Ambre Dromgoole is an assistant professor of Africana Religions and Music in the Africana Studies & Research Center at Cornell University. Dr. Dromgoole received her B.A. in Religion and Musical Studies from Oberlin College and Conservatory, her M.A. from Yale Divinity School and Institute of Sacred Music, and her PhD in African American Studies and Religious Studies from Yale University. Her work has appeared in Ethnomusicology, American Music, and the Journal of Popular Music Studies and she has held fellowships with the Ford Foundation and the Louisville Institute, among others. Her current book project There’s a Heaven Somewhere: A Sonic History of Black Womanhood documents the twentieth century history of itinerant women gospel musicians as a collective, paying particular attention to their musical training as girls in Afro- Protestant contexts as well as their formation in the entertainment industry.

Lecture Summary: In the summer of 1934 Roxie Bond and (Sister) Rosetta Tharpe met at a Black Holiness-Pentecostal (or Sanctified) revival in Baltimore, Maryland and became fast friends. While common interests in music, sanctification, and church service proved fertile ground, 18 year old Roxie and 19 year old Rosetta were also newlyweds, having married their preacher husbands - Rev. Daniel Bond and Rev. Thomas Tharpe respectively - that same year. This lecture highlights how the freedom Roxie and Rosetta, and twentieth century Black girl/teenage women musicians like them, were allotted at young ages due to their musical talents threatened the very infrastructure built to contain the movement of young Black women in the Sanctified church as they got older. Under this threat of deconstruction, the girls’ respective congregations - supported by ecclessial leadership and familial investment - facilitated marriages to halt the very mobility previously encouraged in favor of church service and labor. For their exposure to various communities, worlds, artistic forms, and ideologies rocked the foundation of Sanctified life. 

Sponsors: Religious Studies Program

Co-sponsors: Department of History, Department of Music, Africana Studies and Research Center