Friday at Auction Finds is readers’ questions day. I try to guide readers to resources for them to determine the value of their items. I’m not able to appraise their treasures, but I can do some preliminary research to get them started. So, these are market values based on prices I find on the web, not appraisal for insurance purposes that I suggest for items that have been determined to be of great value.
Today’s question is from a reader who wants to know the value of a 1950s “Wings Over Jordan” choir pamphlet accompanied by a letter signed by a Supreme Court justice.
Question:
I have a pamphlet in good shape called Wings over Jordan November 1 1950 called world renowned Negro choir signed by Glynn T. Settle and on the back page is a signed letter to Glynn thanking him for his service from Justice Harold H. Burton and signed by him. What is the value of the pamphlet?
Answer:
This reader wrote me after seeing a blog post I had written about Kenneth Slaughter, who was a singer with the Wings Over Jordan choir in the 1940s. Wings was one of the most popular choirs around, touring the country and the world singing at churches, symphony halls and other venues.
The choir was formed in 1935 by the Rev. Glynn T. Settle, pastor of Gethsemane Baptist Church in Cleveland. Three years later, the singers could be heard across the country each Sunday morning on “The Negro Hour” radio program on CBS. The program also included Settle speaking between songs, along with black scholars, educators and artists discussing issues of interest to African Americans.
The choir lost its radio gig in 1947. Settle continued to manage it for a few years but got into a dispute with some singers over finances.
Since the world-renowned choir was based in Cleveland, I suspect that Settle knew Harold H. Burton, a Republican who was elected mayor in 1935. Burton served in that position until 1940 when voters sent him to the U.S. Senate.
President Truman nominated him for a Supreme Court seat in 1945, and he was summarily confirmed by his Senate colleagues without a hearing or debate. Burton served until 1958, resigning after showing signs of Parkinson’s disease.
Burton was conservative when it came to fiscal issues but progressive on social ones, according to one account. He wrote the court’s opinion in 1950 that forbidded segregation in railroad cars.
He was one of the jurists who unanimously voted to outlaw segregation in public schools in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. In a memo to Warren, Burton called it “a great day for America and the Court. … I cherish the privilege of sharing in this.”
Burton’s papers in the Library of Congress include two folders pertaining to the Wings Over Jordan radio program from 1941 to 1945. There’s no indication of what’s in the folders.
As for the reader’s pamphlet, I could find no documents pertaining to Wings that had been sold, so that makes it hard to determine how much someone would be willing to pay for it. The only pamphlets, brochures, speeches, articles and other documents I could find were among donated collections to national and university archives.
But I did find documents and letters signed by Burton: One website listed items from $699 up to $1,999. That doesn’t mean, however, that’s what they are worth – only what the owner is asking for them. Another had a letter listed for $125 and another for $75. A signed photo and cards sold on eBay recently for less than $50. A collection of cards individually signed by Burton and others on the court sold for $150 at a British auction in February.
In case you’d like to collect the signatures of Supreme Court justices, this site offered some pointers.
I would suggest that the reader contact Swann Auction Galleries, which each February holds an auction of African American manuscripts and documents. With the combination of a renowned African American choir and the signature of a Supreme Court justice, there may be somebodies out there who’d like to have the pamphlet. That twosome could also make the pamphlet appealing to two different groups of collectors.
