Frances Densmore<\/p>\n
(1967-1957)<\/p>\n
Inducted 2018<\/p>\n
Frances Densmore was born in Red Wing, Minnesota on May 21, 1867. During this time in history, Red Wing was still the frontier and tepees of Sioux Indians were just outside of town. From her parent’s home, Frances could hear the traditional songs of the Native Americans when she was falling asleep at night and was fascinated by what she heard. Her mother Sarah encouraged Frances’ love of music, and she studied classical piano at an early age. Frances attended The Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio, graduating in 1887, then studied at Harvard University in Boston. At Harvard she became interested in the work of Alice Cunningham Fletcher, who had recorded the music of the Omaha Indians. She returned to Minnesota after studying at Harvard and taught piano. In 1893 Frances went to Chicago to attend The World’s Columbian Exposition and saw Thomas Edison’s new invention: a lightweight recording machine. Inspired by the Exposition, she returned to Red Wing and began to plan for studying and recording Native American music. Frances began corresponding with Alice Fletcher and studied her techniques. Densmore learned about Native American culture, history, and folklore. She also began giving public lectures about Native American music. Around 1904 Frances started traveling to listen and record Native American music. Between 1910 and 1915 she recorded the music of the Chippewa, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Sioux tribes. In 1926 she wrote the book The Indians and Their Music. Between 1920 and 1930 Frances traveled all over The United States recording on different Indian reservations. During this time she worked with the Pawnee, Papago, Seminole, Ute, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Yuman, Winnebago, Menominee, and Pueblo tribes, even traveling to Panama to record the Tule Indians of that country. In 1907 she was paid for a Native American recording by the Bureau of American Ethnology at The Smithsonian Institution. Her work would be funded in part by The Bureau of American Ethnology until April 1933 when the funding ended due to The Great Depression. She would continue to earn a living from her books, grants and lecturing. As Densmore continued to travel, she documented the instruments and songs that she recorded. During her lifetime she wrote more than 20 books, 200 articles, and made over 2500 Graphophone recordings of Native American music. In 1948, the United States Federal Government began transferring her work from the original wax cylinders to permanent disks. This project would become the Smithsonian-Densmore Collection of Indian Sound Recordings. She donated her life’s work to The National Archives and the Minnesota Historical Society. In 1950 Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota awarded her an Honorary Doctorate degree. In October 1954 she received a Citation for Distinguished Service in the Field of Minnesota History from the Minnesota Historical Society. She received an award from the National Association for American Composers and Conductors for her contributions to American musicology. Frances Densmore died on June 5, 1957 in Red Wing, Minnesota.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Frances Densmore (1967-1957) Inducted 2018 Frances Densmore was born in Red Wing, Minnesota on May 21, 1867. During this time in history, Red Wing was still the frontier and tepees […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,6],"tags":[410,412,65,57,45,414,413],"class_list":["post-865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-41","category-inductee","tag-410","tag-frances-densmore","tag-inductee","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-music-hall-of-fame","tag-native-american","tag-red-wing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mnmusichalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mnmusichalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mnmusichalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mnmusichalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mnmusichalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mnmusichalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mnmusichalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mnmusichalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mnmusichalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mnmusichalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}