University Libraries Digitize Selection of Florence Price Papers

Via Digital Collections, MC 988a, Box 2, Folder 2

Florence Price later in life looking at flowers with an unidentified woman.

A selection of the Florence Price Papers, housed in the University Libraries Special Collections department, is now available online. The digital exhibit features photographs, correspondence, music programs and biographical documents. 

Price was an Arkansas native and the first major female African-American classical composer. Born in 1888 in Little Rock, Price wrote nearly 300 compositions. When she passed in 1953, her compositions were all but lost. However, in 2009, they were rediscovered during the renovation of a house that had been owned by her daughter. 

The digital exhibit was curated by Geoffery Stark, Special Collections Reading Room supervisor, and Misha Gardner, Reading Room assistant. 

"The items selected for digitization are intended to be the types of documents researchers will find the most useful in writing about Florence Price," said Stark. "We were careful to select correspondence that reflected Price's professional career among her colleagues, and we also targeted items that we knew had high use among our visiting patrons." 

Highlights include Price's diary, her correspondence with influential composer John Alden Carpenter, and a letter from Eleanor Roosevelt inviting Price to visit her at the White House. The University Libraries plan to add future installments of documents as follow-up projects, as well.

The Libraries acquired the Florence Price Papers in two accessions. The first was donated by Price's daughter, Florence Price Robinson, and was processed in 1989. When new materials were discovered in 2009, a second accession was negotiated. The Florence Price Addendum Papers were processed in 2015. 

"It amazes me how you can fit an entire lifetime of work into fewer than 50 boxes of material, but each of these boxes was a treasure to go through," said Gardner. "We get researchers from all over the world who are excited to learn more about Price's life and works. It's nice to see her getting the credit she deserves, especially because most of the symphony world was dominated by white males during her lifetime."