{"id":5617,"date":"2021-10-12T01:26:06","date_gmt":"2021-10-12T06:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/?p=5617"},"modified":"2021-10-12T01:26:06","modified_gmt":"2021-10-12T06:26:06","slug":"who-was-francis-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/2021\/10\/12\/who-was-francis-johnson\/","title":{"rendered":"Who was Francis Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"

While researching in the Afro-Americana Imprints database, I came across the cover for sheet music dedicated to musician Richard Willis, which included music written by Francis Johnson. Immediately, I was interested in the identity of these men, particularly Francis Johnson. <\/span>Initially, I found that\u00a0<\/span>he was born in 1792 either in Philadelphia or Martinique (A Caribbean Island), and that there\u2019s not much known about his personal life, other than that he was a free black man who lived in Philadelphia.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Upon further investigation, I found that Frank has the most impressive resume. It was rumored that he played all instruments, taught black and white students, toured the US and Europe, co<\/span>mposed hundreds of pieces, and was gifted a silver trumpet from Queen Victoria her<\/span><\/p>\n

self! This is especially impressive, given that during his lifetime, slavery was still thriving in the Sou<\/span>th. But this information is all from secondary sources, namely the African American Registry website, and the University of Pennsylvania archives website. I was interested in finding first-hand accounts of Francis and his m<\/span>usic, yet it seems like there\u2019s almost no primary source material available.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I tried searching the Frank Johnson Musical Association, band, players, groups, etc., to no avail. Almost everything was either irrelevant or about <\/span>another <\/span><\/i>Francis Johnson. I was only able to find one writing that mentioned the accomplishments of Francis Johnson the musician. It\u2019s titled \u201cMusic and Drama,\u201d published in the People\u2019s Advocate, published in 1880. It reads:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c[He] could play on every instrument then known, In 1839 he visited Europe with a portion of his band and was rumored to play the silver six-keyed bugle\u2026 was a tutor on the bugle of Willis\u2026\u00a0 was a composer of no mean celebrity\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Upon further examination, I found that this was a republication of an article from a newspaper called the Elevator (which took a lot of sleuthing to figure out), which was most likely written by a woman named Jennie Carter. Still, I don\u2019t know who that is or if she is reliable.<\/span><\/p>\n

This has all made me ask: Why is it so hard to find information about this man who seemed to be so successf<\/span>ul? Perhaps not much was written about him, but to me, it seems more likely that not much was <\/span>saved <\/span><\/i>about him. Although the white newspapers and print were getting archived and filed away, did black people have these resources? Once again I\u2019m seeing how my view of black Americans is so hugely shaped by racist history and the fact that white people have always been in control. I find myself wondering if we can ever uncover the true history of black Americans.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Citations:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Death of Willis.\u201d <\/span>Flot, Meigan & Co.<\/span><\/i> (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), 1837: <\/span>Readex: Afro-Americana Imprints<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span>https:\/\/infoweb.newsbank.com\/iw-search\/we\/Evans\/?p_product=EAIX&p_theme=eai&p_nbid=T5FA5DYSMTYzMzk5NjYzNy40NDg2NDE6MToxNDoxOTkuOTEuMTgwLjE0OA&p_action=doc&p_queryname=16&p_docref=v2:13D59FCC0F7F54B8@EAIX-154E9B11D0F03650@S2316-@1-160CC4A8734732F2&f_mode=printCitation<\/span><\/p>\n

“Music And The Drama.”\u00a0People’s Advocate<\/em>\u00a0(Washington (DC), District of Columbia), May 1, 1880: 1.\u00a0Readex: African American Newspapers<\/em>. https:\/\/infoweb.newsbank.com\/apps\/readex\/doc?p=EANAAA&docref=image\/v2%3A1314AA70AC23F712%40EANAAA-1318B7EB28CCA808%402407837-1317FCEBA03D18F8%400-138B6D055378A841%40Music%2BAnd%2BThe%2BDrama.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrank (Francis) Johnson, Musician, and Teacher Born.\u201d African American Registry, June 16, 2021. https:\/\/aaregistry.org\/story\/frank-johnson-a-first-for-black-music\/.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cFrancis Johnson.\u201d University Archives and Records Center. Accessed October 12, 2021. https:\/\/archives.upenn.edu\/exhibits\/penn-people\/biography\/francis-johnson.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While researching in the Afro-Americana Imprints database, I came across the cover for sheet music dedicated to musician Richard Willis, which included music written by Francis Johnson. Immediately, I was interested in the identity of these men, particularly Francis Johnson. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4160,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jEhR-1sB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5617"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5640,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5617\/revisions\/5640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}