RESOUND A Quarterly of the Archives of Traditional

Volume 21, Number 1/2 January / April 2002 From the North to the Desert Southwest: Laura Boulton's Frolll the Director Music Collecting Expeditions Daniel B. Reed Among Native North Americans Music and Culture of West Africa: Christopher Geyer Out of the Archives and Into the Light PART ONE Laura Boulton is a name heard frequently around the ATM. Introduction We hold the Laura C. Boulton Collection, comprised of Laura Boulton (1899-1980) was, perhaps, the most prolific recordings collected worldwide from 1929 through 1979, with of the early collectors of music recordings. She traveled accompanying field notes, papers, correspondence, photos and throughout much of the world during a period of rapid films. We offer junior and senior research fellowships in technological change. Among her many recording trips, Boulton Boulton's nanle (see Chris Geyer's article in this issue of made four music collecting trips among Native North Americans Resound). And a major outreach endeavor, based on Boulton's that took place during several periods of her long and prolific collection, has come to fruition in the release of the CD-ROM career as a music collector. This article will describe these musical Music and Culture of West Africa: The Straus Expedition journeys and discuss Boulton's career and personal circumstances (Indiana University Press, 2002). during the periods of these trips. I have selected materials drawn Created by the ATM in collaboration with Indiana from Boulton's publications, field notes, and correspondence University's Teaching Learning Technologies Lab (ILTL) with to allow the reader to more vividly understand the circumstances support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, surrounding her music collecting efforts among Native North Music and Culture of West Africa represents the culmination Americans. I will discuss the economic, social, and political of years of work by dozens of people. The origins of Music conditions surrounding Boulton's work as a scholar, the and Culture of West Africa date back to the fall of 1995, obstacles she faced and her persistence to overcome them. Laura when Gloria Gibson had just begun her tenure as ATM Boulton is often left out of histories of the discipline of director, and I had just begun research, as the Laura Boulton , yet she was an immensely important figure Junior Fellow, on materials Boulton collected during the Straus within the context of music collecting scholarship, central to the Expedition-a 1934 field study in West Africa. Gibson development of the field of ethnomusicology and the study approached me with the idea of creating a CD-ROM based of Native American music and culture. on ATM materials, and asked if I would be willing to If one were to look at Boulton's work chronologically, the contribute my Boulton research and writing to this project. I title could be "From Chicago, Illinois, to Pt. Barrow, Alaska" as gladly agreed to do so. This decision marked the beginning of that is the order in which she undertook her field collecting trips many years of stimulating involvement in this collaborative among Native North Americans between the years 1933 to project that demonstrates the great potential oE' archival 1947. My title does not reflect this chronology, but rather reflects materials for use in multimedia pedagogical tools. the two extremes of climate and topography between the Arctic Laura Boulton was just one of several participants in the and the desert, both of which Boulton regarded with a romantic Straus Expedition, which also included a taxidermist, a fascination. In a lecture Boulton gave in January of 1942, in photographer/ ftlmographer, and Boulton's husband Rudyerd, which she included music from the Hudson Bay , the an ornithologist. Laura Boulton's study of music was thus only continued on page three one aspect of this expedition, whose primary objective was It is largely based on Boulton's rich correspondence with music Laura Boulton's Collecting Expeditions scholars, recording comparues, funding agencies, friends and Among Native North Americans family during these years. The actual materials she collected Continued from page one became secondary as I became deeply fascinated with the Haida of the Northwest Coast, and the and Zuni from personal and historical situation of Boulton's life and career. the American Southwest, Boulton boasted: "I have recorded These letters revealed the historical, social, and economic their most ancient songs from Alaska down through the conditions of Boulton's work and the difficulties she faced. Southwest states and into the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Boulton's correspondence revealed a remarkable story through Mexico."1 (Boulton wished to convey the vast geographic scope her letters about music recording, Native American culture, of her work to her readers and lecture audiences) travel and personal challenges, and historical circumstances such Boulton regarded Native American music as as war and the Depression. representative of the "oldest music in the Americas," and as such felt that it should be recorded and preserved before it An Extraordinary Music Collector "died out." Preservation was one important mission for her Boulton's correspondence reveals several issues regarding recording of non-Western and throughout the world her career, including her relationship with scholars of musical generally. It also was Boulton's desire that the best available culture from the 1930s and 1940s that I will discuss in the technology should be used to record music and that the context of her four field trips in Native America. Many scholars recordings should be commercially available to the general of the time did not take her seriously and others even considered American public. Boulton strove to educate the public about her a threat. Even today Boulton's name is often omitted from the world's music, with a missionary-like belief that introducing writings about the history of ethnomusicology and many the public to the diversity of the world's music could lead to ethnomusicologists still regard her as a curiosity or even as a greater cultural understanding. Throughout her career, Boulton comical figure. Her contribution to the field of returned to the subject of Native American music in her lectures ethnomusicology has been unparalleled, however; no one as the most exotic and primitive of musical forms, music that recorded as much music in so many parts of the world in a needed to be preserved and used to educate Americans about lifetime that took place during a period of rapid change other cultures and the importance of music in the daily life of throughout the globe. While many other ethnomusicologists "primitive" peoples. kept their materials closely guarded and wrote about them in a-~ademic publications that' reached 'only a s~all population of Project Development interested scholars, Boulton was one of the ftrst ethnographic As the 2000-2001 Laura Boulton Junior Fellow, my music collectors to attempt to make the materials she collected project involved a compilation of all materials relevant to Laura available to educate the public. Boulton continued recording Boulton's music collecting efforts among Native Americans, music and lecturing throughout her lifetime. Her last field which is available for reference at the Archives. The materials in recording trip, to Polynesia, was in 1979, when she was 80. She this folder include copies of much of Boulton's correspondence was successful at procuring funding and support throughout regarding Native American music, including letters to and from her career, even in the early part of the twentieth century when scholars, funding agencies, recording companies, and friends she most likely faced difficulties in an academic setting and family. Transcriptions of many of Boulton's lectures on dominated by males. Native American music are included in the compilation, as are Boulton's ftrst field collecting research among Native copies of field notes, commercial recording notes and musical Americans took place early in her career, though she already transcriptions. had been collecting music in several parts of Africa. 2 In 1933, My project was built upon the work of previous Boulton under the guidance of George Herzog, Boulton recorded music fellows who were committed to making more accessible the of various tribes at the Chicago World's Fair.3 Her second trip vast selection of materials available in the Boulton collection. to record Native American music took place seven years later Previous Boulton fellows have contributed to contextualizing in 1940, when she traveled to the Southwestern United States Boulton's material and allowing future scholars accessible and Mexico and recorded the music of a wide variety of tribes resources to parts of the collection For instance, Daniel Reed's in this desert region. In 1942, working for the Canadian Film compilation of materials related to Boulton's Straus West Board, Boulton collected music among the of the Eastern African Expedition is useful for researchers wishing to research Arctic and Hudson Bay areas and music of the peoples a Boulton subject without needing to look through the entire inhabiting the Northwest Coast such as the Haida. Her final collection. Alan Burdette's time-line of Boulton's career and collecting effort among Native North Americans came about Frank Gunderson's index of the Boulton collection have been in 1946, when she recorded in Alaska. These four useful references and so I have organized the materials following collecting trips spanned a thirteen-year segment of Boulton's Reed, Burdette, and Gunderson's models as part of my project. career during a radical period in United States history. 1bis article constitutes another central component ofmy project 3 Part I: The 1933 World's Fair in Chicago in that a study may be made of the correlation of Laura Boulton began her work on Native North the rise and fall of the with the pitch of American music at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933 while she the words of the texts. In addition to the music and the texts, descriptions of the ceremonies in was a graduate student in anthropology at the University of which this music will be made, and studies made Chicago (Burdette: 10). Though Boulton already had done on the place which music fills in the life of the some prolific fieldwork in many regions of Africa, she had tribe, on the profession of the musician if such a some difficulty obtaining funding to record what she believed profession exists, on the ways in which music is to be the "oldest music in America" (Boulton 1969: 411). The taught and perpetuated, and so on. (Boulton 1932) influential ethnomusicologist George Herzog collaborated with her on the project to record music at the World's Fair and Boulton also defended her proposed budget, which included a helped her obtain a fellowship from the American Council of recording machine ($500), records and "necessary materials" Learned Societies. In October 1932, while Herzog was teaching ($125), payment for informants ($150), and "miscellaneous at Yale, Herzog and Boulton began correspondence about expenses in connection with the work" ($100). Boulton explained their plans to do fieldwork at the Chicago World's Fair (Herzog to Leland the importance of obtaining the best possible 1932). Boulton wrote to the American Council of Learned recording equipment: Societies to request funding and received a reply from Waldo G. Leland, the secretary of the council, stating that Boulton Heretofore, books have been written on primitive needed to apply through the . Boulton music which were, after all, based chiefly on the made a proposal through Professor Fay-Cooper Cole of individual interpretations of the authors. Now Chicago's anthropology department and included a proposed with adequate mechanical devices the study of budget. In a letter from Leland to Cole on 17 November primitive music becomes a more accurate science 1932, Leland stated that the University of Chicago with material which can be checked and re-checked. (Boulton 1932) would assume full responsibility for the scientific quality of the work and would assure its being This letter to Leland reveals Boulton's mission: to make field done under the best possible conditions. Mrs. recordings of so-called "primitive" people with the best and Boulton seems to have many qualifications, but latest recording technology available and to study music from she is a graduate stude~t, has not yet_sec:~ed her . an interdisciplinary perspective, describing music's relationship Ph.D., and ha ~ not an established scientific to people's daily lives and the roles of individuals in music­ reputation. We could not, therefore, make a grant making. direcdy to her. (Leland 1932) Due to the unusual nature of making field recordings at the Chicago World's Fair, Boulton was unsure which groups to focus This letter points to two obstacles that Boulton faced her efforts on. On February 23, 1933, Herzog sent Boulton throughout the early part of her career: first, she did not have some advice about her fieldwork. a Ph.D. and neve~ fmished the degree (though she later received honorary doctorates), and second, she was a woman (and in I should think that it would be of advantage for the 1930s must have seemed far too ambitious to men like you to concentrate most of your efforts on one Leland).4 single tribe and its music, as you will find that to She was able, nevertheless, to overcome these obstacles cover one single group and its music takes more and go on to become one of the most prolific of time and effort than one might think. I do not ethnomusicological fieldworkers. She persisted. In a letter from think however that it is necessary for you to Boulton to Leland (28 November 1932) she wrote: commit yourself to a group before you can judge the situation. Just which group that should be could be left to your preference. I would advise an I propose to study and record the melodies of American Indian tribe since you have not yet done an American Indian group which will be at the any work on Indian music yet. I would also Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago from suggest some group on the music of which little June 1, 1933 to November 1, 1933. The has been published or recorded, which will enhance exposition affords an opportunity to work with the value of your collection and contribution. As primitive music brought to our very door and you know, Miss Densmore will be there to collect eliminates much expense which would be in­ South Eastern music, consequendywhatever tribe volved in taking an expedition to the group in its from the Southeastern tribes will be there, is out own environment.... As it is not yet definitely of the question. For my own work I do not expect known what groups will be available for study, to select one single tribe but rather to look for the exact tribe cannot be specified at this time. It special problems and take selected material from is to be hoped that the work can be done with a the tribes which will not be worked intensively by group that has speech-tone (possibly the Navajo) 4 you and Miss Densmore. Consequently there is sometime. By the way, if you do not happen to no need to fear any duplication of efforts. acquire the (very same) flute on which the records (Herzog 1933) were made, it would be a good thing to record the tones of the flute, letting the informant blow The "Miss Densmore" Herzog referred to was Frances them into the record. One by one. Are there any names for the different holes? I am hoping you Densmore, an ethnomusicologist who collected and published have a chance ofworking on Navajo musical much of the earliest work on Native North American music.s instruments. It is a very worth while [sic] subject Boulton and Densmore later traded copies of the recordings and can give a nice little paper without too much they made at the Chicago World's Fair (Densmore 1933). technical work, only you must comb the literature In February 1933, Boulton got the funding she needed from pretty well before you close your work so you can the American Council of Learned Societies, but as Leland be sure of not having missed anything. (Herzog explained, the grant was not made directly to her. 1933)

A grant of$1200 was made to Professor George Boulton responded to Herzog in a letter on October 4th: Herzog and associates for recording of primitive and native groups in connection with the Thank you so much for your helpful suggestions. Exposition of a Century of Progress at Chicago. I had recorded the tones of the flute one by one, It is our understanding that the work which you ~hen I bought the flute some time ago, and also propose to do will be done as a part of Professor recorded them with a pitch pipe. Blowsnake has Herzog's project and under his direction. He will made three flutes of bamboo, and I have recorded have full responsibility, both administrative and the notes of all of them. I am getting some scientific, for the project, and it would be well, material on the Navajo instruments. In a last therefore, for you to communicate with him in desperate effort to take in a little cash, the Indian the near future in order that plans for your own village has been surrounded with a great fence part of the undertaking may be completed. with turnstiles and ten-cent admission into the (Leland 1933) village. There is a big ballyhoo platform out on the main highway and all of the Indians are kept Obtaining the grant was not the end of Boulton's troubles busy from ten in the morning till ten at night with the Chicago recording project. Cole "vanted to k!10wthe doing things all over the place - playing the exact tribes she wanted to record by the end of February and moccasin game, handball, special singing and she was having a difficult time obtaining a recording machine. dancing, weaving and beadwork and everything. On March 9, 1933 she wrote to Herzog, "I have not given up Consequently the poor things have very little time to sing or make sandpaintings for us or anything hope of getting one." Finally, by the summer Herzog rented a except the job. Formerly, they got a day off each machine for her from the Fairchild Company for $114 per week but that is no longer the rule. They will month. Unfortunately, some of the recordings from the Fair certainly deserve that feast - if they ever get it, were lost because the recording machine was "tampered with," which I doubt. (Boulton 1933) according to Herzog (Herzog 1933). At the Chicago Exposition Boulton did not follow Herzog's advice to record a single tribe and she recorded music from the Sioux, Navajo, Hopi, and Winnebago peoples. She reported to Herzog, "Every day seems to be busier than the last. By going down to the Fair very early in the morning and fitting my time to theirs, I manage to keep steadily going with the Indians. I still hope to hold out till the end if the money lasts and the cold isn't unbearable" (Boulton October 4, 1933). While Boulton was doing fieldwork in the fall as the Chicago weather got colder, Herzog wrote to her from his office at Yale (September 21, 1933):

Making use of your offer to "do things" for me, I shall take advantage of your kind spirit. You once thought you could give up one of your only two Winnebago flute records, sacrificing it for my The UJura Boulton Collection, The Archives ifTraditonal Music, Indiana Universzfy collection. I still feel that if you would rather keep it, you should, but if you are still willing to Laura Boulton records in Point Barrow, Alaska, in 1946 sacrifice it, I will be very happy to have it 5 the reader of the report. These collections have been Clearly, these were less than ideal fieldwork conditions, and made exactly from the points of view as you it may seem shocking today to think of the ways the people mention; recording the complete music of single from "other" cultures were treated and displayed. chants and looking into their ceremonial significance. Also the problem of studying Pueblo Nevertheless Boulton recorded approximately 65 discs of music by contrasting the style of one Pueblo as material at the Fair, according to Herzog's list of expenditures against that of another or others, is one that has (September 11,1933).6 been taken up already, twice as a matter of fact, by Boulton became ill in November of 1933 and was Miss Roberts and by myself. As for chants of ritual delayed in writing her reports about her Chicago fieldwork music, there are the extensive collections of Navaho for the University of Chicago and the American Council of music collected for Miss Wheelwright by various Learned Societies. On December 2, 1933, she wrote to Fay­ persons including myself. This is hardly a stage of Cooper Cole. music that is unrecorded and unstudied. I believe it would be more fruitful and advantageous for you to The group at the Indian village was delightful select either a new region or new problems for your to work with, and I was more than pleased future work. (Herzog 1933) with the material which I was able to collect. It was a most interesting experience to work with Herzog's letter explained to Boulton that the Southwest was a American Indian music after my three region that already had been and was currently being studied by expeditions in Africa where the native several ethnomusicologists. This was undoubtedly true. As informants were so different temperamentally Charlotte Frisbie pointed out in her essay ''Women and the Society and culturally. Dr. Herzog and I divided the for Ethnomusicology: Roles and Contributions from Formation field so that there was no duplication. The through Incorporation (1952/53-1961)" (1991: 244-66), however, analysis of the musical material will necessarily George Herzog often felt threatened by scholars he considered come later as that part of the research requires considerable time, of course. In the final report to be rivals, including the above mentioned Helen Roberts, another 8 I should like to include a transcription of the well-known scholar of American Indian music. melodies. The summer with the American Roberts was an important member of the Society for Indians at the Century of Progress has given Ethnomusicology during its formative years, but was assigned me a musical experience which I shall always to secretarial duties by Herzog and Charles Seeger. David value highly indeed.7 McAllester, another important scholar of Native American was interviewed and quoted by Frisbie in her essay. According to After her experiences at the Chicago Exposition, Boulton McAllester, Roberts gave Herzog a manuscript on N ootka music was eager to study more Native American music and became for his review before publication and Herzog "lost" it. McAllester particularly interested in making a recording trip to the explained, Southwestern region of the United States to record Navajo and Pueblo musics. George Herzog reviewed Boulton's report He often did that, or took ages to read manuscripts, from the Fair and sent his suggestions on 21 December 1933. perhaps as a way of discouraging rivals. Helen had to do the whole thing over. . .. How much sabo­ The problem's [sic] you mention are no doubt taging on his part ensued is hard to document..... interesting and can be tied up with your It should be remembered that Herzog was known summer's work, as many other problems could. for sabotaging many he perceived as rivals, including I would add however that there is no region in Ph.D. candidates at Columbia such as Willard North America on the music of which as much Rhodes, Martha Huot, Bruno Nettl ... and Jane material has been collected and as much work is Nelo. (McAllester quoted in Frisbie 1991: 260t in progress as the Southwest. It would seem to me therefore that after your first experience with It is a curious fact that the machine Boulton used in Chicago Indian music it would be more profitable to was "tampered with," but there is no evidence to suggest that turn to some region where additional Herzog did the tampering. experience could be gained, achieving also novel In Boulton's final report on the Chicago recordings, contribution, instead of paying the 'cost of duplicating previous effort for the sake of ~xcerpts of which were sent to Herzog from the American gaining this additional experience. With Council of Learned Societies on 25 October 1935, Boulton reference to Southwestern ritual music which wrote: you have specifically in mind, extensive collections of this nature have been made and Three hundred songs were recorded, including two are still being in made, a fact that is either not hundred and twenty Navajo songs, fifty Hopi known to you or does not seem made clear to songs, thirty miscellaneous records consisting of 6 I am not a musician, but am what you might call a specialist in phonetics and the recording ofIndian language structure than in any other subject. In the summer of 1933 I ordered a Fairchild recording outfit [the same summer Boulton used one in Chicago]. The depression was at its height, the Smithsonian had no money, and I took money out of the savings bank at a time that I could least afford it. The price of the machine was approximately a thousand dollars .... It was a staggering expense, yet I would not have cared. But, [Harrington's emphasis] it did not catch speech clearly. When it came to the real test, The u1IIra Boulton Coliection, The Archives rfTraditional Music whether it would catch the consonants of Indian Taken in Pt. Barrow in 1946; Inuit peoples words and record Indian speech so it could later be written down, the machine fell down. It's recordings were as the Indians put it "like far away Winnebago flute records and songs of the talk." In other words, my thousand dollars is Winnebago, Jemez, Isleta and Sioux tribes. The spent for so much scrap. To continue using it is to was the major study and the make more poor records. Does your machine remaining tribes furnished interesting record speech real plainly ... ? comparative material. Due to the general Or would t, glottalized (clicked) t, and aspirated t unsettled condition of the Indians during the sound the same, as they do on this foggy screachy early part of the summer, no recording could be [sic] Fairchild? Do you transcribe primitive songs, done before the middle of July. The time from that is, write out the notes? We might have a job June 1st to July 21st was spent profitably in for you to record some, I should rather say, winning the confidence of the informants and transcribe some. (Harrington 1935) acquiring general musical information. The main body of the work of recording and getting the necessary ethnological data to accompany the Boulton's response to this letter is not included in her records was done between July 21st and correspondence at the Archives of Traditional Music. Some November 4th. Texts of the songs were written of the Navajo recordings from Chicago in 1933 and her phonetically, descriptions and photographs of the fieldwork trip to the Southwest in 1940 were released in musical instruments and photographs of the 1992 on the disc Navajo Songs. informants were made. The Navajo tribes The 1993 field collecting trip sparked an interest in Native furnished by far the best group for the study, for American music for Boulton, particularly an interest in the several reasons: As a group they were un­ music of the Native American southwest. Nevertheless, while sophisticated and unspoiled; the individual informants were intelligent and helpful as well as Boulton returned to the recording of Native American music especially gifted musically; and since as a tribe they several times during her career, Native American music have at present one of the most lively and virile collecting never materialized as a central endeavor for cultures of any tribe in the United States, they Boulton despite her later descriptions of Native American have a very large and interesting collection of music as some of the "oldest" and most "primitive" of songs. musics during her many lectures. The Chicago World's Fair would, however, inspire her to take on her largest recording Boulton did not seem to be deterred by Herzog's advice to effort among Native Americans: heading to the Desert study another culture area once she found an interest in Navajo Southwest. music. In 1934 Boulton and her husband Rudyerd did field research for eight months for the Second Straus West Africa This article will be continued in Volume 21, Expedition. On April 11, 1935 Boulton was sent a letter from Number 3/4 of Resound. John P. Harrington of the Bureau of American Ethnology, in which Harrington asked Boulton for Notes advice. 10 1) Boulton's notes, MC 1.42 (may be from an early draft of The Music Hunter). 2) Boulton graduated with an A.B. from Denison University in 1920, then Please regard this letter as absolutely confidential studied piano at the Chicago Musical College, voice in New York City, and was and do not breathe a word of it to anybody. I a student at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1923. In 1925 she married Rudyerd want to tell you my experience, and to ask your Boulton, who was doing graduate work at Columbia. Boulton made her first further advice. My work is, as you may know, fieldwork trip in 1929 (the first Straus Expedition) with her husband for a year and a half in , , , and for the American Museum of recording American Indian languages and songs. 7 Natural History in New York. was Assistant Curator of Birds at the Carnegie Museum of and was doing zoological field groups from British Columbia to Florida, publishing close to twenty research, while Laura Boulton was hired as "ethnologist, musicologist, and monographs and scores of articles on American Indian music publications" film director." From 1930 to 1931, the Boultons did fieldwork for the (Lee 1979: 26). Carnegie Museum South African Expedition to , Nyasaland, 6) Copies of these discs are at the Archives of Traditional Music under accession , Transvaal, and Cape Province. From 1931 to 1932 the Boultons did number 92-376-F. Some of the Navajo songs recorded by Boulton at the Chicago fieldwork for the Pulitzer Expedition to parts of West and East Africa. Century of Progress Exposition were included on her Smithsonian Folkways In 1932 Laura Boulton began graduate work at the University of Chicago with release titled Navajo Songs. CD SF 40403 emphasis on African music and ethnology. For these three trips to Africa, 7) Though she collected music throughout much of the world, Boulton Boulton recorded music using a German cylinder recorder (Burdette 1993:8- seemed to value her earliest field experiences in Africa and Native America as 10). references throughout her entire career. In her future lectures Boulton frequently 3) George Herzog (1901-1984) was a pioneering Hungarian ethnomusicologist. included her observations about African and Native American musics.8) Helen He studied under Bela Bartok and Zoltin Kodaly in Budapest, Erich von Roberts (1888-1985) studied music at the Chicago Musical College from 1907 to Hornbostel in Berlin, and Franz Boas at . Herzog 1909 and the American Conservatory of Music from 1910 to 1911 and then synthesized the studies of folk song research, comparative musicology, worked as a music teacher until going to Columbia University to study anthropology and linguistics and thus greatly influenced the development of anthropology under Franz Boas. Roberts received an M.A. in 1919 and did ethnomusicology in the United States. fieldwork in Jamaica. Roberts' collaborations on Indian music included H .K. 4) Charlotte Frisbie wrote about the difficulties women faced in the early Haeberlin's on Salish music (1928), Jenness's on Copper music (1925), days of the Society for Ethnomusicology: "It is clear ... that some of these John Peabody Harrington's work on California Indian music and James Murie's women experienced discrimination in both their personal and professional Pawnee monograph. In 1933 Roberts published Form in Primitive Music, based lives. Some of the women who were married had to shift to a "legal name," on her 1926 California field research (Lee 1979: 29). or redefine or interrupt careers respectively because of funding-agency rules, 9) Laura Boulton was also a member of the Society for Ethnomusicology during nepotism laws, or geographic moves determined by spouses. Some also its formative years but rarely attended meetings due to her busy traveling schedule. experienced other kinds of discrimination in their work, losing salary supp­ She wrote to Helen Roberts on 23 January 1935, "I'm sorry you had to wait for ort, jobs, opportunities to publish, or being forced to be an organ-ization's all­ my dues but as you know I was in Africa all of last year." In this same letter serving Secretary. Given the group's first-hand acquaintance with various forms Boulton suggested that the society's newsletter should include a section of of discrimination, it is a credit, at least on the surface, to the Society for "brief bibliographical references to current published research and articles Ethnomusicology that to date, none of the women have reported any dis­ pertaining to comparative musicology." Comparative musicology was the earlier crimination on the basis of sex in the Society'S formative years."(Frisbie 1991: name for ethnomusicology. The current journal for the Society of 248-257) Ethnomusicology still contains such a bibliographical list (now available on-line 5) Frances Densmore (1867-1957) was a pioneer American ethnomusicologist a at the SEM website). generation earlier than Laura Boulton and George Herzog. After studying 10) John Peabody Harrington (1884-1961) was a linguist and anthropologist who piano and organ at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music from 1884 to 1886 she specialized in California Indian languages. He was an eccentric man who was worked as a music teacher until meeting John Fillmore and Alice Fletcher in completely devoted to his work, never owned a telephone, and was known to 1889 and decided to make a career out of the study of American Indian music change his address when it became too well known. He possessed an incredible (Frisbie 1991: 248). In 1907, Densmore made her first fieldwork trip among memory for linguistics and ethnology but often misplaced field notes and bank Native Americans at the White Earth Chippewa Reservation. "Over the next accounts. fifty years she recorded more than 3000 cylinders among dozens of tribal

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