Burge Plantation Spirituals Collection
Scope and Contents
Volumes I-IV consist of African American spirituals typed by Dorothy Gray Bolton and annotated by Harry T. Burleigh. Volume V consists of typed lyrics only. The Green Workbook consists of approximately 40 pages of African American spirituals handwritten in pencil by Bolton. Many of the entries include Bolton's notes regarding the function, context, or timing of each spiritual. The collection also contains a few ephemeral items and 16 photographs depicting Burge Plantation and its residents, along with descriptive text typed by Bolton.
Dates
- Creation: 1920 - 1929
Creator
- Bolton, Dorothy Gray, 1880-1964 (Person)
- Burleigh, H. T. (Harry Thacker), 1866-1949 (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
The physical materials in this collection may be viewed only in the reading room of the Vanderbilt Special Collections and University Archives. Materials should be requested two to three days in advance to facilitate easier access. Contact specialcollections@vanderbilt.edu to schedule an appointment.
Biographical / Historical
Dorothy Lunt Gray (1880-1964) was born on November 7, 1880, on Burge Plantation in Newton County, Georgia. After her parents died when she was a child, she moved to Chicago to live with relatives. She went on to attend the Northwestern University School of Oratory, and she married Louis Davoust Bolton on June 29, 1898. In the early 1900s, Dorothy Gray Bolton moved back to Burge Plantation, which had been in her family for six generations, and started transcribing the songs that had been passed down through the plantation's African American community, and which the African American men and women who lived and worked at Burge still sang. She then worked with Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949), an influential African American composer, to put the songs into harmonized musical notation. The two of them published Old Song Hymnal: Words and Melodies from the State of Georgia in 1929. Bolton died in Mansfield, Georgia, on June 29, 1964.
Full Extent
0.84 Linear Feet (2 letter Hollingers)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
The Burge Plantation Spirituals Collection, 1920-1929, consists of approximately 600 spirituals sung by the descendants of enslaved workers on Burge Plantation, recorded by Dorothy Gray Bolton, 1880-1964, descendant of Burge Plantation owners, and annotated by composer Harry T. Burleigh, 1866-1949, and photographs of the African American men and women who lived and worked at Burge in the early twentieth century.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
This collection was donated by Tibby Christenberry, great-granddaughter of Dorothy Gray Bolton, on March 20, 2026.
Genre / Form
Topical
- Title
- Finding Aid for the Burge Plantation Spirituals Collection
- Status
- Completed
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Vanderbilt University Special Collections and University Archives Repository
Special Collections Library
1101 19th Ave. S.
Nashville TN 37212 United States
specialcollections@vanderbilt.edu
About this Site
This site contains collection guides, or finding aids, to the archival collections held by Vanderbilt University Special Collections and University Archives, the History of Medicine Collection, and the Scarritt Bennett Center. Finding aids describe the context, arrangement, and structure of archival materials, allowing users to identify and request materials relevant to their research.
Requesting Materials
Each finding aid contains a link to request materials from the collections. Collections can also be requested by emailing the repository directly through the library website. Each repository has its own location, hours, and contact information. Please consult the repository with questions about using the materials. Collections are non-circulating and must be used in the repository’s reading room. In many cases, the collections are stored off-site and require advance notice for retrieval.