WC Handy, "Memphis Blues" from Dawson’s collection

Dawson kept an extensive library of sheet music and recordings. His archive contains a number of rare copies of African American sheet music, as well as sheet music by many of the great composers of his time. It includes the only surviving piece by Nora Douglas Holt, published in her short-lived journal Music and Poetry, a rare copy of which is found in the Dawson papers.