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The Palgrave Handbook of Artistic and Cultural Responses to War since 1914 pp 131–146Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The Stamps-Baxter GI School of Music

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Abstract

From February 1947 to July 1953, the Stamps-Baxter Music Company sponsored the Stamps-Baxter GI School of Music in Dallas, Texas, for returning soldiers. The US government made education grants available to honorably discharged veterans under Public Law 78-346 (the GI Bill). Some veterans enrolled in traditional colleges and universities; however, many attended specialty schools. The branch of the US armed services in which they served, and the type and length of that service, varied among the students. Reasons for attendance varied; however, most if not all students were drawn by a desire to study shape-note gospel music that grew from musical experiences during their childhood years and the social benefits of interaction with other students.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Ezra Knight, Interview by author (Iuka, MS, October 5, 2002).

  2. 2.

    “Stamps-Baxter G. I. School,” advertisement, Gospel Music News 14 (October 1947): 3. Stamps-Baxter Music and Printing Company published Gospel Music News, a monthly periodical, from March 1940 to December 1974. Topics in the journal included its sponsored singing schools, an occasional gospel song, statements on company growth and reduction, and the GI School, including the names of GI students who completed the two-year school.

  3. 3.

    Knight, interview.

  4. 4.

    Lester L. Dooley, “News from G. I. School of Music of Stamps-Baxter in Dallas,” Gospel Music News 15 (March 1949): 30.

  5. 5.

    Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, Statutes at Large 58, sec. 400, 287 (1944).

  6. 6.

    V. Ray Cardozier, Colleges and Universities in World War II (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993), 224.

  7. 7.

    Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, Statutes at Large 58, sec. 400, 290 (1944).

  8. 8.

    Theodore R. Mosch, The G.I. Bill: A Breakthrough in Educational and Social Policy in the United States (Hicksville, NY: Exposition Press, 1975), 44.

  9. 9.

    C. E. Evans, The Story of Texas Schools (Austin, TX: Steck Company, 1955), 139.

  10. 10.

    John Phifer, Interview by author (Iuka, MS, October 6, 2001).

  11. 11.

    Warren Wilson, Interview by author (Iuka, MS, October 6, 2001).

  12. 12.

    Ed Hamrick, Interview by author (Iuka, MS, October 6, 2001).

  13. 13.

    Thurman Coffey, Interview by author (Iuka, MS, October 6, 2001).

  14. 14.

    Veteran’s Readjustment Assistance Act of 1952, Statutes at Large 82, 663–91 (1952); and Mosch, The G.I. Bill, 52.

  15. 15.

    Ma [Clarice] Baxter, “Opportune Observations,” Gospel Music News 19 (July 1953): 3.

  16. 16.

    Calvin Wills, Interview by author (Dallas, TX, July 30, 1999); Coffey, interview. Information derived from lists of names on the GI reunion mailing list and an additional list of deceased former GI School students. Wills and Coffey provided lists from 1989, 2000, and 2002.

  17. 17.

    James Holcomb, Interview by author (Iuka, MS, October 5, 2002).

  18. 18.

    Blankenship, interview.

  19. 19.

    Wills, interview.

  20. 20.

    Coffey, interview.

  21. 21.

    Esto Smith, Interview by author (Iuka, MS, October 6, 2001).

  22. 22.

    Wilson, interview.

  23. 23.

    Knight, interview.

  24. 24.

    Blankenship, interview.

  25. 25.

    “Stamps-Baxter Special Music School,” Gospel Music News 13 (November 1945): 7.

  26. 26.

    Wilson, interview.

  27. 27.

    Coffey, interview; J. Phifer, interview; and Charles Wade Walker, Interview by author (Iuka, MS, October 6, 2001). J. Phifer lived in a boarding house with Walker, Coffey, and other GI School students.

  28. 28.

    Holcomb, interview.

  29. 29.

    Blankenship, interview; Dessie Roach, Interview by author (Iuka, MS, October 5, 2002). Wilford Roach began part-time work as a typesetter during his years in the GI School. He worked for the company until his death in 1984.

  30. 30.

    Holcomb, interview.

  31. 31.

    Ibid.

  32. 32.

    Ibid. Holcomb, a member of this quartet, remembers the hotel accommodations as “very nice.”

  33. 33.

    Ibid.

  34. 34.

    Wilson, interview.

  35. 35.

    Information derived from lists of names on the GI reunion mailing list and an additional list of deceased former GI School students. Wills and Coffey provided lists from 1989, 2000, and 2002.

  36. 36.

    Coffey, interview; Katherine Fossett, Interview by author (Iuka, MS, October 6, 2001); and Knight, interview. Shape-note singers use the terms “syllable names” or “singing the notes” to indicate the use of do, di, re, ri, mi, me, fa, fi, so, si, la, ti (Coffey, interview). The purpose of using syllable names was to facilitate audiation when reading notation. Coffey, Fossett, and Knight referred to the solfège system as “doremi.” Under the assumption that students would eventually teach singing schools, solfège hand signs were presented as an additional teaching tool in the singing schools, especially for the benefit of children or when there were hearing-impaired students in attendance.

  37. 37.

    Blankenship, interview. Anthony Johnson Showalter, Showalter’s Practical Rudiments and Music Reader, revised ed. (Dallas, TX: Stamps-Baxter Music and Printing Co., 1926), 6.

  38. 38.

    Jeannette Fresne, “The Stamps-Baxter GI School of Music: The Singing School Funded by the GI Bill,” Contributions to Music Education 34 (2008): 110.

  39. 39.

    Gilbert Chase, America’s Music: From the Pilgrims to the Present, 3rd ed. (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 182.

  40. 40.

    Wilson, interview.

  41. 41.

    Fresne, “The Stamps-Baxter GI School,” 83.

  42. 42.

    Wilson, interview.

  43. 43.

    Blankenship, interview.

  44. 44.

    J. Phifer, interview.

  45. 45.

    Wilson, interview.

  46. 46.

    Wilson, interview (estimated 7:00 a.m.); Blankenship, interview (estimated 7:30 a.m.); Holcomb, interview (estimated 8:00 a.m.); and Coffey, interview (estimated 8:00 a.m.).

  47. 47.

    J. Phifer, interview.

  48. 48.

    Blankenship, interview; and Wilson, interview.

  49. 49.

    Holcomb, interview.

  50. 50.

    Blankenship, interview, Wilson, interview; and Holcomb, interview.

  51. 51.

    Holcomb, interview.

  52. 52.

    Dooley, “News from G. I. School,” 30. Knight, interview; and Wilson, interview. Former students believe that there are no extant recordings of these broadcasts.

  53. 53.

    Coffey, interview.

  54. 54.

    Jeannette Fresne, “Schools of the Stamps-Baxter Music and Printing Company: A History from 1926 to 1964” (D.M.A. diss., Arizona State University, 2004), 103–04, 108.

  55. 55.

    Volley R. (Doc) Dooley, letter to author, October 15, 2002, Dallas, TX.

  56. 56.

    Wilson, interview. There were individual exceptions. Wilson studied piano for two days but decided through a discussion with Wallace, his piano teacher, that he would not be a pianist.

  57. 57.

    Holcomb, interview; and Wills, interview.

  58. 58.

    Knight, interview.

  59. 59.

    Ibid.

  60. 60.

    Ma [Clarice] Baxter, “Welcome to Ranks,” Gospel Music News 29 (September 1963): 14.

  61. 61.

    “Our New Employee,” Gospel Music News 29 (September 1963): 27; and Knight, interview.

  62. 62.

    Knight, interview; Wills, interview; Coffey, interview.

  63. 63.

    Ibid.

  64. 64.

    Coffey, interview.

  65. 65.

    Ibid.

  66. 66.

    Harvest Songs: Our First 1953 Book for Singing Schools, etc. (Dallas, TX: Stamps-Baxter Music and Printing Company, 1953).

  67. 67.

    Coffey, interview.

  68. 68.

    Holcomb, interview.

  69. 69.

    Blankenship, interview.

  70. 70.

    Wilson, interview.

  71. 71.

    Wills, interview.

  72. 72.

    Ibid.

  73. 73.

    Ibid.

  74. 74.

    Esther Evelyn (nee Ehnow) Phifer, Interview by author (Iuka, MS, October 5, 2002). Date and location handwritten in one of the songbooks in her possession.

  75. 75.

    Ibid.

  76. 76.

    Coffey, interview.

  77. 77.

    J[esse] R[andall] Baxter, Jr., “This and That,” Gospel Music News 14 (August 1948): 2; quoted in Beary, “The Stamps-Baxter Music and Printing Company,” 157.

References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lamar University, Beaumont, TX, USA

    Jeannette Fresne

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  1. Jeannette Fresne
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Correspondence to Jeannette Fresne .

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  1. University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD, Australia

    Martin Kerby , Margaret Baguley  & Janet McDonald ,  & 

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Fresne, J. (2019). The Stamps-Baxter GI School of Music. In: Kerby, M., Baguley, M., McDonald, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Artistic and Cultural Responses to War since 1914. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96986-2_8

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