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De Paur, Leonard's 5th Annual Tour de Paur's Infantry Chorus materials, 1951, document the postwar concert-touring system of an African American veterans' chorus that transformed wartime military performance into a nationally managed civilian musical enterprise. The archive documents African American choral touring through a souvenir booklet and concert program, revealing how the chorus operated in practice through professional management, printed repertoire, performer biographies, promotional photography, and public commemoration of its touring record. De Paur had directed the chorus during World War II, and contemporary coverage noted that the group's singers came from the 372nd Infantry and had given more than 2,000 concerts in the Pacific Theatre before their postwar recording and concert career brought them to civilian audiences. The materials support research into African American military service, concert management, Black choral music, spirituals, wartime entertainment, and the cultural transition from segregated military units to postwar public performance. The archive consists of two printed documents issued by Columbia Artists' Management: one twenty-four-page tour booklet and one four-page concert program, together documenting de Paur's Infantry Chorus during its fifth-anniversary touring period. [1] De Paur, Leonard. 5th Annual Tour de Paur's Infantry Chorus / Spring 1951. New York: Columbia Artists' Management, Inc., 1951. Twenty-four-page booklet, 9 x 12 inches, with an introduction to the chorus, biographies of de Paur and featured soloists, two program lists, and more than thirty black-and-white photographs, including images from the chorus's South America and Caribbean tour, a full-page photograph of de Paur conducting, portraits of featured singers, and a photograph of de Paur receiving a trophy from Columbia Artists Management president Frederick C. Schang, Jr. commemorating the chorus's record-breaking 180-concert tour in 1948. The booklet closes with a fifth-anniversary statement thanking audiences for inviting the chorus "to come and sing for you" and for the "kind communion" found in sharing music, language that frames the group's touring work as both professional achievement and collective cultural exchange. [2] De Paur, Leonard. The Community Concert Association Presents de Paur's Infantry Chorus. New York: Columbia Artists' Management, Inc., 1951-1952. Four-page program, 6.25 x 9.5 inches, with a full song list and brief background on de Paur and the chorus. The repertoire includes contemporary music, Latin American folk songs, World War II songs, Negro spirituals, and songs of faith, with many arrangements attributed to de Paur; the spirituals include "No Bottom (Steamboat Song)" from John Henry, for which de Paur served as original music director. The materials show the mechanisms of African American postwar concert circulation: a management agency packaging the chorus for community concert associations, a printed booklet establishing institutional legitimacy, photographic evidence of hemispheric touring, and programs positioning spirituals alongside international folk material and wartime songs. University Musical Society records for a November 20, 1951 de Paur Infantry Chorus concert similarly list repertoire ranging from Latin American songs and World War II material to African American spirituals, confirming the breadth of the chorus's public programming during this period. Light wear, toning, and mild dampstaining to cover; contents remain complete and legible; overall very good. Focused African American music and military-history archive documenting how Leonard de Paur and a chorus of Black veterans carried wartime performance into postwar concert institutions, recording, touring, and public commemoration.
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