ABSTRACT
Frederic J. Loudin was born in Portage County, Ohio. Although his father had sufficient means to send him to a college in Ohio, Loudin was refused schooling in Ravenna and became a printer’s apprentice. Later he joined the Methodist Church where he was refused a place in the choir because of his colour. Following the Civil War Loudin went to Tennessee, where he became interested in the work of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, which he joined previous to their second visit to Great Britain in 1875. He travelled abroad with this group for five years. Soon thereafter it disbanded, and in 1882 Mr. Loudin organized and directed his own group, which he called the Loudin Jubilee Singers. In 1888 his group made a world tour, travelling via the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, and finally landing in San Francisco in June 1900. From 1900 to 1903 the group toured the British Isles. Mr. Loudin returned to the United States in 1903 after a final tour of the British Isles and died in his home in Ravenna, Ohio, in 1904.
