Mary Cardwell Dawson

Mary Lucinda Cardwell Dawson was born on February 14, 1894, in Madison, North Carolina to Elizabeth and James A. Cardwell. The Cardwell family, which included six children,  moved to Homestead, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh in 1901. Family life centered around music, with many of Mary’s family members sharing their musical talents in the church choir. Before moving to Boston, Massachusetts to study at the New England Conservatory of Music, Cardwell took piano and organ lessons from a local Pittsburgh teacher, Leafie White. While at the New England Conservatory of Music, she studied music theory, performance studies in organ, piano, and voice, choral conducting, and stage production. After graduating in 1925 as the only Black student, Cardwell continued her studies at the Chicago Musical College and the Metropolitan Opera Studios in New York. In 1927, she married Walter Dawson. 

Mary Cardwell Dawson’s teaching trajectory started with her graduation from the New England Conservatory of Music. Declining an offer as a music teacher in Athens, Georgia, she returned to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and started her own private music school. Early on in her education, she had taken note of the lack of diversity in opera and symphony productions, and she wanted to change the course of opera. The Cardwell School of Music afforded her the opportunity to teach organ, piano, and voice, and enabled her students to perform in recitals. The School choir performed at the New York and Chicago World’s Fairs and earned cash prizes, trophies, and awards from 1937 to 1940. The School also served as a model for the National Negro Opera Company (NNOC). Notably, many of the choir members performed in the NNOC’s first performance, Aida, in 1941, at the Syria Mosque in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Some of Dawson’s most famous students included Ahmad Jamal, a Black American jazz pianist, and Robert McFerrin, Sr., the first Black man to sing at the Metropolitan Opera House. The NNOC started in Pittsburgh and the organization’s headquarters moved to Washington, DC in 1942 with Dawson. 

In Pittsburgh, Dawson focused on integrating all Black casts with white orchestras during segregation. Notably, she established Pittsburgh’s first National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM) chapter in 1931 and served as the chapter’s first president. She later served as the national organization’s president from 1940 to 1941, where she instituted a seven-point program to further African Americans in the field of music, specifically as classically trained musicians and opera singers. She also fought for African American participation in the Board of Musical Artists Union.  Dawson used her position in the NANM national chapter and her local Pittsburgh chapter to establish an opera committee within the organization.  

The NNOC started in the National Negro Opera House in Homewood, a neighborhood in Pittsburgh. The NNOC also had chapters in Chicago, New York, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and Detroit, among other cities. In 1950, Dawson founded the National Negro Opera Foundation (NNOF), a non-profit dedicated to financing the NNOC through grants and scholarships for gifted musicians. 

As an activist, Dawson believed in challenging racism in opera, after witnessing the segregation of Marian Anderson—a leading Black vocalist—and white opera musicians in Washington, DC. She cast African Americans in all her productions and often used white orchestras and conductors to challenge racism. Additionally, Dawson fought to have Black musicians in the orchestra pit. Her productions included Aida, La Traviata, Faust, The Ordering of Moses, and Ouanga. In 1956, Dawson’s NNOC performed at the Metropolitan Opera House as the first Black opera company. Other important roles included a position in President Kennedy’s Music Commission in 1961. Throughout her career, Dawson earned awards including a trophy from the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph in 1937 and the Joseph W. Wells Business Award in 1956.  

The NNOC ended its operations in 1962 because of financial difficulties. Dawson died in March 1962 in Washington, DC. from a heart condition. In September 1994, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission dedicated a historical marker to the NNOC at 7101 Apple Street in Pittsburgh.