biography
| sex:
| female
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| lived:
| (1875–1921)
|
| biography:
| Ethnomusicologist, born in New York City, New York, USA. Intending a career as a concert pianist, she went to Europe to study with Busoni and others, but on return (c.1900) she visited Arizona and became so entranced by Native American culture that she decided to record their music. With the support of President Theodore Roosevelt, she gained access to Indian reservations from Maine to the Southwest (although most of her work would be with the Plains and Pueblo tribes) and won the co-operation of individual Indians. At first she recorded with a phonograph but she turned to transcribing the songs with pencil on paper, and she also photographed many subjects. Her first book, The Indians' Book (1907) included folklore, poetry, and religious texts as well as songs, and her work contributed to gaining a new respect for Native American culture. She had also become interested in preserving African-American music, and helped found the Music School Settlement for Colored People in Harlem (1911), arranged a Carnegie Hall concert by African-American musicians (1914), and set about transcribing African-American songs, publishing Hampton Series Negro Folk-Songs (4 vols, 1918–19). She was killed by a taxi in Paris where she had gone to address an international congress on art history. For all its limitations, her record of both Native American and African-American music remains a basic historical source. |
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