Photograph of John Powell, no date.

John Powell

Composer John Powell entered the University at 16 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa two years later. After study abroad he returned to his native Virginia and began traveling throughout the South collecting folk tunes, many of which he then used as a basis for his classical compositions. In 1938, on the 25th anniversary of his musical debut, he gave a concert at Carnegie Hall and donated the proceeds to Alderman Library which used them to purchase Thomas Jefferson letters pertaining to the University's founding.

John Powell, The Breach in the Dike: An Analysis of the Sorrels Case Showing the Danger to Racial integrity from Intermarriage of Whites with So-Called Indians. Richmond: Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America, ca. 1920.

Powell's musical fame has been shadowed over the years by his views on racial integrity. With his friend Dr. Paul B. Barringer of the University medical faculty, he founded the University branch of the Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America, an organization dedicated "to preserve the purity of the white race and to maintain the qualities and purposes of the Anglo Saxon race." Their pressure on the state legislature resulted in the 1924 law forbidding any intermarriage between whites and "those with a single drop of Negro blood," a statute that was not overturned until "Loving vs. Virginia" in 1967.

Plaster cast of John Powell's hand, no date.

The cast of his hand confirms that Powell had unusually small hands for a concert pianist.

Powell dedicated his overture for orchestra to the University of Virginia "on her hundredth birthday." The manuscript score has a presentation inscription from the composer.