Acknowledgments

This project has taken a period of years and has involved a number of people. I am extremely grateful to all of them, and I apologize to any person or institution that I have inadvertently failed to mention.

First, it is important to acknowledge those who have already published works or written original material on Scott Joplin: Vera Brodsky Lawrence, editor of The Collected Works of Scott Joplin, put me in touch with Dr. Addison Walker Reed, who did his unpublished doctoral thesis on Joplin; British author Peter Gammond published a book on Joplin that contains interesting insights into his music; and of course I am grateful to Rudi Blesh and Harriet Janis, whose They All Played Ragtime was the seminal work on ragtime and the life of Scott Joplin. Blesh and Janis were able to interview people who are now deceased, as were Ann Vanderlee, now deceased, and John Vanderlee of Fort Worth, Texas; their records are invaluable.

People in Texas and Arkansas were very helpful to me in establishing the facts and bases for speculation on Scott Joplin’s early life. Jerry Atkins, Texarkana businessman and a prime force behind the move by the Texarkana Historical Society and Museum to establish its Scott Joplin collection and memorials, has been with me from the beginning, taking time to provide whatever material to which he had access and offering extremely helpful suggestions. Mrs. Arthur Jennings, chairman, Bowie County Historical Commission, provided a considerable amount of information on the Moores, Rochelle, Hooks and other families which helped to undergird my speculations on Jiles Joplin’s early life in Texas. Her research and writings on the early days of Texarkana were also valuable. I am grateful as well to Fred Joplin and George Mosley, who remember Scott Joplin in Texarkana and who took the time to share their recollections. George Beasley and Burl Mitchell provided helpful information, as did Scott Joplin’s niece, Mattie Harris; and Charles Steger of Longview, Texas, made the important discovery while searching through old census records of the presence of the Joplin family in Cass County, Texas, in 1870, when Scott was just two years old. I was helped immeasurably with my research in Texas by Dick J. Reavis, now of Austin; without him I could not have gathered nearly as much information as I did, and I am deeply grateful to him.

In researching Scott Joplin in Missouri, I was helped by Jan Goldberg, formerly of St. Louis, and by ragtime authority Trebor Jay Tichenor. Ms. Kathleen S. Schoene, librarian, and Miss Elizabeth Tindall, reference librarian, of the Missouri Historical Society and Mrs. Bonnie Ryck and her predecessor, Mrs. Debbie Miller, of the State Historical Society of Missouri, provided information in the form of old newspaper clippings and St. Louis City Directory entries, as did the staff of the Sedalia Public Library; county clerks’ and vital records offices in a variety of Missouri counties searched vainly for various birth, death, and marriage records.

Lynn Bynum of Louisville, Kentucky, conducted an extensive search for records on Florence Givins Joplin and her family; Susan Baran made a similarly ambitious search of census records at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Manhattan; also assisted in picture research. J. M. Stifle spent hours at the Lincoln Center branch of the New York Public Library; and Mr. Richard Jackson, curator of the American Music Collection at Lincoln Center, made efforts to establish a factual basis for the legend that Scott Joplin once visited Europe. In Nashville, Tennessee, Frank Benson and Jewel Moore gathered information from Fisk University’s Samuel Brunson Campbell Papers. In New York City, members of the staff of the Museum of the City of New York provided old city directories and real estate records. Mary Ellen Arrington typed the manuscript drafts and provided helpful editorial comments.

All across the country, jazz buffs and Joplinophiles have been searching for information on Scott Joplin and readily sharing their discoveries with others in such publications as the Rag Times. I am indebted to all of them and hope that my work will provide continued impetus to their search.

I also wish to express my appreciation to the following individuals and institutions: Mr. James D. Walker of the National Archives, the Library of Congress, American Brands, Inc., the Department of State, New York City Municipal Archives and Record Center, Ms. Margaret Scriven, librarian, Chicago Historical Society, the Texas General Land Office, the Texas State Library, the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, and the Missouri Pacific Railroad.

A special thank-you to Kathy Benson.

Jim Haskins, New York, 1977