Women's Participation in the NEA Department of Music Education, 1884–1925

Abstract

It is important to recognize the valuable contributions that women have made in the field of education. Traditional accounts of the of have overlooked these contributions, but that is being rewritten as scholars challenge the discipline to examine its past from a feminist perspective. Authors today are addressing issues of race, class, and gender; approaching from new perspectives; utilizing methodologies from other scholarly fields; and acknowledging the contributions of women. This paper focuses on the contributions of women in the Department of Education of the National Education Association (NEA) from 1884 to 1925 as a way of understanding women's roles in the development of American education. (2) The Discipline of the History of Education The field of history of education includes both history of education and history of music. Unfortunately women have been underrepresented in the history of education, although teaching has historically been a feminine profession. Education historians also have traditionally given only brief attention to and art. Since the 1980s, however, within the discipline of history of feminist musicologists have made tremendous progress in reconstructing the history of music to include the previously invisible contributions of women, and have challenged the discipline to address new issues. In the 2001 edition of The New Grove Dictionary of and Musicians, articles on in Music by Tick, Ericson, and Koskoff; Feminism by Soli; and Gender by Kallberg summarize these new areas in musicology. (3) Unfortunately, musicologists generally are not interested in the of education. Most research in emphasizes quantitative research, and examining the of the field is a small area within that research. historians have produced textbooks and articles which, for the most part, have neglected women by emphasizing the contributions of great men, band history, the development of public school music, and the of hierarchical organizations. Researchers need to reconstruct to reveal the women whose roles heretofore have been invisible. The of teaching music, in both private and public spheres, needs to be rewritten and the discipline challenged to embrace new perspectives. There are some exciting recent publications that should begin to alter the traditional approach to research in the of education. English scholars are seeking alternative ways of writing history. Cox encourages researchers to broaden their horizons by examining local in both formal and informal settings, and by studying the practice of teaching in its social context, producing a usable past. (4) Instead of writing a traditional chronological account, Pitts selects current issues in England, and explores their roots. (5) McCarthy examines both the traditional Irish and classical taught in schools. (6) The new encyclopedia edited by Burns, Women and in America Since 1900, is an excellent source on American women. (7) Howe urges scholars to reconstruct the of to include more women of various classes and ethnic groups. (8) The article by Lamb, Howe, and Dolloff in The New Handbook of Research is a review of recent feminist scholarship in education. (9) The outlook is good for an expanded of that encompasses diverse groups. Women's Early Roles In the middle of the nineteenth century, public school programs were begun in large urban school systems by self-taught male teachers who taught singing and supervised the female classroom teachers. In the Boston public schools in the 1860s and 1870s, Luther Whiting Mason supervised in the primary schools, Hosea Holt taught in the grammar schools, and Julius Eichberg in the high schools. …