History of Gender Commons^™

In Her Own Hands: How Girls And Women Used The Piano To Chart Their Futures, Expand Women's Roles, And Shape Music In America, 1880–1920, Sarah F. Litvin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

American girls and women used the parlor piano to reshape their lives between 1880 and 1920, the years when the instrument reached the height of its commercial and cultural popularity. Newspapers, memoirs, biographies, women’s magazines, personal papers, and trade publications show that female pianists engaged in public-facing piano play and work in pursuit of artistic expression, economic gain, self-actualization, social mobility, and social change. These motivations drove many to use their piano skills to play beyond the parlor, by studying in conservatory, working as classical and popular music performers and composers, founding and teaching at schools, working as department store …

Photograph: Tintype In Paper Sleeve Depicting A Man And Two Young Women, N.D., Anonymous

Broadus R. Littlejohn, Jr. Manuscript and Ephemera Collection

Tintype exposure is about 1"W x 2"H.

A girl in a white dress stands next to a seated man in dark clothes with her left arm around his shoulder. The man wears a hat and his hands rest on his lap. A young woman or girl, also in a white dress, sits next to him with her hands folded in her lap.

Date of photograph is unknown but tintypes flourished in popularity in the 1860s and 1870s and the clothing of the figures suggests a similar time period.