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O

Oberlin Conservatory of Music
Located in Oberlin, Ohio, the highly regarded con-
servatory founded in 1865 is the oldest continu-
ously operating American music school. The
conservatory became part of Oberlin College, the
liberal arts school founded in 1833 and the first
American college to admit women, in 1867.
A number of prominent Harlem Renaissance–
era figures attended Oberlin Conservatory. Com-
poser WILLMARIONCOOKreceived his training
there before going on to work with writers Paul
Laurence Dunbar, WALLACE THURMAN, and
COUNTEECULLEN. A pioneering composer and the
first African American to conduct a professional
symphony orchestra, WILLIAMGRANTSTILLstud-
ied at Oberlin.
Sue Bailey Thurman, the feminist activist edi-
tor and wife of the influential theologian and ac-
tivist Howard Thurman, graduated from Oberlin
in 1926. She was the first African-American stu-
dent to earn the bachelor of science degree in
music from the Conservatory. Other figures with
ties to the school include musician and poet LUCY
ARIELWILLIAMSHOLLOWAY, who earned a bache-
lor’s degree in music from the conservatory. Play-
wright and poet GEORGIA DOUGLASJOHNSON,
who also attended the Cleveland College of Music,
studied music at Oberlin and completed her stud-
ies there in 1906.

Bibliography
Barnard, John. From Evangelicalism to Progressivism At
Oberlin College, 1866–1917.Columbus: Ohio State
University Press, 1969.

Fletcher, Robert Samuel. A History of Oberlin College

from Its Foundation Through the Civil War.Oberlin:

Oberlin College, 1943.

Rockicky, Catherine. James Monroe: Oberlin’s Christian

Statesman and Reformer, 1821–1898. Kent, Ohio:

Kent State University Press, 2002.

O Canaan!Waters Turpin(1939)

Published in 1939, this novel by Waters Turpin

chronicled the lives and experiences of Mississippi-

ans who journeyed north as part of the Great Mi-

gration. Turpin’s novel appeared at a time when

many African Americans were enduring severe

hardships brought on by the economic and social

upheaval of the GREATDEPRESSION.

The novel is divided into four parts: “Into

Canaan,” “Wilderness,” “The Tides of Spring,” and

“Rock in a Weary Land.” The story, which begins

in Mississippi, offers detailed accounts of life in

CHICAGO, and HARLEM. The novel’s protagonist,

Joe Benson, is an earnest and visionary field

worker, the son of the plantation’s overseer and the

husband of Christine Lawson, a light-skinned oc-

toroon teacher who returns to Mississippi after

completing her education in New Orleans. Ben-

son, in the wake of LYNCHINGs and yet another

boll weevil attack on his cotton crops, rallies his

family and several members of his community to

abandon the violent and unrewarding world of

Mississippi.

Benson, a powerfully built man whose “big-

ness... whenever he was indoors, reminded one

of a caged animal,” organizes a migration to