Schuyler Family audio collection

circa 1930s-1970s

The Schuyler family included George Samuel Schuyler (February 25, 1895- August 31, 1977), his wife Josephine Schuyler (née Cogdell, June 23, 1900- May 2, 1969), and their daughter, Philippa Duke Schuyler (August 2, 1931- May 9, 1967). George was a Black writer and journalist, and Josephine was a white writer and dancer from a wealthy Texas family. Philippa was a pianist, composer, and journalist.

Over the course of his career, George wrote for myriad periodicals and news organizations. In addition to The Pittsburgh Courier, where he rose to prominence as a journalist and columnist in the 1920s and 1930s, George wrote for publications such as The Messenger, Negro Digest, and Reader's Digest. He also wrote for the North American Newspaper Alliance and Spadia Syndicate, among other outlets. He published several books including Slaves Today and Black No More (both in 1931), and Black and Conservative (1966). George was also a frequent radio commentator over the course of his career, and regularly appeared on The Editors Speak and hosted The Negro World on New York City's WLIB. Although sympathetic to politics that ranged from liberal to radical early in his career, he became increasingly conservative through the 1940s, moving on to write for publications like American Mercury, American Opinion, and National Review.

In 1928, George and Josephine Cogdell met through The Messenger, where he was an editor and she was a contributor. They married later that year.

Philippa, their only child, was born in Harlem, New York City, where her parents had settled years earlier. She demonstrated an exceptional facility with language and music from an early age and was widely recognized as a child prodigy. There are discrepancies regarding Philippa's age at various milestones throughout her life, but she began learning piano at around three years old, and gave her first broadcast piano performance close to a year later. She debuted in concert at City College of New York's (CCNY) Lewisohn Stadium at fourteen, and had her first nationwide tour two years after that. Over the course of her career, she toured extensively and regularly received media attention and critical praise. In addition to the European canon of classical music, Philippa performed and composed works inspired by music from regions throughout Africa and Asia. Among her notable compositions are African Rhapsody (1964), Nile Fantasy (circa 1965), The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (circa 1958), and The White Nile Suite (circa 1964).

Despite having been a prodigy whose significant achievements continued into adulthood, Philippa did not reach the status of her white counterparts in the United States, and she struggled with her racial identity. For a period including the early 1960s, she downplayed or denied her Blackness, and went by variations of her name such as "Felipa Monterro."

Philippa's career as an international concert pianist allowed her to pursue journalism, and she wrote about Haiti for The Pittsburgh Courier while on tour there in 1950, and Belgian Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) for United Press International while touring the region in 1960. By 1966, Philippa had fully followed in her father's footsteps as a journalist and a conservative, writing for the North American Newspaper Alliance. She also authored five books: Adventures in Black and White (1960), Who Killed the Congo? (1962), Jungle Saints: Africa's Heroic Catholic Missionaries (1963), Kingdom of Dreams (1966, co-authored with her mother), and Good Men Die (1969, published posthumously). Philippa died at thirty-five in Vietnam's Da Nang Bay on May 9, 1967, after her helicopter crashed. She had been on a mission to evacuate Vietnamese children while reporting on the Vietnam War.

After Philippa's death, her parents founded the Philippa Duke Schuyler Memorial Foundation to support civilian South Vietnamese causes. Josephine died by suicide on May 7, 1969, days before the second anniversary of her daughter's death. George increasingly devoted his life and work to anti-communism, alienating many of his former colleagues and other members of the Black literati. He died in 1977.