The first African American singer to gain recognition in both Europe and the United States, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield was born into slavery in Natchez, Mississippi, into a family owned by Elizabeth Holiday Greenfield, a wealthy Quaker. The exact date of Greenfield’s date is unknown yet historians believe it was in 1819. Her enslaver, divorced her husband and relocated to Philadelphia, choosing to manage her Southern holdings from afar. Taylor got along with her mistress really well. During the 1820s, she grew up among upper-class Whites and free Black Americans in Philadelphia. As a consequence of both the political climate of the North and Greenfield’s religious beliefs (she converted to Quakerism), Taylor’s family was freed and given money to start a new life in Liberia.
While the rest of the Taylors left for Africa, Elizabeth elected to stay behind in America in Greenfield’s household and added her mistress’s last name. Philadelphia boasted one of the largest populations of free Blacks of any American city, and some fugitives and freedmen were able to make careers there. Living in Philadelphia also offered Greenfield the chance to learn about music. Sometime during Greenfield’s childhood, she developed a love of singing. Soon after, she became a vocalist at her local church. Despite a lack of musical training, Greenfield was a self-taught pianist and harpist. With a multi-octave range, Greenfield was able to sing soprano, tenor and bass.
After her enslaver passed away, Greenfield continued to develop her musical skills and became a teacher within five years. During her travels from Philadelphia to Buffalo, Greenfield sang and played guitar. She impressed many passengers, including Electra Potter, who was a wealthy, White socialite whose husband was a prominent lawyer in Buffalo. She was invited to sing for a party the following week at their home in Buffalo. The general, his wife, and their guests were awed by her untrained yet brilliant voice. Due to the Potters’ status, she quickly received several invitations for private performances and public concerts. The performance received lots of attention from local newspapers and was critically acclaimed.
Between 1851 and 1853, Greenfield launched her first tour giving her first public performances, in Buffalo, N.Y. She gave concerts throughout the northern United States and northeastern Canada. Many of the venues where Greenfield performed had racist seating or admission regulations. She was held up by abolitionists as an example of the success that former slaves might realize. Soon after she received positive reviews in local newspapers. After Greenfield’s debut in 1851, the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser nicknamed her “The Black Swan.” During the 1800s, it was common to refer to singers as birds. Greenfield was best known for her renditions of music by George Frideric Handel, Vincenzo Bellini and Gaetano Donizetti.
In addition, Greenfield sang American standards such as Henry Bishop’s “Home! Sweet Home!” and Stephen Foster’s “Old Folks at Home.” But as she began touring around the U.S., Elizabeth experienced the challenges of pursuing a musical career in antebellum America. One of the biggest that she immediately faced was segregation in music venues. Although Greenfield was happy to perform at concert halls such as Metropolitan Hall, it was to all-White audiences. The Hall had a strict policy: “No colored persons can be admitted, as there is no part of the house appropriated for them.” Even at the concert, Greenfield experienced prejudice, with the audience laughing as she took the stage and her escort onto the stage keeping his distance.
Some locals were enraged that Elizabeth would be performing and sent letters to the manager threatening dire disasters to the building. Being a Black limited where she could play. Elizabeth held another performance shortly after in a different venue for a Black audience. Not cowering to the racism, Elizabeth pushed forward. With her talent, following and determination, opportunities arose to play in places no Black American had before. A testimonial concert in March 1853 arranged by friends in Buffalo raised funds to finance a trip to Europe for additional training. On the 31st, a few days before she boarded a ship for Britain, she made her concert debut in New York City. A London manager who was to have handled the British concert tour for her defaulted, leaving her stranded.
Ever resourceful, she sought help from Lord Shaftesbury and was further aided by the recently arrived Harriet Beecher Stowe and several aristocratic English women. Greenfield’s European tour took her to England, Scotland, and Ireland. In England, she met several aristocratic English women. She won the favor of the Duchesses of Sutherland, Norfolk, and Argyll. They became her patrons during the tour. Having garnered the favor of Stowe and her privileged White abolitionist friends (at the time, American abolitionism was a very popular cause amongst the British nobility), Greenfield was able to make her mark.
On May 10, 1854, Greenfield sang for Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace, and received rave reviews. Greenfield captivated audiences in both the United States and Europe. Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield received world-wide acclaim as a most gifted vocalist with an "astonishing" range easily embracing 27 notes. She was one of the first Black singers to cross nineteenth-century America’s formidable racial barrier and garner serious attention from White audiences. Greenfield's voice was full, resonant, with remarkable range and made more striking by her plain appearance and the charm of her imperfect training.
Elizabeth’s talents also helped reshape people’s perception of Black Americans. The following quote from a review by the London Advertiser on 16 June 1854, exemplifies her impact upon the British:
“Apart from the natural gifts with which this lady is endowed, the great musical skill which she has acquired both as a singer and an instrumentalist, are convincing arguments against the assertion so often made, that the Negro race are incapable of intellectual culture of a high standard.”
Greenfield may have been continually, simultaneously isolated, criticized, rejected, loathed, feared, fawned over, condescended to. But she also clearly played an important role in shifting many audiences’ cultural perceptions of the artistic abilities and humanity of Black people. In Ohio her performance even forced one journalist to admit his own destructive racism in public: “We know the natural prejudice that we all have against her color, and it is very difficult to divest one’s self entirely of them and criticize fairly and justly in such a case.” Greenfield may never have experienced fairness or justice in her reception, but she certainly sparked a deeply necessary self-examination for thousands of listeners across America and Great Britain.
Despite her popularity, Greenfield lacked the funds to remain in London longer than a year. In late summer of 1854 she returned to the United States, where she resettled in Philadelphia. Over the next twenty years, she gave voice lessons and occasional concerts sometimes to support herself and sometimes to support charitable causes. She also began turning her attention to teaching. Greenfield’s students included several prominent African American singers, including Thomas J. Bowers, who became one of the leading world tenors. During the Civil War Elizabeth Greenfield appeared alongside speakers such as Frederick Douglass and Frances E.W. Harper. After 1863, Greenfield occasionally performed, often to benefit African American causes. Once the Civil War was over, other Black women singers like Sissieretta Jones followed in Greenfield's footsteps with acclaimed performances and international tours.
Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield died of “sudden paralysis” in Philadelphia on 31 March 1876. She was known throughout the United States and beyond, and she laid the foundation for classical singers to come. In 1921, entrepreneur Harry Pace established Black Swan Records. The company, which was the first Black American owned record label, was named in honor of Greenfield, who was the first Black American vocalist to achieve international acclaim. Through her performances, she challenged racist stereotypes about slavery and Black people. Because of her impact, she also made it easier for other sopranos of her time to get work. She clearly played an important role in shifting many audiences’ cultural perceptions of the artistic abilities and humanity of Black people.