Marian Anderson, an African American, later known as the Lady From Philadelphia, was born on February 27, 1897 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Anna Anderson, had three children, Marian, who was the oldest, Alyse, who was born in 1900, and Ethel May in 1902. Their father, John Anderson, died in 1912, when Marian was 15, leaving her mother to take care of three girls, and forcing her to work as a cleaning lady, where she was not treated very well by her boss, and had to scrub floors as if her life depended on it. .
When she was six, Marian played the violin for a short while. But her musical interest started way before then. When she was nearly two, she would play and sing little melodies on her toy piano. Then, when she was 13, she started singing in the senior choir at her church. She was very interested in singing, but, since her mother couldn't afford any lessons, their neighbor, Mary Saunders Patterson, offered to give her some beginning lessons for only a dollar each time. .
Getting Started.
Those lessons paid off. During her teenage years, instead of going to high school, she toured schools and churches, charging $5 per ticket. She was accepted to the Yale School of Music, but had no money for tuition. When Marian was 28, in 1925, the majority of the population didn't want to hear that kind of rich and deep voice from an African American. So she found a pianist to play with her: Kosti Vehanen, respected in his home country, Finland, for his piano playing ability. Together they toured Europe; and in the early 1930's, she sang at Salzburg. Within the eight months between September 1933 and April 1934, she gave 134 concerts in five Scandinavian cities: Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Stavenger Bergen and also in Norway. .
Around 1930, people were encouraging Marian to apply for a Rosenwald fellowship. She did, but on the application, she put February 17, 1903 as her birth date, instead of February 27, 1897, to eliminate the years when she did not go to high school.