MANLEY, Gertrude

Gertrude Manley was a 19th-century American composer and pianist active during the Reconstruction era in the American South. Based in Georgia (Dalton), she demonstrated early talent as a keyboard performer and salon composer before her untimely death in her early twenties. As a composer, Manley contributed to the lively 19th-century American tradition of domestic parlor and dance music. Her published output consists primarily of solo piano pieces, including lively dance forms such as galops, polkas, and salon miniatures. Among her most noted published works was A Blade of Grass: Galop (published in New York by Wm. A. Pond & Co. in 1873), which enjoyed circulation in regional and national musical periodicals of the era.