The Mendelssohn Glee Club of New York City, founded in 1866, is the oldest surviving independent musical group in the United States after the New York Philharmonic. Their concerts, given in very high-society settings, featured the new four-part arrangements that the Club founders discovered when wealthy folk began to tour Europe during the expansionist boom brought about by the Civil War. In a format that was followed by the glee clubs that sprang up in other cities, the Mendelssohn Club presented artistic works from composers, mixed with 4-part renditions of sentimental and novelty pieces, to audiences of influential friends and relatives in pleasantly informal settings. In this way, the Club created an audience for classical music among the newly well-to-do where none had existed before, leading directly to the establishment of symphony orchestras and other classical music ensembles across the country

Ellen Lewis Arthur, known as Nell Arthur, was the wife of the 21st president of the United States, Chester A. Arthur. She died of pneumonia in January 1880; her husband was elected vice-president that November. He succeeded to the presidency in September 1881 when President James A. Garfield was assassinated.