Women's Bands in America

"Women's Bands in America" is the first comprehensive exploration of women’s bands across the three centuries in American history. Contributors trace women's emerging roles in society as seen through women's bands — concert and marching — spanning three centuries of American history. Authors explore town, immigrant,industry, family, school, suffrage, military, jazz and rock bands, adopting a variety of methodologies and theoretical lenses in order to assemble and interrogate their findings within the context of women's roles in American society over time. Contributors bring together a series of disciplines in this unique work, including music education, musicology, American history, women's studies and history of education. They also draw on numerous primary sources: diaries, film, military records, newspaper articles, oral-history interviews, personal letters, photographs, published ephemera, radio broadcasts and recordings. Thoroughly, contributors engage in archival historical research, biography, case study, content analysis, iconographic study, oral history and qualitative research to bring their topics to life. This ambitious collection will be of use not only to students and scholars of instrumental music education, music history and ethnomusicology, but also gender studies and American social history.