1858–1924

Introduction

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Born: May 1, 1858, Cher­ry Grove, Vir­gin­ia (now West Vir­gin­ia).

Died: No­vem­ber 16, 1924, Chat­ta­noo­ga, Ten­nes­see.

Buried: West Hill Ce­me­te­ry, Dal­ton, Geor­gia.

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Biography

Anthony was the son of John A. Sho­wal­ter and Su­san­na Mill­er, hus­band of Lu­cy Ca­rol­ine Call­ie Wal­ser of Tex­as (mar­ried 1881), bro­ther of John and Ja­cob Sho­wal­ter, and fa­ther of Karl Sho­wal­ter.

He was edu­cat­ed in the pub­lic schools, and be­gan stu­dy­ing mu­sic in sing­ing schools and pri­vate class­es taught by his father. He at­tend­ed his first nor­mal mu­sic school at New Mar­ket, Vir­gin­ia, taught by Ben­ja­min Un­seld and P. J. Mer­ges, in 1876.

He lat­er at­tend­ed two more ses­sions of the same school, in the lat­ter start­ing stu­dy of the or­gan un­der Mr. Mer­ges. He at­tend­ed George Root’s Na­tion­al Nor­mal in Er­ie, Penn­syl­van­ia, and Ho­ra­tio Pal­mer’s In­ter­na­tion­al Nor­mal at Meade­ville, Penn­syl­van­ia.

He be­gan teach­ing sing­ing schools at age 14, li­ter­ary school at age 19, and nor­mal schools at age 22. For a year in 1895, he stu­died mu­sic in Eng­land, France, and Ger­ma­ny.

Showalter pub­lished ov­er 130 mu­sic books that sold more than a mil­lion cop­ies. He was prin­ci­pal of the Sou­thern Nor­mal Mu­sic­al In­sti­tute in Dal­ton, Geor­gia, from its in­cep­tion in 1880.

He ed­it­ed The Mu­sic­al Teach­er (lat­er re­named the Mu­sic Teach­er and Home) ma­ga­zine for ov­er 20 years, and served as an el­der of the First Pres­by­te­ri­an Church in Dal­ton, Geor­gia.

He joined the Mu­sic Teach­ers Na­tion­al As­so­cia­tion in 1888, and was vice pre­si­dent for Geor­gia for sev­er­al years.

He was pre­si­dent of the A. J. Sho­wal­ter Com­pa­ny in Dal­ton, Geor­gia, and the Sho­wal­ter-Pat­ton Com­pa­ny in Dal­las, Texas, two of the larg­est mu­sic pub­lish­ing houses in the Am­er­ican south.

Showalter was in­duct­ed in­to the Sou­thern Gos­pel Mu­sic As­so­cia­tion Hall of Fame in 2000.

Works

Sources

Lyrics

Music