Women Music Educators in the United States

A History

Sondra Wieland Howe

Although women have been teaching and performing music for centuries, their stories are often missing from traditional accounts of the history of music education. In Women Music Educators in the United States: A History, Sondra Wieland Howe provides a comprehensive narrative of women teaching music in the United States from colonial days until the end of the twentieth century. Defining music education broadly to include home, community, and institutional settings, Howe draws on sources from musicology, the history of education, and social history to offer a new perspective on the topic.

In colonial America, women sang in church choirs and taught their children at home. In the first half of the nineteenth century, women published hymns, taught in academies and rural schoolhouses, and held church positions. After the Civil War, women taught piano and voice, went to college, taught in public schools, and became involved in national music organizations. With the expansion of public schools in the first half of the twentieth century, women supervised public school music programs, published textbooks, and served as officers of national organizations. They taught in settlement houses and teacher-training institutions, developed music appreciation programs, and organized women’s symphony orchestras. After World War II, women continued their involvement in public school choral and instrumental music, developed new methodologies, conducted research, and published in academia. Howe’s study traces this evolution in the roles played by women educators in the American music education system, illuminating an area of research that has been ignored far too long.

Women Music Educators in the United States: A History complements current histories of music education and supports undergraduate and graduate courses in the history of music, music education, American education, and women’s studies. It will interest not only musicologists, educational historians, and scholars of women’s studies, but music educators teaching in public and private schools and independent music teachers.

Scarecrow Press

Pages: 380 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-0-8108-8847-0 • Hardback • November 2013 • $104.00 • (£80.00)

978-0-8108-8848-7 • eBook • November 2013 • $98.50 • (£76.00)

Subjects: History / United States / General, Music / General

Women Music Educators in the United States

A History

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Although women have been teaching and performing music for centuries, their stories are often missing from traditional accounts of the history of music education. In Women Music Educators in the United States: A History, Sondra Wieland Howe provides a comprehensive narrative of women teaching music in the United States from colonial days until the end of the twentieth century. Defining music education broadly to include home, community, and institutional settings, Howe draws on sources from musicology, the history of education, and social history to offer a new perspective on the topic.

In colonial America, women sang in church choirs and taught their children at home. In the first half of the nineteenth century, women published hymns, taught in academies and rural schoolhouses, and held church positions. After the Civil War, women taught piano and voice, went to college, taught in public schools, and became involved in national music organizations. With the expansion of public schools in the first half of the twentieth century, women supervised public school music programs, published textbooks, and served as officers of national organizations. They taught in settlement houses and teacher-training institutions, developed music appreciation programs, and organized women’s symphony orchestras. After World War II, women continued their involvement in public school choral and instrumental music, developed new methodologies, conducted research, and published in academia. Howe’s study traces this evolution in the roles played by women educators in the American music education system, illuminating an area of research that has been ignored far too long.

Women Music Educators in the United States: A History complements current histories of music education and supports undergraduate and graduate courses in the history of music, music education, American education, and women’s studies. It will interest not only musicologists, educational historians, and scholars of women’s studies, but music educators teaching in public and private schools and independent music teachers.

Details

Scarecrow Press

Pages: 380 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-0-8108-8847-0 • Hardback • November 2013 • $104.00 • (£80.00)

978-0-8108-8848-7 • eBook • November 2013 • $98.50 • (£76.00)

Subjects: History / United States / General, Music / General

Author

Sondra Wieland Howe is an independent scholar in Minnesota and the author of Luther Whiting Mason: International Music Educator (1997) and numerous articles in academic journals. Her research interests include women and music, Western music in Japan, and the history of music education.

Reviews

During the colonial period women sang in church choirs and taught children in homes. In the nineteenth century, many women published hymns, taught in schoolhouses, and held positions as performers in church. More recently, women have earned college degrees, taught in public school and colleges, and have become involved in national organizations. Howe narrates the story of music teaching in the United States, focusing on women as the educators, chronologically from colonial times until the conclusion of the twentieth century. The author broadly defines 'music education' to include informal settings, such as home, and formalized education, be it public or private. She hopes to rectify the lack of historical records of these women’s educational careers. Howe approaches this in an interdisciplinary fashion, building her research upon several fields of study—the history of American education, musicological studies of women and music, and feminist writings. The review of literature explores several aspects, including the general history of education, musicology, and feminist issues. Each chapter has numerous endnotes, some of which are annotated. The extensive index serves navigation well, and includes persons (male and female), institutions, ensembles, and titles of works or journals relevant to music education.
— American Reference Books Annual

Howe’s highly informative and eminently approachable work chronologically examines the different types of music education roles in which women participated. This book is a valuable resource to lay readers and scholars alike who are interested in learning about the various ways women have contributed societally toward Howe’s broadly defined field of 'music education.'
— American Music Teacher

Howe gives us a carefully researched and fascinating history of music education . . . This clearly written historiography illuminates stories of some of the unsung individual women and groups of women of all ages who participated in music education. . . .Howe's writing offers the profession of musical education a long needed complementary history of music education in the United States. . . .Everyone interested in music education history should own and read this book for a more completed understanding of music education history in the United States. Sandra Howe has positioned her research as a significant part of the canon.
— Journal of Historical Research in Music Education

Women Music Educators in the United States

A History

Sondra Wieland Howe

Women Music Educators in the United States

A History

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