Historical records matching Philippa Duke Schuyler
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About Philippa Duke Schuyler
Philippa Duke Schuyler (/ˈskaɪlər/; August 2, 1931 – May 9, 1967) was a noted American child prodigy and pianist.
Piano prodigy Philippa Duke Schuyler was the daughter of a politically conservative black journalist and a white former Southern beauty queen. George Schuyler and Josephine Codgell were proponents of interracial marriage and believed that biracial children had the potential to be exceptional thanks to their mixed heritage.
Josephine devoted herself to developing her daughter’s expected genius. A raw food proponent, Josephine fed Philippa a diet of raw vegetables, raw beef, and cod liver oil. Philippa was educated mainly at home and by age two her spelling ability was profiled in a New York newspaper. By four, Philippa was an established piano prodigy, often performing her own compositions. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia was among her fans. Her IQ was tested to be 185.
As a teenager Philippa was an international touring pianist, but she struggled to find tour sponsors due to her race and gender. As she matured, Philippa became disillusioned with both her parents and the discrimination she faced. Philippa gave up performing in her thirties and became a journalist.
While on assignment in Vietnam in 1967, Philippa’s helicopter crashed and unable to swim, she drown. Heartbroken, Josephine committed suicide on the second anniversary of her daughter’s death.
A middle school in Brooklyn is named in Philippa’s honor.
From "the baby genius of the Harlem Renaissance"
Though Schuyler briefly fascinated the nation as a mulatto child prodigy, white America lost interest in her as she aged. As a teenager, she began to suffer the injustices and humiliation of racial prejudice. Unable to find a place for herself in the American music community, Schuyler left the country. Her extensive international performance schedule allowed her to explore the dynamics of race in a variety of cultures and settings. She struggled to find a comfortable community and to create a satisfying personal identity. Her failure to do so led to almost constant traveling for the rest of her life. Though she feared she would never feel completely accepted anywhere, she continued to seek a society she could join fully. In Adventures in Black and White, a memoir of her experiences traveling worldwide, Schuyler wrote:
Despite the turmoils, threats, hazards, uncertainties, of this age, I love it, for I realize all human eras have been fraught with problems. I admire the people who are doing their best to shape a new world. I think there is great hope for the human race, and I feel a deep warmth of affection for all peoples, everywhere.1
As a result of her sense of alienation from her native country and in response to the neglect she suffered in the American music community, as a young woman Schuyler changed her name to Felipa Monterro and began to pass as white. She hoped her new identity would free her from being defined by her earlier career. She planned to return to the United States and pursue a new career as a concert pianist. Though this never worked out, as Felipa Monterro she established an international lecture tour, talking on topics related to her world travel.
Though she never gave up performing concerts, as an adult Schuyler also worked as a journalist. Fluent in several languages, she wrote for French, Portuguese, and Italian newspapers, as well as American papers and magazines. She authored several moderately successful books based on her experiences covering international news. It was, in fact, while she was covering the war in Vietnam for an American newspaper that she was killed in a helicopter crash. A posthumous book, Good Men Die, collected her writings about Vietnam.
From "So Young, So Gifted, So Sad" book review by Carolyn See
"This one's a heartbreaker. This one will make you wring your hands about America, what it means to be a woman, and what it means to be black. In case you ever harbored any utopian ideals about how -- with hard work and good intentions -- we might make this a better country, this book will certainly disabuse you of any daydreams in that regard. Also, if you ever had any mushy, personal thoughts about fame -- how, if you ever managed to get your picture in Time magazine, you could transcend your own personal history and achieve a secular heaven of success -- this book will disabuse you of that, too.". ....
- Wikipedia
- Daniel McNeil, "Black devils, white saints & mixed-race femme fatales: Philippa Schuyler and the soundbites of the sixties", in Critical Arts: A Journal of South-North Cultural Studies, 2011.
- Daniel McNeil, Sex and Race in the Black Atlantic (New York, Routledge, 2009). [1]
- Joseph Mitchell, "Evening With a Gifted Child", in McSorley's Wonderful Saloon (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1943)
- Josephine Schuyler, Philippa, the Beautiful American: The Traveled History of a Troubadour, (paperback, n.p., 1969)
- Kathryn Talalay, Composition In Black and White: The Tragic Saga of Harlem's Biracial Prodigy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995)
- Philippa Schuyler Papers at Syracuse University
- George S. Schuyler Papers An inventory of his papers at Syracuse University. "She knew six languages and at a very early age was an accomplished pianist, composer, orchestrator, and author. She travelled extensively in Europe, the West Indies, Africa, and Southeast Asia as a journalist, writing books and articles on world affairs as well as music. She was a foreign correspondent for the Manchester Union at the time of her death in 1967, in a helicopter accident while evacuating children from Hue to Da Nang."
- Find A Grave Memorial# 117619473
- Updated from MyHeritage Family Trees by SmartCopy: Jul 16 2015, 19:11:42 UTC
- Updated from FamilySearch Family Tree by SmartCopy: Jul 16 2015, 19:12:59 UTC
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Philippa Duke Schuyler's Timeline
| 1931 |
August 2, 1931
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New York, NY, United States
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| 1967 |
May 9, 1967
Age 35
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Da Nang, Da Nang, Vietnam (Viet Nam)
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