Nellie Brown Mitchell

Nellie E. Brown Mitchell (1845 – January 5, 1924) was an American concert singer and music educator, "one of Boston's favorite cantatrices."[1]

Nellie Brown Mitchell
Mitchell in an 1881 publication
Background information
Birth nameNellie E. Brown
Born1845 (1845)
Dover, New Hampshire, U.S.
Died (aged 78)
Boston, Massachusetts
Occupation(s)Singer, music educator

Early life

Nellie E. Brown was born in Dover, New Hampshire,[2] the daughter of Charles J. Brown and Martha A. Runnels Brown. She trained as a singer at the New England Conservatory of Music, earning a diploma in 1879. Her sister Edna Brown Bagnall was also a singer, and sometimes joined her in concerts.[3][4] Their brother Edward Everett Brown was a lawyer and anti-lynching activist based in Boston.[5]

Career
Nellie Brown Mitchell, from a 1905 newspaper.

Nellie Brown Mitchell was a popular singer in churches in New England, and was at one point the lead soprano at four white churches in Boston.[6] She gave concerts throughout and beyond the New England region.[7][8] In 1874 she gave a concert at Steinway Hall in New York City.[1]

In the 1880s, Mitchell toured with the Bergen Concert Company.[9] She also formed her own company, the Nellie Brown Mitchell Concert Company. From 1879 to 1886, she was musical director at Bloomfield Street Church in Boston.[10] She sang at the first meeting of the National Negro Business League, in Boston in 1900.[11][12] She sang at the funeral of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison in 1879, and was a soloist at the observance of his centennial in 1905.[13][14]

Mitchell was head of the vocal department at Hedding Academy in New Hampshire.[15] In 1876, she conducted a group of 50 girls in a cantata, Laila, the Fairy Queen, as part of the Centennial Musical Festival in Boston.[1] After she retired from touring, she taught voice techniques to African-American women students in Boston. In 1909, she organized and hosted the first meeting of the Chaminade Musical Club, for "the leading women musicians" of Boston, named for French composer Cécile Chaminade.[16]

Mitchell also invented the "phoneterion", a device meant to help train proper tongue position for vocal students.[17]

Personal life

Nellie E. Brown married Charles Lewis Mitchell. He was a disabled veteran of the American Civil War, having lost a foot as a member of the 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. He was also one of the first two African-American members of the Massachusetts legislature, along with Edward G. Walker.[18] Nellie Brown Mitchell was widowed in 1912, and she died in Roxbury on January 5, 1924, aged 78 years.[10][19]

References
  1. James M. Trotter, Music and Some Highly Musical People (Johnson Reprint 1881): 192-208; quote on page 197.
  2. Monroe Alphus Majors, Noted Negro Women: Their Triumphs and Activities (Donohue and Henneberry 1893): 176-178.
  3. "The Marriage Ceremony" Colored American (November 3, 1900): 15. via Newspapers.comopen access
  4. "Personals" Christian Register (December 9, 1915): 73.
  5. "Duty of the Government" The Colored American (November 25, 1899): 1. via Newspapers.comopen access
  6. Maud Cuney-Hare, Negro Musicians and their Music (1936).
  7. "Hill's Grand Star Concert" The Appeal (June 9, 1888): 1. via Newspapers.comopen access
  8. "The Colored People of Memphis Honor Mrs. Nellie Brown Mitchell, their Excellent Vocalist" Memphis Daily Appeal (October 18, 1885): 2. via Newspapers.comopen access
  9. Michael Saffie, Music and Culture in America, 1861-1918 (Routledge 2014): 57. ISBN 9781135598013
  10. "Nellie Brown Mitchell" Dover History, Dover Public Library website.
  11. Proceedings of the National Negro Business League (J. R. Hamm 1901): 84, 181.
  12. "Colored People Met" Morning News (August 27, 1900): 4. via Newspapers.comopen access
  13. Garrison Centenary Committee, The Celebration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of William Lloyd Garrison (Boston 1906): 50.
  14. "To Honor 'Liberator'" Boston Daily Globe (December 4, 1905): 5. via Newspapers.comopen access
  15. "Noted Afro-American Women and their Achievements" The College of Life or Practical Self (Horace C. Fry 1896): 97.
  16. Untitled news item, New York Age (March 4, 1909): 6. via Newspapers.comopen access
  17. "Mr. Charles L. Mitchell" The Colored American (October 20, 1900): 6. via Newspapers.comopen access
  18. Benjamin Griffith Brawley, The Negro Genius: A New Appraisal of the Achievement of the American Negro in Literature and the Fine Arts (Biblo & Tannen 1966): 125-126. ISBN 9780819601841
  19. "Mrs Nelie B. Mitchell, Singer and Teacher, Dies". The Boston Globe. January 6, 1924. p. 7. Retrieved March 6, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
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