Finding Aids: PVAMU Special Collections and Archives : The Prairie View Co-eds Music Collection

Creator: Will Henry Bennett

Title of Collection: The Prairie View Co-eds Music Collection

Dates: 1938-2015, undated

Bulk Dates: 1970-1973

Extent: 1.50 Linear Foot (3 boxes)

Abstract: In 1943, Band Director Will Henry Bennett started an all-female dance band to continue making strong musical performances as Prairie View State College was creating a reputation for itself in the music world.

Biographical Note: The Prairie View Co-eds Music collections include information about the history of the orchestra, the director, Will Henry Bennett, and Bennett’s time serving the Yates High School Marching Band. In the 1940s, the Swing era was the most popular time to play jazz music. Swing Music was considered a partial dilution of the jazz tradition because it organized musicians into larger groups (commonly 12 to 16 players).

Prairie View Co-eds All-Girl Orchestra

In the early 1940s, Prairie View College Music Department started several bands which a few dominated the campus similar to the Prairie View Collegians, an all-male group that played gigs on campus. When Bert Etta Davis auditioned for the Prairie View Collegians, she was accepted by the band leader. An extremely talented alto saxophonist, Davis ended up being turned away from the band by the Dean of Women and would not allow a woman to play in an all-men's band.

By 1943, though, the times had changed. The Prairie View Collegians had lost many members to the draft and lacked the numbers to continue making strong performances. Will Henry Bennett began to make a move to start an all-female dance band. The band was an experiment of talent in its first year. The group did draw some talented players like Davis but also recruited people to whom playing was just an extracurricular activity. They also relied on music majors to fill spots and pick up new instruments that no one had been trained on. This group was not merely a collection of beginners, though. While the original venues of the Co-eds were campus parties and events, it wasn't very long before they began to be invited off campus. With most men's orchestras having fallen to pieces, The Prairie View Co-eds filled a need. A chaperone followed the band to their destinations in order to make sure the reputation of these educated young women would not be sullied.

Between the fall of 1941 and the fall of 1943, the number of men enrolled in black colleges was cut in half. Although the draft and enlistment also tipped the gender balance at mainstream (white) colleges, the ratios of men to women were markedly different. After filling as many positions as possible with members of the marching band, concert orchestra, and ROTC band, Bennett relied on the flexibility of women music majors to fill the remaining instrumental needs. As a result, Bennett was able to fill the chairs of the Prairie View Co-Eds’ sixteen-piece dance orchestra.

The members included Berta Etta Davis, Dr. Margaret Grisby (trombonist), Bettye Jean Bradley (Kimbrough) played the alto sax, Argie Mae Edwards (pianist), and Margaret Bradshaw (saxophone and bass player). Other members of the original Prairie View Co-Eds included saxophonists Charlotte Sims, Bernice Payne (Posey), Melvia Wrenn, and Elizabeth Johnson and trumpet players Marcellus Gauthier and Flores Jean Davis (Webb), assistant secretary of the junior class. On 5 June 1943, accompanying the story ‘‘Texas Gals Step out in Music,’’ the paper published a portrait of the Prairie View Co-Eds’ six-woman saxophone section, wearing the same style of peasant blouse, jewelry, and long skirt.

Will Henry Bennett

There is no available information about the personal life of Will Henry Bennett.

Jack Yates Senior High School and Marching Band

The Yates High School "Marching Motion" Band was founded by Conrad O. Johnson and his father C. Johnson in 1926. The school was named after John Henry Yates, a Baptist minister who had an impact in the community of Third Ward, Houston, Texas. The same year the band was formed in 1926, the school opened and named after Yates in his honor. Unfortunately, there is limited information available about Mr. Bennett’s time leading the Marching Band in the 1960s-1970s, but the collection has several documents and letters stating his involvement with this organization.

Sources:

Handy, Dorothy Antoinette (née Miller; 1929–2002). Black women in American bands and orchestras. Scarecrow Press, 1998.

McCullough, Olee Yates. (2021). Yates, John Henry [Jack] (1828–1897). Texas State Historical Association. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/yates-john-henry-jack

The Prairie View Co-eds Music Collection, UA0089, Special Collections/Archives Department, John B. Coleman Library, Prairie View A&M University

Tucker, Sherrie. Swing Shift: "All-Girl" Bands of the 1940s. Duke University Press, 2000.

Tucker, S. (1999). The Prairie View Co-Eds: Black College Women Musicians in Class and on the Road during World War II. Black Music Research Journal, 19(1), 93–126. https://doi.org/10.2307/779276

Tucker, Sherrie. "Women." The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, (2nd ed.), Barry Dean Kernfeld (ed.).

Tucker, Sherrie. "Uplifts and Downbeats: What if Jazz History Included the Prairie View Co-eds?." Berkeley Electronic Press (2002).

Arrangement: 

The collection’ original arrangement was just photo albums in one linear footage box, loose documents in another box, and musical equipment with performance attire on a different shelf. After conducting an inventory of the items, the collection will be arranged into three different series based on the materials below:

•    Series One: Photographs, 1938-2015
•    Series Two: Administrative Files, 1943-2002
•    Series Three: Musical Equipment and Attire, 1940, Undated 

Identification: UA 0089

Repository: Special Collections/Archives Department, John B. Coleman Library, Prairie View A&M University

Complied by Evelyn Davis, December 2023