Being Heard: Women Composers and Patrons at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition

Author(s): Ann E. Feldman

Source: Notes , Sep., 1990, Second Series, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Sep., 1990), pp. 7-20
Published by: Music Library Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/940531

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 BEING HEARD: WOMEN COMPOSERS AND
PATRONS AT THE 1893 WORLD'S
COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION
By ANN E. FELDMAN

The opening of the Woman's Building at the Chicago World's Co-

lumbian Exposition on 1 May 1893 was celebrated with speeches by
women and performances of three large orchestral works written by
women composers. The Chicago Tribune described the striking setting
in the main hall:

A long room, whose arches and columns were decorated delicately in white
and gold, whose walls were hung with the praiseworthy products of nine-
teenth century woman artists-this is what met the vision of those who en-
tered for the first time.'

The World's Fair Chorus participated in a concert in the Hall of Honor

that was devoted entirely to music by women composers. The cere-
monies began with a Grand March composed by Ingeborg von Bronsart
of Weimar, Germany. Also included was the Dramatic Overture, a work
written in 1886 by Frances Ellicott, daughter of the Bishop of Glouces-
ter, England, for that city's Three Choirs Festival. The featured work
was the FestivalJubilate by Boston composer Amy Marcy Beach (Mrs.
H. H. A. Beach), that had been commissioned for the Exposition's Oc
tober 1892 dedication ceremonies but subsequently rejected from that
program. The works were performed by Theodore Thomas conduct-
ing the Exposition Orchestra, a group composed primarily of members
of the Chicago Orchestra, predecessor of the Chicago Symphony Or-
chestra. The commission, choice, and planning of the program was ex-

Ann E. Feldman is a cultural historian and professional singer. She has researched and produced
an historical musical theater program about women leaders at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition
which includes an authentically costumed dramatization of speeches and letters of Bertha Palmer,
Susan B. Anthony, and Ida B. Wells, and performances of songs and chamber music by women com-
posers from the fair. This program and a conference about women leaders at the fair were held 9-
10 March 1990 at the Newberry Library, Chicago.
The author is grateful to the following individuals for their assistance, and thanks their institutions
for permission to quote from source materials: Diana Haskell, Lloyd Lewis Curator at the Newberry
Library, helped with the Theodore Thomas letters; Wally Horban at the Chicago Symphony Or-
chestra Library located many of the orchestral scores; Susan Glover Godlewski, Associate Director of
Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago, provided letters between Mary Cassatt and Bertha Palmer;
Archie Motley, Director of the Manuscript Room at the Chicago Historical Society, assisted with the
letters of Bertha Palmer in her capacity as President of the board of Lady Managers; and Suzanne
Epstein allowed the use of her personal Columbiana library and provided the photographs for figs.
1 and 2.
1. Chicago Tribune, 2 May 1893, 4.

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8 NOTES, September 1990

ecuted by the Board of Lady Managers and its president, Bertha Ho-
nore Palmer.
Four other orchestral works by women composers were performed
at the fair by Thomas's Exposition Orchestra: Helen Hood's "A Sum
mer Song"; Margaret Ruthven Lang's Witichis Overture; a symphon
sketch, Titan, by the Russian Grand Duchess Alexandra Josiphovna; an
Irlande, by the Frenchwoman Augusta Holmes. Holmes's participatio
came about through Palmer's contacts with the French representatives
Thus, four of the seven orchestral works composed by women wer
chosen through women's patronage.2
This paper will explore the historic concentration of seven orchestra
works by women that were performed at the Columbian Expositio
during a three-month period from 1 May to 10 August, 1893, issue
of women's patronage, performance of orchestral works in concert
outside the Woman's Building, and gender aesthetics in criticism of th
time.
To appreciate the importance of having such a concentration of
women's orchestral music at the Columbian Exposition, we can look at
the early records of two young American orchestras, the Boston Sym-
phony Orchestra, founded in 1881, and the Chicago Orchestra, begu
ten years later. The first orchestral work by a woman composer per-
formed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra was the Dramatic Overtur
by Margaret Lang, on 7 April 1893. The second was the Gaelic Symphony
by Amy Beach, more than three years later, on 30 October 1896.3 The
same work, performed by the Chicago Orchestra on 8 April 1898, marke
that organization's first essay into music by women composers.
Performance standards of professional orchestras were rising steadily
in the 1890s, largely through the efforts of outstanding conductors, man
of whom were imported from Germany. Theodore Thomas, especially,
influenced the growth and development of the established symphony
orchestras in New York, Boston, and Chicago:
The visits of the Theodore Thomas Orchestra were emphasizing the need
of established music in Boston. ... The concerts occasionally given by
Theodore Thomas had set a standard which the local leaders could hardly
have been expected to attain.4

2. Over fifty small-scale compositions written or arranged by women were also performed at th
Exposition. The majority of these works were songs, but also included were pieces for piano, violin
chorus, organ, double trio, and harp as well as opera selections. Most of the pieces were performed
at the World's Congress of Representative Women and the Woman's Musical Congress, held respec-
tively in May and July 1893, at what is now the site of the Art Institute of Chicago. Other short works
by women were played at the National Convention of Women's Amateur Musical Clubs in Recital Hal
and at the series of Song Concerts held in the Musical Hall.
3. M. A. DeWolfe Howe, The Boston Symphony Orchestra (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), 253, 26
4. Ibid., 11, 24.

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Women Composers at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition 9

Thus any composer of the time would have been eager to have an or-
chestral work played at the Columbian Exposition under Thomas's di-
rection. The German composer, Ingeborg von Bronsart, for example,
whose opera Konig Hiarne had been performed at the royal opera houses
at Berlin and Hanover, requested that Thomas conduct it at the Ex-
position, which was itself earning a reputation for impressiveness and
importance:
In its scope and magnificence the Exposition stands alone. There is nothing
like it in all history. It easily surpasses all kindred enterprises.5

WOMEN PATRONS

When President Benjamin Harrison signed a bill into law

1890 naming Chicago as the official site of the World's Col
position, the act included the Springer amendment, whi
the creation of a Board of Lady Managers to be appointed by
Columbian Commission. The sole duty prescribed for the B
Managers is stated in section 6 of the act:
Said Board may appoint one or more members of all committe
to award prizes [for exhibits] which may be produced in whole
by female labor.6

Nevertheless, the Board would expand its duties from awar

to commissioning designs for a Woman's Building, const
building, filling it with arts and handicrafts from the Unit
forty-one foreign countries, and producing concerts of or
chamber music.
How did Bertha Palmer (fig. 1) convince the World's Fair Director
to erect a women's pavilion (fig. 2) at a cost of over $138,000?7 On
answer certainly lies in her family connections. First of all she was "the
innkeeper's wife," spouse of Potter Palmer, who owned Chicago's fa
mous Palmer House. Potter Palmer, together with some other wealthy
Chicago barons, put up substantial funds for the construction of th
Exposition in Chicago. He served on the Exposition's forty-five membe
Board of Directors and its Committee on Fine Arts.8 Second, Bertha's
father, Henry Hamilton Honore, was a wealthy landowner and socia
leader in Chicago. Third, Bertha's sister was married to Frederic Grant
son of President Ulysses S. Grant. These three connections provided

5. David F. Burg, Congressional Committee Report, 20 May 1892, quoted in Chicago's White City o
1893 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1976), 75.
6. R. Reid Badger, The Great American Fair (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1979), 134.
7. Report of the President to the Board of Directors of the World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago: Rand,
McNally, 1898), 111.
8. Ibid., 14, 16.

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10 NOTES, September 1990

I
I# x' A
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-2. iI .

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Fig. 1. Bertha Honore Palmer

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Women Composers at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition 11

00

\ ...

1a~r:~ 4

!I Ii
4j*.- A..
,I i:r i
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12 NOTES, September 1990

strong leverage in Bertha's fight against a competing women's group,

the pro-suffrage Queen Isabella Society, and against contemporary ar-
guments that opposed a separate building for displaying women's art
works.9
Even before the Boston and Chicago orchestras performed their first
pieces composed by women, Bertha Palmer commissioned Amy Beach
in October 1892 to write a work for her Board's section of the Expo-
sition's dedication ceremonies. Beach was chosen on the recommen-
dation of William Tomlins, choral director at the fair. Tomlins and
Theodore Thomas had chosen choral and orchestral works by male
composers to be performed at the dedication ceremonies. However, with
the choice of a female composer, albeit one suggested by the two men,
difficulties arose. The complex politics surrounding Beach's commis-
sion reflected the tension between the women patrons, the male direc-
tors of the Bureau of Music, and the composer.
Beach was a well-known pianist in Boston in the 1890s. By the age
of seventeen she was playing with the Boston Symphony and Theodore
Thomas's orchestras.'° In addition to being an accomplished pianist,
Beach was a fine composer. In her letter of 19 March 1892, Palmer
commissioned Beach:

We hold your work as a musician in the greatest admiration and esteem

and are very anxious to have you prepare an original composition which
be rendered at the opening of the Exposition next October .... If
should feel inclined to compose the music for an ode, we should try to h
the words written, for we feel that an effort which would bring laure
your brow on this occasion would honor not only yourself, but all wom
Although Palmer had commissioned Beach's work for the dedicati
ceremonies, she later learned that in the hierarchy of the Expositio
organization, the men of the Bureau of Music outranked her in mu
decisions. By August 1892 rumblings about the performance of Bea
work were directed to Palmer from various members of the Bureau
Music through Palmer's special assistant, Amy Starkweather.
William Tomlins, the Exposition's Choral Director, told Starkweath
that the Bureau of Music had decided to drop Beach's Festival Jubil
from the dedication ceremonies. Starkweather wrote Palmer that sh
held out hope that Theodore Thomas would continue supporting Bea
"I presume Mr. Thomas will hold a different ground from Mr. Wils
(Secretary of the Bureau of Music) and Mr. Tomlins."'2 The hope pr

9. "Why Spend This Money?" Chicago Evening Mail, 28 January 1893.

10. Mrs. Crosby Adams, "An American Genius of World Renown: Mrs. H. H. A. Beach," The E
January 1928, 61.
11. Chicago, World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, Board of Lady Managers. President's Lett
Palmer Collection, Chicago Historical Society, 19 March 1892, 12: 564-65.
12. Ibid., 19 August 1892, 464: section 5:4.

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Women Composers at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition 13

futile. Starkweather wrote to Palmer on 2 September 1892 that "it was

utterly useless to overcome the antagonism which both Mr. Thomas
and Mr. Tomlins expressed towards it."13
A major cause for withdrawing the work was concern whether it would
be audible in the 32-acre Manufacturer's Building, site of the dedica-
tion ceremonies. In a letter to the artist Mary Cassatt, Palmer voiced
her concern about "the great manufacturers building in which the Cho-
ral Director says his chorus of five thousand voices will be a mere chirp."14
Indeed, the same concern caused the slow movement to be dropped
from George Whitefield Chadwick's Ode for the Opening of the World's
Fair, which had been specially commissioned for performance at the
same dedication ceremonies.15
Not to be thwarted, Palmer designed her own ceremonies for the
opening of the Woman's Building on 1 May 1893, the day the Expo-
sition itself was opened. Beach's Festival Jubilate was then slated to be
performed at the women's ceremonies, with (ironically) Thomas con-
ducting the Exposition Orchestra and Tomlins's chorus singing.
The Grand March of Ingeborg von Bronsart opened the 1 May 1893
ceremonies. The work had not been commissioned; it was brought to
Palmer's attention through a letter from Herr Wermuth, the Reichs-
Kommissar for the German contingent at the Exposition. In the letter,
Wermuth attempts to persuade Palmer to have Bronsart's opera per-
formed at the Exposition:
Allow me to claim your attention and valuable assistance for a special matter
concerning the Musical creation of a distinguished German lady, Frau In-
geborg von Bronsart; the wife of the Intendant of the famous Grand ducal
Theatre at Weimar. This Lady is the composer of a grand Opera "Hiarne"
the dedication of which having been graciously accepted by His Imperial
Majesty the Emperor, who as a great connoisseur and admirer of Music,
takes a peculiar and personal interest in the Composition. "Hiarne" has been
performed already in the Royal Opera at Berlin and Hannover with a full
success and is to be given during the next season at Hamburg and probably

13. Ibid., 2 September 1892, 465: section 6:2.

14. Ibid., 26 July 1892-3 January 1893, 14A: 12-13. It is noteworthy that Palmer sent her report
to Cassatt. Palmer commissioned Cassatt in the summer of 1891 to paint a mural for the Woman's
Building (see Nancy Hale, Mary Cassatt, [Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1987], 159). Cassatt sub-
sequently acknowledged Palmer's help in resolving conflicts she had with the Department of Fine Arts
regarding her contract:
Thanks to your kind offices all my difficulties with the board of construction seem to be arranged,
and my contract is here .... Between you and me I hardly think women could be more unbusi-
nesslike than some of the men are. (Cassatt to Palmer, 10 September 1892, Potter Palmer Collection,
World's Columbian Exposition, Artists Series, The Art Institute of Chicago.)
The Palmers owned Cassatt's painting "Mother and Child" (1888), which was shown in the Century
of Progress Exhibition in 1934 and was later donated to the Art Institute of Chicago.
15. Chicago Tribune, 22 Oct. 1892, 3; the author thanks Steven Ledbetter for providing this infor-
mation.

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14 NOTES, September 1990

likewise at Vienna. Her Royal Highness the Princess Friedrich Carl von
Preussen, our Lady Protectrice honouring Frau Ingeborg von Bronsart by
her personal friendship wishes to lend her influence and assistance that
"Hiarne" might be played during the Columbian Exposition at Chicago.16
Although the Reichs-Kommissar's letter did not convince Palmer to ar-
range a performance of the opera, it may have influenced her to pro-
gram Bronsart's Grand March for the opening of the Woman's Build-
ing.
Bertha Palmer and the Board of Lady Managers served as a crucial
bridge between these women composers and the Exposition. The women
leaders provided the composers with an unprecedented opportunity to
have their orchestral works highlighted at a world's fair and at the his-
toric opening of the Woman's Building. Although many of Theodore
Thomas's concerts were not reviewed in the local papers, the Daily News
and Chicago Tribune devoted several pages to Palmer's speech at the
opening of the Woman's Building and to reviews of the orchestral con-
cert. The popularity of the event was evident in the newspaper ac-
counts:

Women from every corner of the land crowded into the buildi
great building was literally jammed with women.17

INTEGRATION INTO THE MAINSTREAM

The direct musical patronage of Palmer and the Board of La

agers was limited to the opening of the Woman's Building. Ev
October 1892 the Board had developed large-scale plans to hav
orchestral works by women performed at the fair. Palmer re
these plans to Mary Cassatt:
Our musical contributions to the Exposition promise to be of the
possible interest. We have been offered by the French Committee
Madame Holmes, who at the time of the Exposition of 1889 was in
the Government of France to produce a musical composition for
duction of which the sum of 60,000 francs was paid, will be repr
These plans were discarded when the men of the Commissi
nated the Board's musical participation in these ceremonies.
Although the composer Augusta Holmes was not represented
at the dedication ceremonies in October 1892 or the openi
Woman's Building on 1 May 1893, her symphonic poem Ir
performed at the Exposition on 10 August 1893 as part of
conducted by Thomas. This work by an eminent foreign c

16. President's Letters, 465: section 3:1-2.

17. Chicago Daily News, 1 May 1893.
18. Palmer Collection, 26 July 1892-3 January 1893, 14A: 13-14.

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 Women Composers at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition 15

Holmes was French, of Irish parentage-fits within the scope of music

proposed by Thomas as musical director of the fair in a 30 June 1892
outline:

1. To make a complete showing to the world of musical progress in this

country in all grades and departments, from the lowest to the highest.
2. To bring before the people of the United States a full illustration of music
in its highest forms, as exemplified by the most enlightened nations of
this world.

In order to carry out this conception . . . cooperative conditions are indis-

pensable:
1. The hearty support of American musicians . .. for participation on great
festival occasions of popular music, and for the interpretation of the most
advanced compositions, American and foreign.
2. The presence at the Exposition of many of the representative musicians
of the world, each to conduct performances of his own principal com-
positions and those of his countrymen . . .9
The Exposition Orchestra's symphony concerts provided a venue for
the performance of four works by women composers, two American
and two foreign. A 7 July 1893 program included an orchestral tran-
scription of Helen Hood's "A Summer Song," which, judging by con-
temporary criticism, fit into Thomas's category of American popular
music. Hood's credentials were social rather than musical-she was a
member of Boston's social register.
On 29 July 1893 an Exposition Pops Concert featured a work by
garet Ruthven Lang. Her father, the composer B. J. Lang, may
met Theodore Thomas when Thomas brought the Boston-based
del and Haydn Society to New York in 1873.20 B. J. Lang, who wa
organist of the Society from 1859 to 1895,21 wrote to Thomas on 7
1892 requesting that Thomas look at an orchestral composition by
daughter:
If at any time in your busy life you can look at a musical work in three
say twenty-five minutes long, for solo voices, chorus and full orchestra,
"The Wild Huntsman" by Scott, music by my daughter Margaret Rut
Lang, you will I am sure be surprised and pleased at seeing a work of
picturesqueness and originality. The thing is scored with, what seems
adays to be so common, great apprehension of orchestral color. I do w
you'd look at it but I'll not send it excepting of your bidding.22

19. Theodore Thomas, A Musical Autobiography, ed. by George P. Upton (Chicago: A. C. Mc

1905), 194-95.
20. H. Earle Johnson, Hallelujah, Amen! The Story of the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston (B
Bruce Humphries, 1956), 118.
21. Ibid., 189.
22. B. J. Lang to Theodore Thomas, Boston, 7 July 1892, Theodore Thomas Letters, Newberry
Library.

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16 NOTES, September 1990

Whether or not Thomas saw this work, Margaret Lang's overture Wi-
tichis was chosen by an award committee at the Exposition as one of
three winning compositions from among twenty-one submissions. The
deadline for submissions was 30 June 1892, one week before B. J. Lang
wrote to Thomas about his daughter's composition. The committee that
chose Margaret Lang's overture for performance at the Exposition in-
cluded both B. J. Lang and Theodore Thomas. Under these somewhat
compromising circumstances, Margaret Lang won the competition and
was awarded an opportunity to have her work performed, not in a
women's venue like the separate Woman's Building, but at a main-
stream Exposition orchestra concert.
A work by a member of the Russian royal family was performed on
Russian Day on 3 August 1893 in honor of the fete day of the Empress
of Russia. Titan, a symphonic sketch by Her Imperial Highness, Grand
Duchess Alexandra Josiphovna, was performed by V. J. Hlavac of St.
Petersburg directing the Exposition orchestra at a concert that was sep-
arate from the series presented by the Bureau of Music.23 Augusta
Holmes's Irlande was performed a week later, on 10 August.
Four works by women composers were thus played at the Exposition
outside the Woman's building. While the Board of Lady Managers was
not involved in organizing these four performances, the influence of
their patronage for the opening program of the Woman's Building pro-
vided an entree for Bronsart, Ellicott, and Beach to approach Thomas
and lobby-though unsuccessfully-for further performances of their
works. In an 1893 letter to Thomas, Bronsart attempted to negotiate a
performance of her opera Hiarne:
It has been ages and I have not heard anything from Chicago concerning
the performance of the 1st act of "Hiarne" under your direction. I am quite
concerned not only because I . . . would be inconsolable if this wonderful
plan did not materialize .... This would also offend Her Royal Highness,
the Princess Friedrich Carl of Prussia, if her royal wish had received so little
consideration.

It would be a disgrace for my work if, after sending all the musical scores
. . .-for which I have to pay the cost-if the work then would be sent back
without even being considered!! . . . I would be very happy and very gratefu
if you, very honored Sir, would take up my case with warm interest as a sym
pathetic German colleague.... It cannot go unnoticed here in Germany i
you, very honored Sir, help a German woman composer walk away as a winner.2

This impassioned entreaty by a German composer with strong connec-

tions to German royalty, made to German conductor Theodore Thomas

23. "Music at the Fair," Chicago Tribune, 3 August 1893.

24. Ingeborg von Bronsart to Thomas, 1893, Thomas Letters; translated by Antje Draganski.

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Women Composers at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition 17

whose orchestra was backed financially by members of the German so-

cial elite in Chicago-John Jacob Glessner, for example-was a pow-
erful one, but Thomas was not moved to bow to Bronsart's pleas or
threats. However, Thomas did conduct a second performance of Bron-
sart's Grand March at a Pops Concert on 8 August 1893.
As early as March 1892, Beach had comprehended the hierarchy of
musical politics at the Exposition. Realizing that no further help would
come to her from Bertha Palmer, she began directing her correspon-
dence to Thomas:

I will telegraph the publisher at once to send the [Festival Jubilate] score
you at Fairhaven. . . . You may be interested in hearing that I have
completed a Scena and Aria for contralto voice and orchestra, which I h
written at the request of Madame Carl Alves of New York, the subject, f
the garden Scene of Schiller's "Mary Stuart." I wish that it might be dire
by you before the Exposition closes.25

This request was not granted, but a much more important work w
performed by the Chicago Orchestra five years later, in 1898. Beac
Gaelic Symphony was the first symphony by a woman composer to
premiered in the United States, having been performed by the Bos
Symphony on 30 October 1896. On 9 October 1897, Beach wrot
Thomas, who had offered to perform the Gaelic Symphony in Chic
For the great compliment which you have paid my Symphony ... I than
you heartily. It gives me much happiness to know that you care to incl
the work among those to be performed by your superb orchestra during
coming season, and I hope that it may prove grateful for your kind welc
when the time comes for its public appearance.26

GENDER AESTHETICS AND POLITICS, OR, "AS A WOMAN, VERY GOOD"

Women composers whose works were performed at the Exposition

were subjected to newspaper and magazine reviews that first evaluated
their works in terms of gender and then proceeded to a musical cri-
tique. Reviews of the era described these orchestral pieces as "feminine"
and the work of a "muse," and offered comparisons with other women
composers. One review even accused the composer of plagiarizing the
work of a male, since the music was too good to be that of a mere
woman. Gender aesthetics is evident in a review of Ellicott's Dramatic
Overture after its performance at the opening of the Woman's Building:
It is a vigorous and festive opus, and it in no wise betrays the feminine touch.
As a work of art, however, it merits but little further comment.27

25. Beach to Thomas, 12 July 1892, Thomas Letters.

26. Beach to Thomas, 9 October 1897, Thomas Letters.
27. "Music at the World's Fair," The Musical Courier 26 (10 May 1893), 14.

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18 NOTES, September 1990

Compare the back-handed compliment that the work doesn't betray "the
feminine touch" with a critique in the Gloucester Review:
It is written for full orchestra, and at once stamps the composer as a mu-
sician of ability and originality. . From the liberal applause bestowed upon
the work it was evident that the overture recommended itself both to the
public and to the band.28
The review does not mention the sex of the composer nor does it eval-
uate the work in terms of gender.
Inherent in the criticism of music composed by women was the as-
sumption that the highest standards of musical composition were thos
set by male composers and that women did not measure up to those
standards. And since critics did not generally place women's composi-
tions on the same high level as men's, their reviews tended to compare
these women to other women composers. Rupert Hughes admired
Margaret Lang's orchestral works. It is most fortunate that we have
Hughes's reviews, since all of Lang's orchestral music was destroyed by
the composer herself. Unfortunately, Hughes tempered his admiration
for her works by comparing her only with other women composers.
Margaret Ruthven Lang . . . has written large works, such as three concert
overtures, two of which have been performed by the Thomas and Boston
Symphony Orchestras, though none of them are published. . . . Personally
I see in Miss Lang's compositions such a depth of psychology that I place
the general quality of her work above that of any other woman composer.
It is devoid of meretriciousness and of any suspicion of seeking after virility;
it is so sincere, so true to the underlying thought, that it seems to me to have
an unusual chance of interesting attention and stirring emotions increasingly
with the years.29

The Exposition hierarchy placed men above women in determining

the music to be performed and in dictating taste. Although the opinions
of Tomlins and Thomas were not published formally in any newspaper,
their pronouncements were effective and quite final. Beach's Festival
Jubilate was a political "hot potato" between the men of the Bureau of
Music and Beach's patrons on the Board of Lady Managers. A partic-
ularly virulent attack against Beach's Jubilate was offered by Tomlins,
who had initially recommended Beach for the commission. The inci-
dent was related by Palmer's secretary in a letter to Palmer:
Mr. Tomlins came to see me yesterday and of his own free will volunteered
a criticism of Mrs. Beach's Cantata; he claims that it lacks majesty and
breadth. . . . that it has so many quartets and ruffles-as he calls them-

28. Gloucester Journal, 17 September 1886, referring to a performance Tuesday evening, 7 Septem-
ber 1886.
29. Rupert Hughes, Contemporary American Composers (Boston: L. C. Page, 1900), 432, 438.

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Women Composers at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition 19

that the Cantata will not be heard in the Building; that he has so much
respect for woman and such high ideals of womanhood that he cannot bear
to think of the effect that will be produced by this most inferior perfor-
mance. ... I asked if he thought that all those who were present would
appreciate the difference between Mrs. Beach's Cantata and the rest of the
programme; he claimed that that was not the point. ... In his conversation
he alluded to Mrs. Beach as a composer of ordinary merit as compared with
men, but as a woman, very good. I asked him why she had been recom-
mended to us in such terms of unqualified praise if she was not a composer
of superior excellence. He asked if I knew of any woman in this country
who was a Beethoven or Mend[e]lssohn? I asked him if he considered Mr.
Chadwick on a par with either of the afore-mentioned composers.30
Tomlins attacked Mrs. Beach's work on three grounds: (1) that she
did not meet the high standards of male composers, (2) that her work
was too feminine (he applied the denigrating term "ruffles"), and (3)
that her work discredited the "high ideals of womanhood." In this in-
stance gender-based criticism was used to keep works by women com-
posers from being performed at the dedication ceremonies of October
1892.

Although Tomlins and Thomas were successful in eliminating Beach's

Jubilate from the dedication ceremonies, they underestimated Palmer's
political power within the domain of the Woman's Building. The per-
formance of Beach's work at the opening of the Woman's Building re-
ceived some favorable reviews. Unfortunately, the Musical Courier of 10
May 1893 intimated that Beach had plagiarized the format of the Ju-
bilate from Chadwick's dedicatory Ode for the Exposition:
The treatment resembles somewhat that given by Chadwick to the Colum-
bian Ode of the dedicatory ceremonies. Well nigh would all be inclined
to believe that Mrs. Beach had made her cartoons for this work with
George W.31

Although the review begins "The Jubilate reflects infinite credit upon
Boston's fair lady muse," it rapidly descends into an implication that
the work is good merely because it copies the form used by a man. Yet
the same review ends with a statement that the Jubilate "gave an official
seal to woman's capabilities in music."32 Again, the inference is that
compared to compositions by other women, Beach's work is good.
Despite the intrusion of gender aesthetics into reviews of these works,
women composers benefited from being represented at the Exposition.
The performance of their works on a world stage confirmed their le-

30. Palmer Collection, 26 July 1892-3 January 1893, 14A: 2-4; 19 August 1892, 464: section 5.
31. The Musical Courier, 26 (10 May 1893), 14.
32. Ibid.

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20 NOTES, September 1990

gitimacy as composers and led

by the Chicago and Boston orc
confirmed in their support by
en's patronage at the Exposit
philanthrophy on behalf of wo

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