🎂🎂🎂Father of the Blues "W.C. Handy" Museum 🏛

William Christoper Handy was born on November 16, 1873, in Florence, Alabama.  

Come celebrate the birthday of W.C. Handy on November 16 at the Handy Home, Museum, and Library on 620 West College Street in Florence. 

From 11:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M., you can tour the museum and listen to music on its front lawn. 

It is free to the public, with a birthday cake and other refreshments available.

In 2009, my daughter, granddaughter, and I joined in the celebration and toured the Museum, Home, and Library. 

Happy Birthda,y Father of the Blu.es "The chocolate cake was delici.ous"

Bust of Handy

Picture of Handy 

Library 

Handy and the St Louis Blues

Inside the Cabin

Handy's Piano

Kitchen of Cabin 

The W. C. Handy Birthplace, Museum, and Library, in Florence, Lauderdale County, was established to celebrate the life of musician and composer William "W. C." Handy (1873-1958), known as the "Father of the Blues." Handy himself donated the seed money to set up the museum, which now includes several buildings and houses an extensive collection of memorabilia, personal items, and objects relating to Handy's musical career. 

Handy gave the city the $29,000 he was paid for the land on which the cabin stood to be used for the future restoration of his childhood home as a museum. The cabin was carefully dismantled, and the logs were numbered and stored for later reassembly. Handy also bequeathed a large number of his personal possessions to the city to be used in the cabin after a suitable new location was found.

A site was selected at 620 West College Street, in the southwest corner of town. Work began early in 1970 on reassembling the log cabin and constructing a museum next to it to properly house and display the artifacts and tell the story of Handy's life and career. The completed structure was filled with the artifacts that the Handy family sent to Florence from their home in New York, including the upright piano on which Handy composed the "St. Louis Blues," his brass trumpet, furniture, and numerous boxes of his letters, pictures, musical compositions, personal mementos, and datebooks.

Local citizens donated furnishings and other items that represented the period during which Handy lived there as a child. The W. C. Handy Museum opened to the public on June 7, 1970. 

A separate building was added in 1980 to house the Black Heritage Library, which was filled with books donated to or purchased for the museum under the direction of the Cabin Committee. 

In 2002, an addition was constructed that included a new area for the Black Heritage Library, office space, a kitchen, a restroom, and a community meeting room.

Article from the Encyclopedia of Alabama