Lori Rae Shipley’s dissertation, A History of the Music Department at Hampton Institute/University, 1868-1972, has a wider focus than Simpson’s biography of Dett. Because of her broader scope, Shipley examines administrative documents from Hampton that are not included in Simpson’s work. Thus, we receive a fuller picture of how Dett’s Harvard sabbatical arose.
Archibald Davison, who is reported to have invited Dett to Harvard, initially became acquainted with Dett through Davison’s role as a “visiting music consultant” per Hampton’s 1920 President Annual Report [p. 138]. In essence, Davison was brought to Hampton as part of a Visiting Committee, which is usually used to review an institution when it seeks to acquire or maintain accreditation. In Hampton’s case, it sought to become a collegiate-level institution as early as 1913-1916, attaining accreditation in 1932. In his capacity as reviewer, Davison examined all aspects of the burgeoning Music Department and not just Dett’s part in it.
I would like to contextualize Davison’s impression of what he found at Hampton because it is, I believe, crucial for understanding his motivations to invite Dett to Harvard. Let’s begin with Davison’s own musical and academic background. A Boston native (b. 1883, almost exactly one year after Dett), Davison completed his PhD at Harvard by 1908 (roughly at age 25), authoring The Harmonic Contributions of Claude Debussy that year. Harvard’s students, it goes without saying, represented the highest educational and socioeconomic classes of society, with entering undergraduates having conservatory study or otherwise acquiring musical experiences that were, frankly, unavailable to the students attending Hampton. Further, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra regularly performing concerts right on its campus and plenty of money to spend on instructional materials and personnel, Harvard students never faced material obstacles in the pursuit of their musical talents. Out of this elite cross-section of society, Harvard’s musical ensembles had the great luxury of drawing individuals who could perform to its exacting standards, as well as receive academic credits plus résumé-building experience.
We need to contrast this with the situation at Hampton. With a student body descended from slaves, if not having been enslaved themselves in the earliest years, Hampton had no devoted music-instruction spaces, no scores, no orchestras regularly gracing their campus, and no highly trained music faculty until Dett was hired in 1913. While students were recruited nationally to fill the ranks of Dett’s European Choir and the Hampton Quartette (the fundraising arm of the school, in essence), every single member of the student body was required to take music instruction and participate in choral activities without academic credit. By 1918, Dett had taken an ensemble to Carnegie Hall, yet no formal music education yet existed at Hampton, not even a Choir Training Certificate program. Also, Shipley states, “Hampton’s students were younger than the college students Davison taught at Harvard, most still in their adolescent years and still immature, compounded by their being away from home without parental control” [179]. Indeed, when I perused Harvard’s register of students I found that students largely had collegiate experience prior to Harvard, with going straight in from high school the exception rather than the norm.
What Davison observed when he visited Hampton was Dett providing choral-singing instruction for the entire student body, nearly all of whom enrolled at Hampton to acquire a basic or what we would call a vocational education–that is, they were not there to prepare for a professional career in music.
Shipley reports that Davison offered severe critiques of the non-existent music curriculum and made many recommendations, including “11. Mr. Dett should be given a leave of absence to study choral training, and should be allowed time for composition” [p 139, Report on Department of Music at Hampton Institute].
Shipley says that Dett rebutted Davison’s findings in his 1919 Report of Department of Music, 6: “Although he found Davison’s remarks ‘intelligent’ and ‘worthy of the most careful consideration,’ he also stated they were ‘not without faults.’ Dett pointed out that in academic classes at the Institute, teacher/student ration [sic] was about one-to-twelve, but in music classes the ratio was one to about four-hundred. He noted that students were still not receiving credit for any of their music work, and as such, he had noticed an attitude developing among the students of not caring if their work was completed or not” [p. 140].
Shipley continues: “Dett spent much of his report refuting Davison’s critiques of the quality of band and choir performances, citing how little time was afforded students for musical practice during the week, yet how many different concerts were prepared and performed each year, with many of the performances dictated by the Institute, such as Commencement concerts, and special programs for the school. Dett reminded the administration that there was much demand for the choir’s services on campuses, but not enough time to adequately prepare the many requested programs” [140-141].
Dett elaborated on the lack of infrastructure for music instruction: there was no centralized department, no building space, only deplorable pianos, plus the administration had forced the collapse of the Choral Union, which hurt all music activities at Hampton. Further, other departments smeared the Music Department, especially the Religion Department, which asked for music that Hampton could not afford to buy scores for (Dett had to purchase them himself to fulfill their request) [141-142].
Shipley does not hold back: “Davison’s goal was to show Dett how to manage a choir and teach music, something Dett had been doing for nearly seven years at Hampton Institute, and for several years prior at other schools. This was an opportunity for Dett to further his own education and make contacts with other colleges. However, the situation would cause Dett further tribulations with the administration” [143].
The Harvard gift turned into a curse for Dett: “While there is no evidence of problems during fall semester, Dr. Davison wrote to Principal Gregg on February 22, 1920, expressing his concern over not having had any contact with Dett during spring semester 1920 [Davison, Letter to Gregg 22 Feb 1920]. Dett, after receiving a letter from Gregg asking for clarification of his absences, contacted Davison and explained to him that he was not getting from his classes at Harvard what he had hoped he would receive. Therefore, he was spending time composing, attending concerts in Boston, and making musical contacts, instead of attending classes [Davison, Letter to James E. Gregg, 26 March 1920] [JMG: all this is what Davison reports to Gregg, rather than Dett’s own words]. Davison relayed this information to Gregg [26 March], who responded, ‘If he has been neglecting his opportunities in this line he is really betraying our confidence in him, and misusing the money which we are paying for his year of special study at Cambridge’ [Gregg, letter to Davison, 31 March 1920]. Although Gregg made an attempt to give Dett the benefit of the doubt later in his response, his attitude toward Dett is evident in his statement: ‘I am afraid that he is somewhat like a naughty child whom one has to scold vigorously every now and then to keep him in order’ [31 March]. Between Dett seeing the administration as limiting his students’ musical development and the growth of black [sic] art music, and the administration viewing Dett as a ‘naughty child’ who needed to be scolded and controlled, things did not bode well for Dett’s tenure at Hampton” [144-145].
Let’s rewind for a second. Davison seems to have invited Dett personally to Harvard to take “classes” with him per Shipley, which implies the sophomore-level harmony, analysis, and counterpoint courses listed in the 1919-1920 catalog. However, Simpson reports that Davison had him taking private organ lessons and sitting in on his “rowdy” Glee Club rehearsals (neither of which are listed in the catalog; further, the Glee Club wasn’t yet the formal and serious group it is now). Which was it?
It seems it did not matter, because Dett used the year at Harvard either to enroll in official courses by Davison’s colleagues (such as the D’Indy seminar) or to do something entirely different (write his Bowdoin and Boott Prize applications). Either way, both Simpson and Shipley make it clear that Davison did not know what Dett was doing and that Dett was clearly not free to spend his sabbatical as he deemed fit. That is, it seems to me that the Hampton Administration did not care for Dett’s opinion about what would serve the burgeoning Hampton Music Program best.