George Pullen Jackson

George Pullen Jackson
Born 1874
Monson, Maine
Died 1953
Alma mater Vanderbilt University
University of Chicago
Occupation Academic
Relatives Carman Barnes (stepdaughter)

George Pullen Jackson (18741953) was an American educator and musicologist. He was a pioneer in the field of Southern (U.S.) hymnody. He was responsible for popularizing the term "white spirituals" to describe the "fasola" singing.

Early life

George Pullen Jackson was born in 1874 in Monson, Maine. He graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1902.[1] While in college, he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon.[1] He received a Bachelor of Philosophy in 1904 and a PhD in 1911 from the University of Chicago.[1]

Career

Jackson was an Assistant Professor of German at the University of South Dakota in the 1910s.[1] By the 1930s, he had joined the faculty at his alma mater, Vanderbilt University.[2] He was also a music critic for the Nashville Banner, and the president and manager of the Nashville Symphony Society.

Jackson argued that Tennesseans in the Antebellum South were "far more musically active" than after the war.[2] He added that many people used to attend singing schools, and he blamed the lack of musical training on the radio, which discouraged people from learning to sing in the postbellum era.[2]

Additionally, Jackson argued that Negro spirituals took their origin from poor whites who sang old folk songs from England.[3]

During the 1940s, he studied the roots of anabaptist music (Amish and Mennonite). He proposed the now generally accepted view that the original tunes used in Der Ausbund hymnal were popular medieval melodies.[4]Der Ausbund is still used by Amish groups and has the distinction of being the hymnal with a history of the longest continual use (1564 to the present; the latest edition being published in 1999).[5]

Death

He died in 1953.

Works

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Maxwell, W. J. (1918). General catalogue of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. p. 567. Retrieved January 8, 2016 via Internet Archive.
  2. 1 2 3 "Tennessee Forsake Music". Macon Chronicle-Herald (Macon, Missouri). October 24, 1932. p. 1. Retrieved January 8, 2016 via Newspapers.com.
  3. "Music Leaves Wicked People As Bad As Ever". Manitowoc Herald-Times (Manitowoc, Wisconsin). December 28, 1934. p. 1. Retrieved January 8, 2016 via Newspapers.com.
  4. Jackson, George Pullen, "The American Amish Sing Mediaeval Folktunes Today," Southern Folklore Quarterly 10:151-157, 1946.
  5. Herald Press: Scottdale, Pennsylvania, and Waterloo, Ontario, Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, pp. 869-872. All rights reserved.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, March 11, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.