Don\u27t You Think the Violin is Better than the Typewriter? : How Women Orchestras Challenged Gender Inequality and the Indoctrinated Hierarchy in Instrumental Art Music

Conductor, Gustave Kerker famously said in the Musical Standard, It would be like oil and water to put men and women in the same organization. Women Musicians alone may be alright, but they don\u27t belong with men. There was little space for women to work as professional instrumentalists at the dawn of the 20th century. Not only were most instruments taboo for women, but symphonic music itself was also something considered innately masculine. However, by the early 1910s, the Boston conservatory had opened its doors to women, as well as the American Conservatory in Paris and a new generation of women orchestral musicians engaging in with challenging the established standards of instrumental music\u27s perceived masculinity. I argue that women\u27s orchestras used a combination of grassroots activism and virtuosic performance to challenge the indoctrinated male hierarchy of the American symphony, as well as the perceived abilities of women instrumentalists in the early 20th century. My paper draws from interviews with the pioneers, leaders, and conductors of these orchestras, the Chicago history museum\u27s archive, and the Women in Music Newsletter in order to illustrate their agency, goals, and ambitions of gender equality in American art music. I illustrate the growth and increased relevance of women orchestras by examining the early vaudeville lady orchestras, and finally focusing on the Woman\u27s Symphony of Chicago and the Orchestrette of New York. These two symphonies were leaders that exemplified the growth, vitality and power of this musical movement