concert halls the way Cisceretta had before
she left Europe, and that impacted her career considerably. So
soon sister I was touring with a new company. And
it's not clear who proposed the idea for this company.
In some accounts it's David Jones, and others it's food
(33:09):
alf Focal, regardless of who came up with the idea, though,
soon Ceceretta was touring with the Black Patty Troubadours, and
this offered her regular income in some stability, although maybe
not the grandeur of her previous engagements. She was making
roughly twenty dollars a year, and that was the most
of any black entertainer during this period. Yeah, there were
(33:32):
definitely lots of discussions about how rich she was in
the press, which the most for any black entertainer, but
there were still other entertainers making more. But because Ceceretta's
voice was universally acclaimed and she had made this transition
to you know, kind of a touring comedy troupe almost
more than than these you know, very um slightly more
(33:54):
highbrow concert situations. An interviewer in eight asked her if
she would ever consider just disguising herself as white or
lighter skinned to pursue the career that she could have
easily had if racism had not maintained this barrier to opera.
She responded, quote, try to hide my race and deny
(34:17):
my own people. Oh, I would never do that. I
am proud of belonging to them, and I would not
hide what I am even for an evening. There were
also questions posed to her about the possibility of playing
roles in opera that had historically been white singers in
roles that were written as black, such as admire Beers, Laugh,
I Can. There was some discussion that maybe that could
(34:39):
open up an avenue for some black performers, but she
has said that she was just too busy with her
touring career to make that work, And whether she was
sidestepping having a bigger conversation about race on the opera stage,
we don't know, although it does kind of seem that way.
She was pretty careful to avoid those questions. So this
new constantly touring phase of her career started. It was
(35:01):
less grand than the days that had gone before, and
her marriage was also landing in its last phase. There
had been hints over the years that she and David
might have been having some problems, and that those problems
might have stemmed, at least in part from the ease
with which their money seemed to just pass through his hands.
In Aretta filed for divorce on the basis of drunkenness
(35:25):
and non support. With the Black Patty Troubadours, Jones toured
for nineteen years, traveling all over the US, also Canada
and some other places on a steemingly NonStop, revolving door
of bookings. And though this was a stable career and
she was, as we said, the highest paid black performer
(35:45):
at the time, there were also plenty of problems. For example,
she and her fellow performers often could not stay in hotels.
They were not given rooms. This was of course problematic, uh,
particularly because when you're touring and you're exhausted and you
just want to sleep, the last thing you need is
to be told you can't. I know, when we've done tours,
(36:07):
if somebody had told me you can't have this hotel room,
I would have cried. So I feel like singing at
the level she was at is even more exhausting. So
eventually vocal arranged to have a luxury train car purchase
for the company, and that essentially became their home. It
was very, very large. It had I think I had
read ten compartments as well as two kind of common
(36:28):
seating areas where they would all hang out together. These
Vaudevillion productions featured broad comedy and musical performances that often
appeased audiences with acts that really played into racist stereotypes,
but that was really the only way they could get
continued bookings. When it was Cisaretta's time to take the stage, though,
which was the last segment of the show, the tone
(36:51):
of everything changed considerably. Even though she was the main
name on the show, she did not appear until the end,
and for this section she went almost strictly with opera selections.
Many of these were arias from composers like Verdi, and
over time the staging of these sections of the show
grew grander and more complex, with audiences essentially getting treated
(37:16):
to a mini opera that included lavish costumes and beautiful sets,
as well as a full supporting chorus, and this segment
came to be known as the operatic Kaleidoscope. There were
plenty of ups and downs during those nineteen years. Early on,
there were ongoing legal battles with James Pond over money
that he still owed the Joneses. There were disputes among
(37:39):
the performers. At one point there was a huge falling
out between the tour managers and the stage manager, Bob Cole,
who also composed music for the show. Co Stars came
and went, The supporting cast shifted around. Reviews became less
consistently a brilliant and more mixed over time, but it
was consistent work, and the Troop or Doors rolled out
(38:01):
a new show for each theatrical season, and they kept
drawing in crowds, and over time the show evolved. One
of the big things was that they phased out those
holdout racist stereotypes from the minstrel shows of the nineteenth century.
It had also had a name change in nineteen o nine,
It became the Black Patty Musical Comedy Company, and at
that point they started staging three act performances that featured
(38:26):
cinerretta acting as well as singing. Vocal remained as the manager.
He was well respected, well liked, and had a reputation
for treating the performers well and ensuring that they had
whatever they needed and that they were taken care of.
He also kept them booked and busy, working on the
road forty five weeks a year. The nineteen fourteen to
(38:46):
nineteen fifteen season of the show finally hit a stumbling
block too large to power through. There had been some
rumors that the company was having financial troubles. Vocal had
denied those, but the thing that actually had aalize the
end was a report that several members of the cast
had been drunk during a performance in Memphis. Once this
(39:07):
news got out, other venues were unwilling to book them,
and dispute over money's owed from that last show tanked
the entire enterprise. Suddenly, Madam Jones, in her mid to
late forties, was without the job that had made up
the bulk of her income for almost two decades. The timing, though,
was sort of fortuitous. Throughout her career and particularly as
(39:30):
she gained success, Cceretta had remained very close to her mother,
and she was sure to help take care of her financially,
just as Henrietta had taken care of her and the
family after she had gotten married as a teenager. Before
and after tours and as often as she could manage,
she would travel to Providence to visit her mother. And
in nineteen fifteen, when this whole blow up happened with
(39:52):
the touring company, Ciceretta's mother was ill, and Ciceretta was
kind of ready to retire so that she could take
care of her. So Madam Jones gave her last performance
in New York at the Lafayette Theater in the fall
of nineteen fifteen, and then she all but vanished from
public life. She moved into the house that her mother
lived in with her second husband, Daniel Crenshaw. When Henrietta
(40:16):
died in Cinceretta stayed and Crenshaw did as well. And
then this story gets really blurry. There's just not a
lot of documentation about what Jones's life was like during
these years. There are some varied and contradictory accounts from
various people. She may have taken work as a cook,
she may have adopted children, She may have been regularly
(40:37):
visited by a number of celebrity friends. We really don't
have anything to corroborate the memories that were shared by
various people over time. We do know that Cinceretta slowly
sold off her jewelry and her other valuables that she
had acquired during her performing career to kind of keep
herself afloat and basically financed the remainder of her life.
(40:59):
But towards the very in she had run out of
valuables and she actually had to have some help from
the president of the local in Double A c P Chapter,
William P. H. Freeman, to meet her bills and keep
things running. On June nine, thirty three, Cincretta died at
the age of sixty five from cancer had started in
her stomach and spread stew her liver. She was buried
(41:20):
at Grace Church Cemetery near her mother, and that was
arranged by Mr. Freeman, although there was no headstone there
until eighteen when one was crowdfunded in A plaque was
erected to mark the location of the home in Rhode Island,
near where Cisterretta lived, spearheaded by the Rhode Island Black
Heritage Society. So in recent years she's gotten a little
(41:42):
bit more attention. Again, I'm so glad that you chose
the subject because I had never ever heard of her. Yeah,
I am, like I said, I had that scribbled note
and I didn't remember what it was even until I
went back and looked her up again. You can't help
but sort of fall in love with her. She's really
an interesting figure. She was we'll talk about it some
(42:03):
more in our Friday episode, but she was so sort
of quietly breaking a lot of color barriers without pointing
out that she was doing it. It was almost like
her approach was to be really sly about it and
then just accepted as the norm um, which is pretty interesting.
She's pretty wonderful. Um. I have a brief listener mail,
(42:26):
mostly because I wanna congratulate this person. Uh Lisa wrote
us to say, I want to thank you and past
host for all of the wonderful podcasts. I switched to
a new teaching job two and a half years ago,
and today, on my birthday, of all days, I finished
the last of the past episodes. I love how each
of the host makes history so exciting. There's no way
(42:48):
I can pick my favorite episode, but I love your
music related episodes. She is a music teacher, any sad
Royal story and of course Victorian or Regency era history.
Attached is a picture of her in her PhD shirt.
We have shirts on our t public store. That's a
PhD and stuff you Missed in History Class and she
has earned one. I thought this was a great time
since this was a music episode to UH to give
(43:09):
her a shout out and thank her for writing in
and telling us about it and her picture is adorable,
and thank her for being an educator as well. We
need it UM. And there's there's so much that says
that UM music education leads to all kinds of better
performance in other areas of academics. So those music teachers
(43:30):
offen the unsung heroes. UH. If you would like to
write to us, you can do so at History Podcast
at i heart radio dot com. You can also find
us on social media as Missed in History and you
can subscribe to the show on the I heart Radio app,
at Apple podcasts, or wherever it is you listen. Stuff
(43:51):
you Missed in History Class is a production of I
heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit
the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. M
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy P. Wilson. So we
have talked a number of times on the show about
how we collect and manage our topic lists. Uh. And
(00:22):
there are times, I know, for me, when I come
across something in the wild and I just scribble it
down and then I don't have any idea what that
was about, right, And I think you mentioned a similar
thing happening recently. Tracy did so. A few days back.
I was reviewing a notebook that I had recently been
using to keep my to do lists and my schedules
(00:42):
in because I kind of do. I'm reticent to call
it a bullet journal. It's really just like my weird
if Faulkner kept a bullet journal kind of stream of
consciousness of like all my to do stuff. So it's
at least in one place for the important things. Um.
And then I go back and I review them and
make sure I've captured anything that needs to get carried
(01:03):
over into the next one. And I'm a little slow
to do it with my transfer from one to the next.
This time but I was looking over this last book
and in literally in a margin sideways, I had just
written the word Cisseretta, and I didn't know what it was.
I couldn't remember where it came from. Uh So I
looked it up, and I sure, I'm glad I did,
(01:25):
because it turns out that at some point in the
last several months I had apparently stumbled across Ciceretta Jones,
who was a black operatic and popular music singer in
the early twentieth century, and she was very famous in
her day, but then she kind of vanished from the
papers and all press coverage when she retired, and her
last years were lived in relative obscurity, which meant that
(01:46):
when she died, nobody really knew very much about it,
and it didn't get a lot of coverage, and she
really hadn't been uh as celebrated throughout history as she
certainly deserves. So she is due for a little bit
of a ten and that's what we are talking about today.
Matilda Ceceretta Joiner was born January five, eighteen sixty eight,
(02:07):
in Portsmouth, Virginia. We don't have any recording or anything
of how she said her own name I've heard people
say it's Ceceretta and Cecyretta. We're just gonna stick with
Ceceretta for the sake of consistency. The date of that
also has some question marks, because some records have eighteen
sixty nine rather than eighteen sixty eight is the birth
(02:27):
yere Ceceretta was born into a religious family. Her father,
Jeremiah Malachi Joiner, who went by Jerry, had been enslaved
at birth but was a freeman when Ceceretta was born.
He worked as a carpenter and as a minister at
the African Methodist Church. Her mother, Henrietta, worked as a
washerwoman and also saying in the church choir. Ceceretta went
(02:49):
by both Matilda and Cissy with her family. Yeah, we'll
talk about her name a little bit more, uh, in
just a bit, and we should also mention like it's
worth noting that she was more just a few years
after the Civil War ended, so like at a time
when the country was really going through significant change. Jerry
and Henrietta had two more children in addition to Cicceretta,
(03:11):
but both of them died when they were still young.
In eighteen seventy six, After the loss of Ciceretta's brother,
the family moved to Providence, Rhode Island. Jerry had been
offered a position at a church in Providence, and he
saw this as an opportunity for a better life in
this other state. Cceretta was enrolled once they moved at
Meeting Street Primary School, which was integrated as we're all
(03:34):
Rhode Island schools, following the passing of a statute by
the Rhode Island General Assembly on March seventh, eighteen sixty six,
that had stated that quote no distinction be made on
account of the race or color of the applicant. So
it seems like at this point the Joiners were really
settling into a stable community that had better opportunities than
(03:55):
they had had back in Virginia, but things were strained
at home. We don't really know the specifics of the situation,
but by eighteen seventy eight, Cinceretta's parents were living separately
and she was living with her mother. The Joiners formally
divorced more than a decade later, in eighty nine. Court
records indicate that Jerry had accused his wife of adultery.
(04:18):
It's not really clear how much involvement Jerry had in
Cincceretta's life after the Joiners separated. But while the loss
of siblings and moving in this tumultuous family life for
part of her early years, there was one thing that
had been consistent for just about as long as she
could make noise, and that was that Cisterretta saying she
(04:38):
loved to sing. She would later say to a reporter, quote,
when I was a little girl, just a wee slip
of a tad, I used to go about singing. I
guess I must have been a bit of a nuisance then,
for my mouth was open all the time. In addition
to just singing on her own whenever she could, she's
saying at school, she's saying in church, she's saying at
events for school and church, everyone could hear that she
(05:02):
had a really exceptional voice, even when she was a child.
She described being nervous about performing initially when she was young,
but then, as she put it, quote, timidity was soon
replaced by competence. And somewhere along the line, someone talked
to Henrietta about how beneficial it would be for Cincceretta
to get formal training for her natural talent. There's a
(05:24):
story that she told later in life that someone at
church was like, your little girl just hit a high seat.
Please find her a school. And so in three, fifteen
year old Cinceretta started taking lessons at the Providence Academy
of Music. It is a little unclear how these lessons
were paid for. Henrietta would have had a very hard
(05:45):
time covering this cost, but the as a consequence, there's
been some speculation about whether someone from the community may
have helped out with money, or even perhaps people in
church kind of contributed into a fund, or if there
was just some other arrangement at this school, but we
really don't know. In addition to the start of her
formal training, Ceceretta also had another major life change at fifteen,
(06:08):
when she rather suddenly married a hotel porter who worked
at the narragans At Hotel. His name was David Richard Jones.
Ceceretta actually lied on her marriage license. She said that
she was eighteen and her new husband was twenty one.
Seven months into the marriage, the Joneses had a child
that was a daughter that they named Mabel Adelina and Ceceretta,
(06:29):
though did not give up her singing lessons. David, who
had worked his way up from that porter position to
a waiter position at the hotel, continued to work to
support them, and Henrietta assisted with childcare so they can
make this whole thing work, and they all lived together
at Henrietta's house. Not only was c Seretta studying, she
(06:49):
was also performing regularly at church concerts as well as
in small secular performances. Sometimes her name was listed for
these as Mrs Richard Jones. And one thing to note
about names here, we've been referring to the singer as Cinceretta,
but for the early part of her career she used
her first name Matilda, as well as Mrs Richard Jones
(07:10):
or Matilda S. Jones. We're using the name that she
became famous for, just to keep things kind of consistent,
because there are a number of different ways she was billed,
one of which is really famous but also pretty gross,
and we will get to that and just a bit
when she herself made this switch. So she appeared in
five at the Providence Armory Hall alongside established singer Flora Batson,
(07:34):
and Batson really offered a glimpse of possibility to cis Seretta.
Regarding her potential career. Flora at this point was breaking
the color barrier and performing in front of white audiences,
singing classical music and not the expected, jokey and often
demeaning minstrel material that had been the only avenue available
for black performers for a long time. And this also
(07:57):
offered Ceceretta a look at the possibility of having a
real career in music at a time when a lot
of black women were really only able to find employment
as domestic workers or just doing things like taking in laundry.
In December of eighty five, she got the chance to
perform with another black singer who similarly was expanding her
career beyond what was expected, and that was Marie Selka.
(08:22):
Selca was famous and being built in a concert with
her was a really big deal, and eventually the three
singers Bats and Silica and Jones would be constantly compared
to one another in the press. But just as Ceceretta
was really getting some acclaim and some name recognition, her
daughter Mabel got sick and Mabel did not recover. She
(08:43):
died in February eight eighty six at the age of two,
and the cause of death was listed as pharyngitis and croup.
For several months, Cisaretta stopped all performing and grieved, but
by late spring she was ready to sing again, and
at that point she started to once again perform in
concerts around Providence. In the fall of that year, there
(09:04):
was more training, although the particulars around that are a
little bit unclear. We know that Cecaretta traveled to Boston,
according to an article from the time, it was to
study at the Boston Conservatory of Music, but other write
ups that were published after the facts say that she
was trained at the New England Conservatory of Music. There's
really no corroborating evidence for either version of this story,
(09:27):
though she doesn't appear in the records of the New
England Conservatory and the Boston conservatories records have not survived
to be checked. Yeah, so we don't know. Because this
it is possible that she could have studied at the
New England Conservatory and just not been noted as a student,
like as a a side deal with one of the teachers.
We just have no idea what happened there. But by
(09:48):
the end of eighteen eighty six, Jones had completed her
studies in Boston and she was back in Providence once
again giving performances. She and her husband had a lot
more in mind for her, though. She started appearing on
regional tours, often with Flora Batson, and in eight she
made her New York City debut in a concert with
Batson at Steinway Hall that was at a benefit for
(10:11):
the Odd Fellows Building Fund. A lot of her early
performances like this were benefits. Cisceretta was billed as the
rising Soprano of Providence and the concert ended in the
red because inclement weather kept people from attending, But the
reviews of Jones in particular were glowing, and this led
to a similar concert booking in Philadelphia soon after. So
(10:34):
it's unclear which of these shows that talent agent William
Risden saw, but he was really impressed with Ceceretta when
he did see her, and this led to a contract
with his agency, which was Abby's Chauffele and Growl. Risen
had quite a plan in mind for her. And we're
gonna pause here for a word from our sponsors, and
when we come back we will talk about the whirlwind
(10:56):
tour that Cisceretta found herself on in On August one,
c Seretta Jones attended her first rehearsal with the Tennessee
Jubilee Singers. This was an all black group of musicians
(11:17):
and singers and they were leaving the next day for
a tour through the Caribbean and South America. Members of
the press had been invited to hear the group perform
after just a small amount of rehearsal on that same day,
and once again Ciiceretta's voice captivated them. So it's from
the coverage of this event that it seems like she
(11:37):
got the nickname that stuck with her for the rest
of her life. This was a nickname she really disliked,
and that was the Black Patty, whose nickname was a
reference to Italian opera singer Adelina Patty, who was really
famous at the time. She's still one of the most
celebrated sopranos and opera history. Jones would later tell a
(11:58):
reporter that the reason she just liked this name was
that she felt like it might make people think she
was comparing herself as an equal to this famous singer.
What she really wanted to do was to make her
own name without using the appeal of someone else. Did
not help that her tour manager seized on the nickname
and use it to promote the tour that she had
(12:19):
signed on for. I mentioned this to Holly before we
got in here looking at pictures of her, So many
of them are labeled as Black Patty rather than with
her actual name. Oh yeah, and he I mean, every
one of her managers used that because it was a
ticket draw. We'll talk about it a little bit more.
It's horrifying there. The other two singers that we mentioned,
(12:43):
Batson and Sleeka, similarly were called other things related to
Adelina Patty. I think one of them was sometimes called
Creole Patty, and I don't remember the other one offhand.
But it was just like a very common thing in
a little bit gross because it completely demeaned these three
black women who were phenomenal talents. Um. Yeah, we'll talk
(13:07):
about that some more in a bit. So this uh
contract that Jones had signed was for two years. Keep
in mind she was only twenty at this time, she
had not traveled very far, and she suddenly found herself
as the star in an international tour. And on August two,
the day after that one day of rehearsal, she boarded
(13:27):
the steamer Athos along with her fellow performers, her husband,
and their tour manager, James R. Smith, who was white,
and they all headed to their first stop in Jamaica.
They stayed in Jamaica until October because they kept selling
out their shows. Then they went on to Panama. There
stay there was a lot shorter than anticipated because they
had low sales numbers. It was kind of the opposite experience,
(13:51):
but by November they were back in Jamaica. Then they
moved on to Barbados. Barbados loved her so much that
the governor and citizens of Bridgetown presented her with a
gold medal, and this was a start of a trend
in Trinidad. She was given another medal and when they
got to Guiana, which was at the time British Guiana,
they had to cancel the first performance because most of
(14:12):
the performers were terribly seasick. They had had a rough
ride on the way and they just could not make
that first show. And after a rough start and weak
initial turnout, which was by some attributed to racism and
by others just a mix up of what was actually
going on with the booking, Madam Jones, as she preferred
(14:33):
to be called, received a third gold medal. As the
tour continued, she continued to be adored by audiences right
up until the group made their return to New York
that happened in February of eight nine. They had met
with such great success and by the time she got
back to the US, Jones had been given eight different
(14:54):
medals as well as other gifts. But they also experienced
a lot of racism in these travel In some cities
that racism impacted their ticket sales and others they had
been turned away from hotels, but this was a profitable venture,
so their bosses were happy. Smith gave interviews this was
again the tour manager, where he talked about a planned
(15:15):
tour for Europe. But then everything changed when he abruptly
sold the rights to the Tennessee Jubilee Singers concerts to
a man named George M. Dusenberry. And the reason for
this sudden split was accounted for very differently by the
parties involved. Smith said that the performers had become combative
(15:35):
with him and that they refused to give him any
credit in their success. Several of the performers, when they
were asked questions about it, told a very different story.
Saying that Smith was not paying for all of their
expenses as had been stipulated in their contract, and that
turned out to be the truth. They had paperwork to
back that up. And when the dust all settled, their
(15:57):
contract was canceled and the performers all went their separate ways.
And I feel like this is a dispute that we
would see happen now. It plays out over and over
throughout Cceretta's career with various troops. But also yes, it
continues to be like a career in the arts often
involves issues with business dealings. After appearing in a number
(16:22):
of concerts back in Providence, Ceceretta started a new tour.
She was reunited with one of the singers from the
Tennessee Jubilee group that was Lewis Brown. They started a
new tour, this time with the black manager named Benjamin Lightfoot.
The itinerary took them through Virginia, Maryland, Washington, d c, Delaware,
and Connecticut. This time their name was Couty Star Concert Company.
(16:46):
Lewis Brown did not complete the tour though, and was
replaced and Jones's husband David added two dates at the
end in Baltimore. They wrapped up this tour at the
end of June nine. Yeah, they were definitely reaching a
point where her life was kind of like one tour
after another, And they had a false start for an
Autumn eight nine tour of the West Indies that would
(17:08):
have been managed by Florence Williams, who had worked as
a reporter for The New York Age. So Ciceretta continued
to sing instead throughout the US Northeast on bookings that
had been arranged by her husband, David. But in the
spring of eighteen ninety those contract disputes that had ended
the fall plans were revisited, and soon Williams and the
Joneses were able to come to an agreement under the
(17:31):
name the New York Star Concert Company. They left for
Jamaica in March, although the name changed to the Star
Tennessee Jubilee Singers on the way to their first destination.
Williams was able to write up the tour as it
went for publication in the New York Age, and this
tour was a great success. Audiences had remembered Ceceretta, they
were eagerly anticipating her return. By the time they got
(17:54):
back to New York in July of eightee Ceceretta had
been applauded by heads of stay and given more lavish
gifts than on her first Caribbean and South American tour,
and because of the press that had been picking up
those New York age stories and then publishing them again
in other places throughout that tour, that was going home,
(18:14):
so when she got home, Jones actually had even more
buzz than when she left. She gave concerts in New York, Brooklyn,
and Philadelphia when she returned, often selling out, and in
the case of an October eight show that took place
in Brooklyn, they had to add seats to the aisles
to accommodate the oversold crowds, and it turned out that
(18:35):
some attendees just had to stand for the entire show
because there was just nowhere left to sit. This is
also when she switched over to using her middle name
Cceretta instead of going by Matilda. And this was a
name that she just thought sounded more musical. Yeah, not
not any other Cceretta's going around, so it also just
made her stand out. And this also marks the period
(18:57):
where she received her first invitation in to perform at
the White House on February, she sang in a lunchtime
concert there for President Harrison and his guests, although how
she was invited and how this whole thing came to
be was completely unknown. Any correspondence about this request has
been lost, and she has also said to have sung
(19:19):
for three other presidents, but similarly details on those appearances
and how they were arranged has also been lost. She
did decide that she would wear all those medals that
she had been gifted on tour while she sang. They
were pinned onto her bodice, and this would become a
really iconic look for the singer. Her appearances in d C,
(19:39):
both for the White House and for general audiences, also
got a lot of press coverage. A lot of this coverage, though,
is pretty problematic because it praises her, but it's also
inherently racist, kind of summing up to this idea of
she's black, but she's also pretty and very talented. Yeah,
it's a reading those is a little stomach turning because
(20:00):
it is sort of like, in spite of the fact
that she is this, she's also this, so we're fine
with it. It's really also in that tone that's very
pat yourself on the back for accepting someone else. It's
a gross, gross tone. But the outcome of this ongoing
rise in recognition that Jones was getting was a very
(20:21):
major booking. She was given top billing at the Grand
African Jubilee at Madison Square Garden. This was a three
day event at the end of April of that year,
and when Cisceretta took the stage, that meant that she
was appearing before a mixed race audience and estimated thirty
seven hundred of the five thousand audience members that were
(20:42):
present were white. She wore a pale gray gown. She
had all of her medals once again pinned onto her bodice,
and she opened her performance with a selection from the
opera Robert Le Diable, which was one of the first
of the Paris Opera's Grand operas. She also sang Suwani
River and an assortment of other songs, and when she finished,
(21:04):
the crowd gave her a standing ovation. She returned to
the stage later in the evening with the selection from
La Traviata and once again had the delight of the audience,
and after the show, she was asked to give an
interview in her dressing room for the New York Herald,
which she did h and the next day. While some
performances of the Jubilee got mixed or even bad reviews,
(21:26):
cinceretta singing was praised universally. The right up in the
New York Dramatic Mirror read that the evening quote would
be worthy of a little note were it not that
it brought to the attention of New Yorker's a singer who,
leaving her color altogether out of the question, has one
of the most pleasing soprano voices ever heard in this city.
(21:47):
Another write up stated that, and I love this. The
soul of a nightingale seems to have lodged in that throat.
This reminds me of the way that people talking about
Um Jenny Lynde, although Jenny Lynde is way more famous
name today, probably because of racism UM, but like a
similar focus on like what a beautiful nightingale like voice
(22:13):
she had, Pith Madison Square Garden performance is the moment
in Cinciretta jones career that really marks a shift. It
had a very significant before and after this moment. She
later said, quote, I woke up famous after singing at
the Garden and didn't know it. Sisterretta's voice was undeniably spectacular.
We unfortunately do not have any recordings of it, and
(22:35):
I wish we did, because the way people talk about
it is rhapsodic. And the thing is, everybody kind of
recognized that she would have been able to handle operatic roles,
which is something that she wanted to do, and there
were even rumors that she was being considered for roles
at the Met and with other companies, but opera companies
at this point, we're not going to hire black singers,
(22:56):
even for roles that were actually written as black characters.
And aside from the racism in casting, there was this
other problem, which is that there were plenty of other
performers that were already established who had made clear that
they would not ever appear on the stage with a
black opera singer. She's sang in numerous concerts after that
night at the Garden, but it was two months later
(23:17):
that promoter Major James B. Pond reached out to her
about managing her career. She agreed, and soon she was
on a one year contract with him. POD was a
really big deal because agency handled people like Mark Twain
and Charles Dickens on their tours, so this really seems
like a step up. In June, Jones sang in the
(23:38):
lower level venue at Carnegie Hall for a benefit concert,
not the main stage. This appearance happened very very shortly
after she signed her contract with Pond, and it seems
most likely that it had been booked before he was
managing her performance schedule. Pond booked a group of white
European musicians for Cincaretta to perform with. This was the
first time that she had not been part of an
(24:00):
all black group of performers, and he kept them all
really busy. This also marked a shift from performing for
primarily black audiences to primarily white crowds. She noted to
a reporter when asked about the shifting demographic of her
ticket buyers, quote, I do not feel as much at
home with them yet. I'm a little shy lest they
(24:21):
should not like me, but so far they have proved
most kind. Pond famously booked Cisceretta at the Pittsburgh Exposition
in September. This was a week long booking and she
gave concerts for thousands of people each day, usually doing
one in the afternoon and one in the evening and
on her final night at the Expo booking, the venue
(24:42):
was so packed and so stifling as a consequence that
several people are said to have fainted, and when it
was over, she was applauded for a full five minutes.
The Expo continued after that first week, and Jones went
on to perform in other East Coast venues. Then the
expo manager begged Haunt to book her for another week
there at the Expo, and this was really no small ask.
(25:05):
As part of the terms of the second week of
Expo appearances, the expo manager had to buy out all
the other appearances that she had been scheduled for that week,
but she was a big enough draw that it was
worth it, so they did exactly that. She's said to
have commanded a two thousand dollar fee for the week,
which was enormous for the time and particularly so for
(25:26):
a black performer. At the start of Cisceretta was booked
at the Central Music Hall in Chicago, and she was
still being promoted as Black Patty during this time and
for the rest of her career, and she still disliked it,
but it did help draw crowds. Although a critic noted
in Chicago that the name kind of had a negative
impact on the audience's impression of her work, like he
(25:48):
just felt like it's set up, this weird framing of
it that was unnecessary. But regardless of whether ticket buyers
merely went out of curiosity and draw of that name
or because they knew about her a new she was
a gifted singer, she continued to win audiences over with
her beautiful voice an incredibly expressive performance, moving from operatic
(26:08):
pieces to popular songs and back, although in Chicago she
did get a handful of harsher critiques than she was
usually accustomed to. That same year, in Jones, sang on
the main stage at Carnegie Hall as part of a
fundraiser for a project helmed by composer Will Mary and
Cook was attempting to stage an all black opera titled
(26:32):
Scenes from Uncle Tom's Cabin at the upcoming World's Columbian
Exposition in Chicago. Yeah, she agreed to be part of
that opera. She also agreed to be part of this fundraiser,
Like her name being attached to it was really helping
it get support. But then during a performance in Louisville, Kentucky,
that year, she encountered this very strange setup of segregated
(26:54):
seating that really bothered her enough that she mentioned it
in an interview while she was in the city. The
orchestra seating at this particular venue was reserved exclusively for
white patrons and the gallery was for black patrons. But
because this particular concert had not drawn much of a
white audience, she sang to a hall that was half
(27:15):
empty at her level, while the gallery above was full,
and the black attendees were not allowed to move down
to the empty orchestra seats, and she was quoted as saying,
I have never met with anything like it before. I
think people of my race ought not to be shut
out that way. On April, her manager, Pond, filed a
(27:36):
motion to prevent Jones from appearing in concert unless he
had arranged it. This happened because she and David had
technically broken their contract by booking a couple of side gigs.
But as this case unfolded, it turned into this ugly
back and forth between the Jones and Pond, including sworn
affidavit's that Pond's own boss had told them the terms
(27:59):
of their contract couldn't be fulfilled by the company. This
case dragged out into the summer, with first a ruling
in favor of the Joneses and then a second ruling
in favor of Pond. So though this strained the relationships,
Seretta sang only when Pond arranged for it, and then
in exchange he had to pay her a hundred and
(28:21):
fifty dollars a week. Since the country was entering a
financial depression, the case could be made. This outcome was
kind of favorable to the singer, at least just in
strict financial terms. Yeah, it offered some stability at a
time when bookings were not necessarily going to be as
consistent because the people just couldn't afford tickets to go
(28:42):
to shows. So, going back to that all black opera,
when the World's Columbian Exposition was supposed to see the
premiere of Scenes from Uncle Tom's Cabin, Cincretta was not
at the ex Bow, neither were many of the other
prominent black performers or speak years. As the date had approached,
(29:03):
which had been named Colored Folks Day by Expo officials
who wanted to turn the premiere into a bigger themed event,
Criticisms over how the Expo had handled the entire thing
and its prejudice treatment of black participants and attendees led
a lot of the promised speakers and performers to cancel.
The opera did not happen, and in fact, Cisceretta was
(29:24):
booked for another show in New York, and although there
had been advanced notice of her cancelation, a crowd still
came to see her in a huge, confused and largely
concocted set of stories emerged about why she wasn't there.
She did sing at that expo, although not for another month,
and she did manage to pack the house despite that
(29:45):
earlier kerfuffle, so apparently audiences did not hold the whole
confusion against her. So we're about to get to another
new phase of c Seretta's career, where she joins a
new manager and goes on an international tour. But first
we can hear from the sponsors that helped keep Stuffy
Myth and History Class going. By mid eighteen ninety four,
(30:11):
for reasons that are unknown, the relationship between Pond and
the Joneses was severed and cisseretta schedule was then being
managed by a man named Rudolph Vocal and under Vocal
Cisceretta went on a tour of Europe, which is something
she had wanted for a very long time. The new
company that Vocal formed was called the Black Patty Concert Company,
(30:33):
and that company staged its first performance consisting entirely of
classical pieces, at Carnegie Hall on November eight. So, after
a number of concerts in the New York area and
then the surrounding states, their European tour began on February eleven,
as they headed to their first show in Berlin. The
(30:53):
reviews were just wonderful. One German reviewer wrote, quote, her
voice has hour and fire, and the florid passages remind
one of the rapid flow of a mountain brook. There
was also a lot of talk about her appearance in
the press, including again many cringe inducing discussions of whether
(31:15):
she should be called Black Patty because she appeared to
be of mixed race. In their opinion, yeah, there was
so much discussion about the shade of her skin and
what that meant, and it's gross. Let men talk a
little bit more about it in our behind the scenes,
but those descriptions are upsetting. Her reviews when she got
(31:37):
to London were a little bit more critical. There were
some more direct comparisons to Adelina Patty, and Jones was
found lacking by some reviewers, not all. This was also
the period where she started to tell the press that
she did not like that nickname Black Patty because to her,
it made her seem full of herself. After London, Jones
(31:58):
continued to move through Europe, appearing in Paris before moving
on to Monte Carlo and Milan, and then going back
to Germany. The entire tour had been different from her
work before this, and that she was billed not only
with other musical acts, but with more of a Vaude
billion mix of performers. She did the same when she
returned to the US, initially appearing at Procter's Pleasure Palace
(32:22):
on twenty three Street in Manhattan for an extended arrangement. Yeah.
So at this point, you know, you're with like comedians
and jugglers and animal trick acts and all kinds of things. Um,
this was all going pretty well though, But after the
Plessy versus Ferguson case was decided by the U. S.
Supreme Court in eight, which of course upheld segregation as constitutional,
(32:48):
it pretty quickly became more and more difficult for black
performers to book concert halls the way Cisceretta had before
she left Europe, and that impacted her career considerably. So
soon sister I was touring with a new company. And
it's not clear who proposed the idea for this company.
In some accounts it's David Jones, and others it's food
(33:09):
alf Focal, regardless of who came up with the idea, though,
soon Ceceretta was touring with the Black Patty Troubadours, and
this offered her regular income in some stability, although maybe
not the grandeur of her previous engagements. She was making
roughly twenty dollars a year, and that was the most
of any black entertainer during this period. Yeah, there were
(33:32):
definitely lots of discussions about how rich she was in
the press, which the most for any black entertainer, but
there were still other entertainers making more. But because Ceceretta's
voice was universally acclaimed and she had made this transition
to you know, kind of a touring comedy troupe almost
more than than these you know, very um slightly more
(33:54):
highbrow concert situations. An interviewer in eight asked her if
she would ever consider just disguising herself as white or
lighter skinned to pursue the career that she could have
easily had if racism had not maintained this barrier to opera.
She responded, quote, try to hide my race and deny
(34:17):
my own people. Oh, I would never do that. I
am proud of belonging to them, and I would not
hide what I am even for an evening. There were
also questions posed to her about the possibility of playing
roles in opera that had historically been white singers in
roles that were written as black, such as admire Beers, Laugh,
I Can. There was some discussion that maybe that could
(34:39):
open up an avenue for some black performers, but she
has said that she was just too busy with her
touring career to make that work, And whether she was
sidestepping having a bigger conversation about race on the opera stage,
we don't know, although it does kind of seem that way.
She was pretty careful to avoid those questions. So this
new constantly touring phase of her career started. It was
(35:01):
less grand than the days that had gone before, and
her marriage was also landing in its last phase. There
had been hints over the years that she and David
might have been having some problems, and that those problems
might have stemmed, at least in part from the ease
with which their money seemed to just pass through his hands.
In Aretta filed for divorce on the basis of drunkenness
(35:25):
and non support. With the Black Patty Troubadours, Jones toured
for nineteen years, traveling all over the US, also Canada
and some other places on a steemingly NonStop, revolving door
of bookings. And though this was a stable career and
she was, as we said, the highest paid black performer
(35:45):
at the time, there were also plenty of problems. For example,
she and her fellow performers often could not stay in hotels.
They were not given rooms. This was of course problematic, uh,
particularly because when you're touring and you're exhausted and you
just want to sleep, the last thing you need is
to be told you can't. I know, when we've done tours,
(36:07):
if somebody had told me you can't have this hotel room,
I would have cried. So I feel like singing at
the level she was at is even more exhausting. So
eventually vocal arranged to have a luxury train car purchase
for the company, and that essentially became their home. It
was very, very large. It had I think I had
read ten compartments as well as two kind of common
(36:28):
seating areas where they would all hang out together. These
Vaudevillion productions featured broad comedy and musical performances that often
appeased audiences with acts that really played into racist stereotypes,
but that was really the only way they could get
continued bookings. When it was Cisaretta's time to take the stage, though,
which was the last segment of the show, the tone
(36:51):
of everything changed considerably. Even though she was the main
name on the show, she did not appear until the end,
and for this section she went almost strictly with opera selections.
Many of these were arias from composers like Verdi, and
over time the staging of these sections of the show
grew grander and more complex, with audiences essentially getting treated
(37:16):
to a mini opera that included lavish costumes and beautiful sets,
as well as a full supporting chorus, and this segment
came to be known as the operatic Kaleidoscope. There were
plenty of ups and downs during those nineteen years. Early on,
there were ongoing legal battles with James Pond over money
that he still owed the Joneses. There were disputes among
(37:39):
the performers. At one point there was a huge falling
out between the tour managers and the stage manager, Bob Cole,
who also composed music for the show. Co Stars came
and went, The supporting cast shifted around. Reviews became less
consistently a brilliant and more mixed over time, but it
was consistent work, and the Troop or Doors rolled out
(38:01):
a new show for each theatrical season, and they kept
drawing in crowds, and over time the show evolved. One
of the big things was that they phased out those
holdout racist stereotypes from the minstrel shows of the nineteenth century.
It had also had a name change in nineteen o nine,
It became the Black Patty Musical Comedy Company, and at
that point they started staging three act performances that featured
(38:26):
cinerretta acting as well as singing. Vocal remained as the manager.
He was well respected, well liked, and had a reputation
for treating the performers well and ensuring that they had
whatever they needed and that they were taken care of.
He also kept them booked and busy, working on the
road forty five weeks a year. The nineteen fourteen to
(38:46):
nineteen fifteen season of the show finally hit a stumbling
block too large to power through. There had been some
rumors that the company was having financial troubles. Vocal had
denied those, but the thing that actually had aalize the
end was a report that several members of the cast
had been drunk during a performance in Memphis. Once this
(39:07):
news got out, other venues were unwilling to book them,
and dispute over money's owed from that last show tanked
the entire enterprise. Suddenly, Madam Jones, in her mid to
late forties, was without the job that had made up
the bulk of her income for almost two decades. The timing, though,
was sort of fortuitous. Throughout her career and particularly as
(39:30):
she gained success, Cceretta had remained very close to her mother,
and she was sure to help take care of her financially,
just as Henrietta had taken care of her and the
family after she had gotten married as a teenager. Before
and after tours and as often as she could manage,
she would travel to Providence to visit her mother. And
in nineteen fifteen, when this whole blow up happened with
(39:52):
the touring company, Ciceretta's mother was ill, and Ciceretta was
kind of ready to retire so that she could take
care of her. So Madam Jones gave her last performance
in New York at the Lafayette Theater in the fall
of nineteen fifteen, and then she all but vanished from
public life. She moved into the house that her mother
lived in with her second husband, Daniel Crenshaw. When Henrietta
(40:16):
died in Cinceretta stayed and Crenshaw did as well. And
then this story gets really blurry. There's just not a
lot of documentation about what Jones's life was like during
these years. There are some varied and contradictory accounts from
various people. She may have taken work as a cook,
she may have adopted children, She may have been regularly
(40:37):
visited by a number of celebrity friends. We really don't
have anything to corroborate the memories that were shared by
various people over time. We do know that Cinceretta slowly
sold off her jewelry and her other valuables that she
had acquired during her performing career to kind of keep
herself afloat and basically financed the remainder of her life.
(40:59):
But towards the very in she had run out of
valuables and she actually had to have some help from
the president of the local in Double A c P Chapter,
William P. H. Freeman, to meet her bills and keep
things running. On June nine, thirty three, Cincretta died at
the age of sixty five from cancer had started in
her stomach and spread stew her liver. She was buried
(41:20):
at Grace Church Cemetery near her mother, and that was
arranged by Mr. Freeman, although there was no headstone there
until eighteen when one was crowdfunded in A plaque was
erected to mark the location of the home in Rhode Island,
near where Cisterretta lived, spearheaded by the Rhode Island Black
Heritage Society. So in recent years she's gotten a little
(41:42):
bit more attention. Again, I'm so glad that you chose
the subject because I had never ever heard of her. Yeah,
I am, like I said, I had that scribbled note
and I didn't remember what it was even until I
went back and looked her up again. You can't help
but sort of fall in love with her. She's really
an interesting figure. She was we'll talk about it some
(42:03):
more in our Friday episode, but she was so sort
of quietly breaking a lot of color barriers without pointing
out that she was doing it. It was almost like
her approach was to be really sly about it and
then just accepted as the norm um, which is pretty interesting.
She's pretty wonderful. Um. I have a brief listener mail,
(42:26):
mostly because I wanna congratulate this person. Uh Lisa wrote
us to say, I want to thank you and past
host for all of the wonderful podcasts. I switched to
a new teaching job two and a half years ago,
and today, on my birthday, of all days, I finished
the last of the past episodes. I love how each
of the host makes history so exciting. There's no way
(42:48):
I can pick my favorite episode, but I love your
music related episodes. She is a music teacher, any sad
Royal story and of course Victorian or Regency era history.
Attached is a picture of her in her PhD shirt.
We have shirts on our t public store. That's a
PhD and stuff you Missed in History Class and she
has earned one. I thought this was a great time
since this was a music episode to UH to give
(43:09):
her a shout out and thank her for writing in
and telling us about it and her picture is adorable,
and thank her for being an educator as well. We
need it UM. And there's there's so much that says
that UM music education leads to all kinds of better
performance in other areas of academics. So those music teachers
(43:30):
offen the unsung heroes. UH. If you would like to
write to us, you can do so at History Podcast
at i heart radio dot com. You can also find
us on social media as Missed in History and you
can subscribe to the show on the I heart Radio app,
at Apple podcasts, or wherever it is you listen. Stuff
(43:51):
you Missed in History Class is a production of I
heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit
the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. M
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