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.

Female seminaries in nineteenth-century America offered middle-class women the rare privilege of training in music and the liberal arts. A music background in particular provided the foundation for a teaching career, one of the few paths open to women. Jewel A. Smith opens the doors of four female seminaries, revealing a milieu where rigorous training focused on music as an artistic pursuit rather than a social skill. Drawing on previously untapped archives, Smith charts women's musical experiences and training as well as the curricula and instruction available to them, the repertoire they mastered, and the philosophies undergirding their education. She also examines the complex tensions between the ideals of a young democracy and a deeply gendered system of education and professional advancement. An in-depth study of female seminaries as major institutions of learning, Transforming Women's Education illuminates how musical training added to women's lives and how their artistic acumen contributed to American society.

This two-volume reference describes the role of women in all types of music in the U.S. since 1900. The alphabetically-arranged entries cover important individuals (chosen for the significance of their contributions rather than for their popularity), biographical overviews, gender issues, education, music genres, honors and awards, organizations and professions. Entries (ranging from half a page to several pages in length) conclude with a short list of further readings, and about 100 are accompanied by a b & w photograph. A historical overview and a chronology are also included. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Women, Music, Culture: An Introduction, Second Edition is the first undergraduate textbook on the history and contribution of women in a variety of musical genres and professions, ideal for students in courses in both music and women's studies. A compelling narrative, accompanied by over 50 guided listening examples, brings the world of women in music to life, examining a community of female musicians, including composers, producers, consumers, performers, technicians, mothers, and educators in art music and popular music. The book features a wide array of pedagogical aids, including a running glossary and a comprehensive companion website with streamed audio tracks, that help to reinforce key figures and terms. This new edition includes a major revision of the Women in World Music chapter, a new chapter in Western Classical "Work" in the Enlightenment, and a revised chapter on 19th Century Romanticism: Parlor Songs to Opera. 20th Century Art Music.

The Routledge Handbook of Women’s Work in Music presents a unique collection of core research by academics and music practitioners from around the world, engaging with an extraordinarily wide range of topics on women’s contributions to Western and Eastern art music, popular music, world music, music education, ethnomusicology as well as in the music industries. The handbook falls into six parts. Part I serves as an introduction to the rich variety of subject matter the reader can expect to encounter in the handbook as a whole. Part II focuses on what might be termed the more traditional strand of feminist musicology – research which highlights the work of historical and/or neglected composers. Part III explores topics concerned with feminist aesthetics and music creation and Part IV focuses on questions addressing the performance and reception of music and musicians. The narrative of the handbook shifts in Part V to focus on opportunities and leadership in the music professions from a Western perspective. The final section of the handbook (Part VI) provides new frames of context for women’s positions as workers, educators, patrons, activists and promoters of music. This is a key reference work for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in music and gender.

A History of American Music Education covers the history of American music education, from its roots in Biblical times through recent historical events and trends. It describes the educational, philosophical, and sociological aspects of the subject, always putting it in the context of the history of the United States. It offers complete information on professional organizations, materials, techniques, and personalities in music education.