Alice Vassar LaCour

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Alice Vassar LaCour
Portrait of an African-American woman, wearing a dark dress with a white lace collar.
Alice Vassar LaCour, from a 1924 publication.
Born
Alice Maud Vassar

1870s
Athens, Alabama
Died1924
NationalityAmerican
OccupationEducator, singer

Alice Vassar LaCour (born 1870s – died 1924) was an American educator and singer.

Early life and education[]

Alice Maud Vassar was from Athens, Alabama, where she attended the Trinity School run by missionary Mary Fletcher Wells.[1][2] She graduated from Fisk University's normal school in 1887.[3]

Career[]

LaCour was a Fisk Jubilee Singer, touring with the company from 1890 to 1891.[4][5] For many years afterward, she was featured on concert programs and conducting choruses at festivals.[6]

LaCour and her husband taught at American Missionary Association (AMA) schools in Jonesborough, Tennessee, Augusta, Georgia, and in Chapel Hill and Lawndale, North Carolina.[3][7] She was principal of the AMA school in Springfield, Tennessee.[8]

Personal life and legacy[]

Alice Vassar married fellow educator and Fisk Jubilee singer Paul Louis LaCour in 1893, in Nashville, at a wedding attended by much of the faculty of Fisk University; the university's president, Erastus Milo Cravath, performed the ceremony.[9] The LaCours had daughters Lucile, Marion, and Gretchen.[1][10] Alice Vassar LaCour died in 1924.[11]

LaCour was a character in Arise and Build (2016), a musical play about the history of Trinity School, performed for the school's 150th anniversary.[12]

References[]

  1. ^ a b Who's who of the Colored Race: A General Biographical Dictionary of Men and Women of African Descent. 1915. p. 169.
  2. ^ "Trinity School, Athens, Alabama: Dare To Make a Difference". Chicago State University. Retrieved 2020-02-28.
  3. ^ a b University, Fisk (1900). Catalog of the Officers, Students and Alumni of Fisk University. The University. pp. 88, 92, 101.
  4. ^ Abbot, Lynn; Seroff, Doug (2013). To Do This, You Must Know How: Music Pedagogy in the Black Gospel Quartet Tradition. Univ. Press of Mississippi. p. 18. ISBN 978-1-61703-675-0.
  5. ^ Work, John Wesley (1915). Folk Song of the American Negro. Press of Fisk University. pp. 108. Alice Vassar Fisk.
  6. ^ "Colored People Will Have Music Festival Tonight". The Atlanta Constitution. 1915-08-06. p. 8. Retrieved 2020-02-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ American Missionary Association (1911). A list of missions and missionaries under the auspices of the American Missionary Association, 1910-1911. Columbia University Libraries. New York, N.Y. : [American Missionary Association]. p. 17.
  8. ^ Catalogue of the Fisk University. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Nashville, Tenn. : The University : Press of folk-Keelin Print. Co. 1892–1897.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  9. ^ "LaCour--Vassar, A Notable Wedding in Colored Circles". Nashville Banner. 1893-06-16. p. 5. Retrieved 2020-02-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ "MRS. LUCILE LACOUR HEACOCK". Hartford Courant. June 28, 1996. Retrieved 2020-02-28.
  11. ^ "The Horizon". The Crisis: 75. December 1924.
  12. ^ Fulton, Charlotte (January 10, 2016). "Arise & Build: Trinity play opens soon". The News Courier. Retrieved 2020-02-28.
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