Eileen Southern (1920-2002) was a musicologist, teacher, author, editor, and publisher. She trained and performed as a concert pianist but earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in musicology from the University of Chicago (1940, 1941) and a Ph.D. from New York University (1961). She taught at several institutions, becoming the first black female tenured professor at Harvard (1976) where she chaired the Afro-American Studies Department from 1975-1979. She retired from teaching in 1987. Her numerous published works include writings on early music in addition to The Music of Black Americans (3rd edition, W.W. Norton, 1997). First published in 1971, it was a pioneering work in the field of black music. She followed it with reference works, including the Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians (Greenwood Press, 1982) and African-American Traditions in Song, Sermon, Tale, and Dance, 1600s-1920 (Greenwood Press, 1990) compiled with Josephine Wright. From 1973 to 1990, with her husband Joseph Southern, she edited and published The Black Perspective in Music (BPiM) a journal which, for the first seven years of its existence, was the only scholarly journal on the subject. She died in Florida in 2002.
From the description of Papers, 1974-1997. (Columbia College Chicago). WorldCat record id: 122273093
Musicologist, concert pianist, author, and educator; pioneer in the study of African American music; b. Eileen Stanza Jackson, 1920; married Joseph Southern 1942; d. 2002.
From the description of Eileen Southern papers, 1971-1975. (Fisk University). WorldCat record id: 70972604
