the history of music education site


Drum corps of 93rd New York Infantry. Falmouth, Virginia, August-November
1863. The U.S. Army organized a special school for drummers. Library of
Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-B8171-7514 DLC.

helpful books and articles

The following books relate to music education.

(1) George Martin. The Damrosch Dynasty: America's First Family of Music (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983). There should be some argument about whether the Damrosch family was America's "first" family; nevertheless, the book is useful in understanding the rise of some of major musical institutions in the U.S. Walter Damrosch, the New York conductor, was a pioneer in educating children via the new medium of the radio. He collaborated with the Teachers College music educator Charles H. Farnsworth on teaching materials to accompany his educational programs and took pay cuts to keep them going. The whole landscape of the New York concert world changed after World War II. Read why. This may have affected music education nationally. The two-tone cut of Leopold Damrosch is from Appleton's Biographical Dictionary (1888).

(2) Margaret Hindle Hazen and Robert M. Hazen, The Music Men: An Illustrated History of Brass Bands in America, 1800-1920 (Smithsonian Institution: 1987). The United States has a long tradition of bands. This book makes it much easier to understand why bands became popular in the public schools in the U.S. after World War I. It has a great bibliography.

(3) David E. Whisnant, All That is Native and Fine: The Politics of Culture in an American Region (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1983). Ah, you think that music does not have a political dimension?  Read this. You will never again look at U.S. folk song or Southern musical culture in quite the same way.

(4) David Glassberg, American Historical Pageantry: The Uses of Tradition in the Early Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1990). Music education in the U.S. has often involved pageantry, especially at the elementary level. This tells where much of it originated and mentions some early music educators.

(5) Micheal Broyles, Music of the Highest Class: Elitism and Populism in Antebellum Boston (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992). Broyles discusses the evolution of taste in Boston, that holy city of U.S. music in the nineteenth century. This book says much about Lowell Mason, the Boston Academy of Music, and the ideological context of music education during a time of cultural change.

(6) Lawrence Levine, Highbrow, Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988). Levine talks again about cultural hierarchy in The Unpredicatable Past (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), especially as it relates to African Americans, Chapter 5. These two books say much about how music has developed in the United States. Much of this could be extended, in the reveiwer's opinion, to music education history.

(7) Hugh Davis Graham and Nancy Diamond, The Rise of American Research Universities (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press). This may be only mildly relevant to music education. Maybe someday someone will write a history of music education in U.S. universities. When they do, they'll need this one.

(8) William H. McNeill, Keeping Together in Time: Dance and Drill in Human History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995). McNeill proposes that coordinated movement (including music)--and the shared feelings it invokes--has been a powerful force in holding groups together. McNeill contends that "muscular bonding" endows groups with a greater capacity for cooperation, which in turn explains why some groups--in their solidarity--survive more efficaciously than others.

(9) Carol A. Pemberton, Lowell Mason: His Life and Work (Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1985). The classic work on the father of U.S. music education.  


(10) Charles H. Kaufman, Music in New Jersey 1655-1860 (East Brunswick, New Jersey: Associated Presses, Inc., 1981). This book has a chapter on music education.
 

The history of women and minorities with respect to music education has often been neglected. The following works are recommended:

(1) Eileen Southern. The Music of Black Americans: A History. (3rd ed.). (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997).

(2) Jane Anne Fiske, A Profile of women Music Educators in Higher Education. DMA dissertation. Boston University, 1998.