Very Rare Slavery Public Performance of “Old Black Sam. A Vision of Slavery Days” by hymnist, Charles H. Gabriel.

Exceptionally scarce and controversial concert musical by evangelical hymnists Charles Gabriel and Homer Rodeheaver. It apparently enjoyed very little success, likely because of its awkward “middle ground.” It in some ways perpetuated southern narratives about happy slaves and good masters, but was also decidedly anti-slavery. The mood in the country at the time was more in tune with Birth of a Nation, released in 1915, or moving toward full societal equality.

No copies in the trade or in the auction history at the time of cataloguing.

In Dungan and Yeo’s biography of Rodeheaver, the work is described as “a concert musical for narrator, chorus, and piano. The music came from Stephen Foster, white gospels songs, and Frederic Chopin; no fold [black] spirituals were employed. Told through the voice of a dying slave, Sam adopts a stereotypical house servant persona, speaks in broken dialect, and gives the audience an idealized description of his slave master, ‘He know dis nigga’d die for him mos’ any day,’ Sam says, and claims his master was ‘de kindest one a darkey ever knew.’ Taken as a whole, the production laments the tragedy of slavery but also romanticizes its history, resurrecting the old lie of Jefferson Davis, that slaves were ‘peaceful and contented laborers.’”

Gabriel, Charles H. [Homer Rodeheaver]. Old Black Sam. A Vision of Slavery Days. Chicago. The Rodeheaver Company. 1912.

Good condition in original wraps, a bit folded vertically in middle, loss of corner on rear wraps. Clean and generally solid.