Marian Anderson (1897-1993), contralto, was a world-renowned interpreter of art songs and spirituals. Her repertoire included hundreds of arias in German, Italian, English, French, Finnish, Spanish, Swedish, Portuguese, and other languages. Renowned composers such as Harry T. Burleigh, Florence Price, and Jan Sibelius created works specifically for her. Her active career spanned from the 1920s to the 1970s, although she officially retired from the stage in 1965.

The University of Pennsylvania holds an extensive collection of material from, by, and about Marian Anderson, including notebooks, diaries, concert programs, photographs, audio recordings, interview transcripts, and scrapbooks. More than 2,500 materials are now available online through a dedicated research portal, Discovering Marian Anderson.