Oberlin's Women: A Legacy of Leadership & Activism

Frances Theresa Densmore

Frances Theresa Densmore (1867-1957, OC 1887) was an ethnomusicologist. She studied music at the Oberlin College Conservatory beginning in 1884. After graduating in 1887, Densmore returned to her home state of Minnesota and gave piano lessons until 1889. She moved to Boston in that year to learn from composers Carl Baerman and John Knowles Paine. Although concerned with improving her own musical abilities, Densmore grew interested in Native American music after reading Alice Cunningham Fletcher’s book on the music of the Omaha Indians. She continued to teach music and perform after returning to St. Paul, Minnesota. Densmore also began to lecture about Native American music based on Fletcher’s book and her own research. In 1905 she visited and studied a Chippewa village near the Canadian border. She later used that research to write an article for the American Anthropologist. By 1907, Densmore had started recording Indian music in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution’s Bureau of American Ethnology. She recorded over 2,500 songs from over thirty Indian tribes, including the Pawnee, Sioux, Yaqui, Yuma, Cocopa, and Northern Ute. She also collected musical instruments from these tribes to add to the Smithsonian’s collections. For her work, Densmore was awarded an honorary M.A. degree from Oberlin College in 1924 and Macalester College awarded her an honorary Doctor of Letters degree in 1950.

Sources:
Archabal, Nina Marchetti. “Frances Densmore Pioneer in the Study of American Indian Music.” American Public Media. Accessed June 17, 2020. http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/densmore/docs/archabal.shtml

“Frances Densmore.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Accessed June 17, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Frances-Densmore

“Frances Densmore.” Smithsonian Institution Archives. 2005. http://siarchives.si.edu/research/sciservwomendensmore.html

Student File (Frances Theresa Densmore), Alumni & Development Records, O.C.A.

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