Sunday, February 21, 2016

AmericanWomenInWWI.Wordpress.com: Helen Hagan, black pianist for the American Expeditionary Forces

                                                                                                                                                               
Helen Hagan
(By Eugene Hutchinson)
                                                   
Helen Hagan in YMCA uniform. 
From Hunton & Johnson, 
Two Colored Women in the AEF


Elizabeth Foxwell writes:

Helen Eugenia Hagan (1891–1964, Yale 1912) was the only black performing artist sent to WWI France, where she played for more than 100,000 black troops under the aegis of the YMCA. She was the first black pianist to perform a solo recital in a New York concert venue (1921) and was the first black woman appointed to the chamber of commerce in Morristown, NJ (1931). Her Concerto in C Minor (1912) is her only surviving work. Despite her achievements, she lies in an unmarked grave in Evergreen Cemetery in New Haven, CT. Join the effort to commemorate her life and career with a proper grave marker
.

More about Hagan:
Elizabeth Foxwell
Editor, _In Their Own Words: American Women in World War I_ (2015)

emfoxwell@lycos.com


http://elizabethfoxwell.com/WWI_Anthology.html

Helen Hagan, black pianist for the AEF




Comment by email:
Mr. Zick,  Thanks for posting my information on Helen Hagan on AfriClassical. 
Thank you, Elizabeth Foxwell                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

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