Journal of Historical Research in Music Education

Early school songbooks in the United States served an important role. During the period from the introduction of public school music to the appearance of graded music series, they provided essential song literature and instructional material for early public school music classes. These songbooks often included patriotic songs, songs of the season, and songs about music, and moral and social themes were common. Some sources specifically note the inclusion of temperance songs, but little research has been done on how frequently this occurred. This study explores the inclusion of temperance songs in twenty-three school songbooks during the period from 1840 to 1860, noting dominant themes and tactics utilized by temperance reformers. Findings suggest that many school songbook compilers considered temperance reform an important concern and sought to influence both children and their parents by focusing on the dangers of alcohol. Several dominant themes were identified, including “Cold Water,” “Beware the Cup,” “Temperance Army,” “Home and Family,” and “Take the Pledge.” Although lyricists utilized both persuasion (moral suasion) and coercion, findings do not support the shift toward coercive tactics reported by temperance historians during the 1850s.

Between 1920 and 1928, William Churchill Hammond’s Christmas Caroling Choir at Mount Holyoke College, in South Hadley, Massachusetts, not only helped to reinstate the musical celebration of Christmas after Puritan beliefs had precluded it in New England, but also provided one of the first experiences for American women to tour, as professional performing musicians would, and premiere new music throughout the northeastern United States. A subset of the Glee Club at the college, the Caroling Choir performed carol concerts each Christmas jointly with Hammond’s choir at the Second Congregational Church in Holyoke. Together with his brother-in-law, Edward Bliss Reed, Hammond collected Christmas Carols for more than thirty-five years. The carols were arranged, published, and circulated by the Carol Society in New Haven, Connecticut. Through his leadership as Director of Music at the college during 1899–1937 and at the Second Congregational Church, Hammond exposed female college students, parishioners, and foreign-born mill workers within the community to musical masterworks and he fostered appreciation for art music in a location where no professional orchestra existed at the time. Hammond’s musical and technical expertise, zeal for quality music, and outlook on music as a unifying force among people intensified the role that music played throughout the college and likely propelled the establishment of a Music Major in 1935.

The purpose of this study was to examine the life and work of Solomon W. Straub, who worked as a music teacher, composer, and publisher during the late nineteenth century. Straub was born in Butler Township of DeKalb County, Indiana, in 1842. He taught music in Dowagiac and Lansing, Michigan, before moving to Chicago, Illinois, in 1873. Straub established his own publishing firm in 1879 and promoted his publications and pedagogical ideas as a leader of singing conventions, normal musical institutes, and chautauqua choirs. Colleagues included his sisters Mary and Maria, his son, Arthur, and several prominent musicians who published with the company and assisted at institutes and conventions. Straub helped perpetuate, support, and develop music education through the cumulative influence of his various musical enterprises. His pedagogy reflected past methods developed by Lowell Mason forty years prior as well as the philosophies underlying progressive education during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Straub died in Chicago in September 1899 at fifty-six years of age. Although not considered a major figure in music education today, he played an important role in the musical life of the Midwest United States during the last three decades of the 1800s and helped carry the profession into the twentieth century.

The Cambiata Concept was one of the first methodologies used in the United States to teach boys to sing during the adolescent voice change. Previous practices of choir masters was to rest the voice during this time. They felt that by having boys sing during the voice change was damaging to the voice and would ruin the ability to sing after the mutation. Irvin Cooper, founder of the Cambiata Concept, discovered that boys were capable of singing during the voice change, and devised a method for boys to continue to sing during this tumultuous time. Cooper discovered, through empirical evidence, the gradual progression of the voice change. He states that boys’ voices only “crack” when expected to sing music that is outside of the physical range of the voice. The Cambiata Concept encourages teachers to use music that is appropriate to the ranges of the voice change, and by so doing will avoid such instances from happening. Cooper and the Cambiata Concept were influential in concurrent and later music educators in the field of voice change research such as John Cooksey, Don Collins, and Lynne Gackle. He is an influential music educator in the United States who did not accept longstanding tradition. His methodology allowed countless boys a chance at music that previously would have been denied.