“We Who Have the Destiny of Musical America in Our Hands”

Humble Beginnings, Lofty Ideals

The first issues of the journal, published by the organization known first as the National Conference of Music Supervisors and later as Music Supervisors’ National Conference (MSNC), were small in size, but the scope of thinking within them was broad and visionary. The content reflects an emerging national organization whose leaders viewed music in public schooling in the larger context of American music and culture. The tone of the magazine may have been “warm and chatty,” and its qualities “newsy” and “highly personal,” expressing the fraternal spirit among music supervisors, ³ but the mission of the group was framed within a noble and ambitious vision for music education at the national level. Writing in 1934 about the early years of the journal, E. B. Birge noted that a study of the topics addressed between 1914 and 1930 revealed “a large amount of writing of more than ephemeral value,” and he concluded that “the magazine has been one of the major influences upon school music education, only exceeded by that of the Conference itself.” ⁴

As I read issues of the journal across the decades, it became clear that fundamental beliefs and concerns communicated to readers in the early years of the journal remained at the core of dialogue throughout the century. A statement made by Elizabeth Casterton, outgoing president of MSNC in 1914, revealed an underlying assumption that music supervisors “have the destiny of musical America” in their hands. ⁵ The statement could be interpreted as naïve and overly ambitious. However, the topic of music education and the making of musical America dominated the pages of the journal through the decades, and it embodied changing narratives of American music and, more generally, the values of music in American culture and education. In this article, I explore the relationship of music education and the making of musical America chronologically through several interwoven themes—creating a musical America at the grassroots level in the community, promoting American music, and responding to the call of the nation to unite Americans through music in times of crisis. These themes rise and recede at different times, and they appear in different guises according to the political, social, and cultural ideologies and values of the time.

Building Musical America in Wartime and Beyond

Between 1914 and the end of the 1920s, the idea of music educators taking responsibility for the advancement of musical culture in America was popular in the journal. In the first issue, editor Peter Dykema described the task of music educators as “a big job” calling for the combined wisdom of “a band of earnest musicians bent on making a musical nation of America thru teaching the children.” ⁶ Others continued the conversation. One writer encouraged his fellow teachers to attend the 1916 MSNC national conference in Lincoln, Nebraska, so that they “may discover their own worth in helping to make a more musical America.” ⁷ Grace Van Dyke More, who attended the Lincoln conference, reflected that, “we are all laboring together . . . for a common good—the musical upbuilding and enrichment of America.” ⁸ By 1922, MSNC President Karl Gehrkens noted that, “if America does not become truly, genuinely musical in a generation it is at our door, Fellow Supervisors of Music, that the blame must be laid.” He was hopeful that the profession would be able to meet the goal and in the process have music “count for more in the life of the community and of the nation than almost any other subject.” ⁹

A grassroots approach to making America musical was advocated strongly through the journal, particularly by its editor Peter Dykema, ¹⁰ who noted in the first issue that music supervisors are “feeling that their field of work stretches beyond the school room and includes more than the children.” ¹¹ Several subsequent issues shared news of the work of the MSNC Community Music Committee and encouraged music teachers to participate in community music activities and to use the various song pamphlets published by the MSNC. ¹² The spread of community music was seen as symptomatic of music in a democracy where “the great mass of people” participates in producing music. Similar to many writers later in the century, MSNC President C. H. Miller (1917–1918) drew on Walt Whitman’s poem, “I Hear America Singing,” concluding that his “dream of an America singing is about to be realized.” ¹³ The movement was also seen to provide testimony for the value of music in education. As people sang more and witnessed the effects of singing on the community, they would “appreciate better the claims of music for a larger place in our educational system.” ¹⁴

The community music movement was further fueled by the need to unite people through music in time of war. The theme of patriotism in response to World War I was interwoven with community music advocacy. The National Week of Song, inaugurated in February 1914, united the themes of community music and music in wartime. ¹⁵ Dykema urged supervisors to support it and to stress the singing of folk and national songs in the schools. ¹⁶ The National Anthem, a topic found throughout the decades of the century, appeared in discussions of community music. Versions of the anthem were included in several community songbooks, and Dykema reported that the 55 Community Songs collection contained what the Committee believed to be “the final version.” ¹⁷ And in the MSNC Standard Course in Music reported in the journal in 1921, every child was to acquire a repertory of song to carry into the home and social life, including “America” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” ¹⁸

The promotion of American music was also integral to the narrative of musical America. As early as volume one, retiring MSNC President Elizabeth Casterton (1913–1914) advocated for American music in education, describing it as that which must “smack of the soil” and “embody the character and express the tendency of American life.” ¹⁹ She urged music teachers to cooperate “in this splendid movement to encourage our American product,” believing that such effort “may be one of the greatest contributions that could be made toward the future American Music and American Music Public.” ²⁰

American music in education was integral to the narrative of war and patriotism. In 1917, MSNC President C. H. Miller reminded readers of the importance assigned to music during wartime as “the greatest recognition America has ever given to music.” ²¹ He continued that, “it should warm the heart of every supervisor to know that he is considered so vital to our nation’s welfare.” ²² Writing at the end of World War I, Frances Elliot Clark referred to the impact of the war on American music and how such music would help assert “our Americanism unashamed” in a new era of nationalism. ²³ And in the issues of the 1920s, music was often advocated as “one of the great constructive forces in Americanization.” ²⁴ The many themes interwoven around the topic of music education and musical America—encouraging music-making in the community, promoting American music, and serving the nation in time of war—were foundational in the way music education was perceived and valued in the early years, as reflected in the journal.

Changing Narratives of Musical America

Writers in the 1930s noted that the public schools were playing a dominant role in the development of American musical culture. Composer Howard Hanson wrote that music in the public schools “constitutes the most significant progress that has been made in the musical development of the United States.” ²⁵ Edward Bailey Birge noted in 1938, the centennial year of the entry of music in public education, that public school music education, “has come to be looked upon by educators, musicians, parents, and general community opinion as a great national asset, a foundation upon which to build the American musical culture of the future.” ²⁶ Developing musical culture, as reflected in journal issues of the 1930s, focused on music appreciation and becoming familiar with American composers and their compositions.

As music appreciation became more widespread in schools and society, the need to educate “musically-discriminating amateurs” expanded the scope of what constituted a musical America. Only then, according to Paul Weaver, “will America dare call herself a musical nation.” ²⁷ As mass media began to shape musical culture, their presence became evident in the journal. Franklin Dunham, educational director of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), addressed the topic of music as “a new force in America” and pointed out that music belongs “to the whole people.” It is present “where people live, in what they do, and in how they express themselves.” ²⁸ His vision for music in the life of the people was building “a singing, playing, appreciating, joyous musical America!” ²⁹ As music belonged to the whole people, so also did music by American composers.

A recurring theme in the journal from the late 1920s to the early 1940s was the need for school music written by American composers. O. G. Sonneck, chief of the Music Division of the Library of Congress, reminded American composers that they have an obligation to write for young America. ³⁰ In 1932, MSNC President Russell V. Morgan noted that in the past composers tended to overlook that obligation. He acknowledged a change, with an increase in material “more directly available in the classroom.” ³¹ In the same year, speaking on behalf of music educators, Karl Gehrkens petitioned composers to go into public school classrooms and hear bands and orchestras rehearse, become acquainted with adolescent voices, visit the grade classrooms, and then write music appropriate to students’ abilities. ³² Howard Hanson endorsed Gehrkens’s challenge to composers, expressing hope that it would be answered “by the composition of American songs for the American youth by American composers who are a part of his age and his spirit.” ³³

In 1936, Agnes Samuelson, president of the National Education Association, looked to the schools themselves to train the talent that will compose “the American epic” in music and make music “an even greater force in the cultural, social, and spiritual advancement of our nation.” ³⁴ Music professor Theodore F. Normann also looked to the schools, believing that music educators can be “of inestimable value in the stimulation and growth of American music and of American composition.” ³⁵ He called on composers to recognize “the potentialities inherent in a nation-wide musical program for youth.” ³⁶ But with the climate of war that had descended upon the continent once again in the early 1940s, the focus of American music shifted from classical to folk and national music.

American Unity through Music

World War II intensified the responsibility of music teachers to bring American music to the nation. Their work in response to the war was seen as tied to the destiny of the nation and to national welfare. ³⁷ President Fowler Smith (1940–1942) reminded teachers that government leaders look to education to provide the “spiritual values and attitudes of mind” that they consider paramount in meeting the national emergency, and education looks to the music teachers to function in this realm. ³⁸ He cautioned that “if music is to retain its place in the sun, . . . We must be concerned with those factors which pertain to self-realization, human relationships, and civic responsibilities.” ³⁹ Responding to the call of the nation in time of crisis was one of the civic responsibilities of music teachers.

MENC appointed a Committee to respond to the call, titled American Unity through Music. It was an international movement to unite the peoples of the Americas in time of war. At the same time, it sought to encourage playing and singing of songs “which best embody the spirit and ideals of our United States.” Similar to Seeger’s definition of American music, the songs advocated by the Committee as part of this initiative were broad in scope—national and patriotic songs, as well as the rich heritage of music brought to America by various racial groups, more general use of America’s folk music and pioneer songs, and more attention to compositions by American composers. ⁴⁰

There was a spontaneous and positive response to the work of the Committee in the music education community. MENC President Fowler Smith referred to the initiative as “the nation-wide marching song of music educators.” ⁴¹ A summary of activities related to American Unity through Music in different states was published in the May–June 1941 issue of the journal, ⁴² and in the same year lists of band, orchestra, and choral music as well as other material appropriate to the American unity theme were published. ⁴³ Writing in 1942, Major Harold W. Kent further encouraged teachers to “go all-out for music” and include permanently in their band, orchestra, and chorus repertoires folk songs and patriotic music, especially the National Anthem and the kind of “musical Americana, which expresses and further cultivates the spirit that underlies the whole philosophy of our democracy.” ⁴⁴ In doing so, their contribution to the national effort would serve “a wholesome objective.” ⁴⁵ By April 1944, the MENC “A Declaration of Faith, Purpose and Action” expressed a set of strong professional beliefs about its role in American life:

We believe in America; we believe in music; we believe that music is helping to strengthen the power and ideals of our country. Therefore, it is our responsibility to bend every effort to the end that this power of music shall reach out into the whole life of America, through every community, and contribute its full share to our national welfare and development. ⁴⁶

The propaganda expected in wartime reporting was coupled with intense engagement with the American unity initiative, resulting in a groundswell of activity across the nation in response to the wartime call to music educators and the provision of appropriate music materials to teachers to help advance the cause of nationalism. Interwoven with narratives of wartime music education was a changing narrative of American music that expanded its meanings and cultural contexts.

The theme of American music for American children dominated journal issues in the early and mid-1940s. Musicologist Charles Seeger contributed a significant article on the topic, ⁴⁷ approaching American music in an unprecedented way: “first, as designating the music and music activity actually existing in the United States; and second, as referring to the part of this music that expresses or characterizes the American people as distinguished from other peoples.” ⁴⁸ He viewed music education as “possibly the most effective agency we have for the integration of American music within itself and within the culture of which it is a part.” ⁴⁹ Seeger’s view of music education was evident in a collaboration between MENC and the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress to provide music resources for teachers. He described the initiative as “perhaps the most momentous single step to be taken toward the time when the United States will be at home with its own music.” ⁵⁰ Materials from the project were published in the journal in 1944 and 1945 under the title American Songs for American Children—The United States Folk Song Series. ⁵¹ The effort to identify and disseminate American folk music for use in schools served multiple functions—to strengthen national identity and contribute to international unity in time of war and more significantly to broaden the contexts of American music and expose new landscapes of musical America worthy of inclusion in school music.

Music Enriching American Lives

In the aftermath of the war, the rhetoric of nationalism began to recede from the pages of the journal. In the 1950s and 1960s the focus turned to the responsibility of music education to the further enrichment of American cultural life. ⁵² When MENC President Robert Choate (1954–1956) looked to “The Years Ahead,” he emphasized the development of imagination, creativeness, and adeptness, and there was a marked absence of attention to American nationalism and patriotism. ⁵³ The change of focus was also evident in the MENC Six-Point Goal that was adopted in St. Louis in 1956 in time for the organization’s Golden Anniversary observance year in 1957. ⁵⁴ Similarly, the report of the MENC Study Committee on Purposes and Goals of Music Education in 1958, presented by the chair, Lilla Belle Pitts, featured the development of American culture as a general goal where “everyone is accorded the right and the obligation to improve American culture by improving himself or herself.” ⁵⁵ When the Study Committee members asked: “To whom are we responsible? For what are we responsible?” they responded with a list that focused on people—students, parents and citizens, school administrators, the community, all teachers, and colleagues in related fields. There was no mention of the profession’s responsibility to the nation, rather to the needs of the people in the school community.

And when Lilla Belle Pitts, chairman of the Golden Anniversary Commission, wrote an open letter to music educators in 1957, she also focused on the profession’s responsibility to individuals: “We believe that we can make Music in American Life a living reality of the great American dream—the inalienable right of every human being to the pursuit of happiness.” ⁵⁶ The ideology underpinning these beliefs was brought forward into the 1960s, a time characterized by profound social change and a reimagining of the relationship between music education, American music, and American society.

Journal articles of the 1960s reflected the philosophical mood of the profession. MENC President Allen Britton (1960–1962) expressed the belief that music education functioned as “the bedrock upon which American musical culture now rests,” ⁵⁷ implying that the goal expressed in early decades of the journal had been reached. In a similar message, Finis E. Engleman, Executive Secretary of the American Association of School Administrators, congratulated music educators on their “magnificent contribution to the cultural maturity of the United States” and urged them to continue to strengthen and extend music programs. ⁵⁸ Writing in 1963 on the cultural renaissance in America, James Weaver, member of the U.S. House of Representatives, argued that schools can contribute by promoting and producing contemporary as well as past forms of art. In the process, the lives of all students of all social and cultural backgrounds, not just the favored elite, would be impacted positively. ⁵⁹ A few years later, the Tanglewood Symposium Project, along with other projects in the late 1950s and 1960s such as the Young Composers’ Project and the Contemporary Music Project, sought to widen philosophical horizons and curricular content from a similar vantage point.

The Tanglewood Symposium Project was in response to what Robert Choate and Max Kaplan called “an emerging ideology and maturity of the nation as a whole.” ⁶⁰ The magnitude and significance of the Project was evident in the way it was presented in the journal. In a sense, the focus on Music in American Society resonated with the concerns of early leaders, but music education had become institutionalized through its organization (and its journal) in the intervening years and had formed an identity separate from the contexts of musical America that surrounded it. Tanglewood sought to reinstate that radical connection, as evident in the reappraisal of goals for music education: “to become more concerned about music activities in our entire culture” and “to crystallize directions for examining music and music education in their relation to general trends in American life.” ⁶¹

Sounds of America

The philosophical phase of the 1960s was followed by a more practical, grassroots approach as reflected in journal issues of the 1970s. Two topics attest to this change—dialogue on community music and activities related to the American Revolution Bicentennial in 1976. The focus on community music that was evident in the early years of the journal returned within the broader context of the arts. Robert Bliss called on teachers to “take music into the community.” He urged teachers to consider their responsibility to the musical education of parents and the artistic life of the community as well as their support of community programs outside the public school. ⁶² Similar ideas were brought before the reader in Charles Leonhard’s article on the people’s arts programs. He began with an excerpt from Walt Whitman’s poem “I Hear America Singing” to provide a vision and establish a rationale for such programs. Leonhard envisioned an instructional team for such programs that was resonant in some ways of the early roles of music supervisors:

. . . a director of arts with overall responsibility for the school and community programs and full- and part-time teachers, including wind instrument, stringed instrument, choral, and general music specialists and painters, sculptors, dancers, and actors, all of whom would teach and work in both school and community programs. Furthermore, community arts resources would be mobilized; residents with arts skills would be employed part-time to give instruction or conduct performance groups. ⁶³

His vision was not realized in his time, but its value lives on through the decades into the 21st century and contemporary narratives of the relationship of school and community music.

The second topic found in journal issues of the 1970s advanced dialogue on American music through considerable coverage of activities related to the 1976 Bicentennial. The Tanglewood Symposium shifted the narrative of school music in relation to American music, broadening the concept and embracing a plural notion of musical culture in America. The theme was taken up by MENC’s Bicentennial Commission established in 1973 who accepted the charge from President-Elect Charles Benner to develop projects for “identifying and giving visibility to American composers, performers, teachers, and events” that have contributed to music and music education. ⁶⁴ Beginning in the March 1973 issue of the journal, MENC provided an extensive tribute to the many “Sounds of America” as a resource for music educators. A Bicentennial Series of articles focused on “a broad, kaleidoscopic sampling of styles, types, movements, trends, and schools” of American music that ranged from that of Aaron Copland, to articles on ragtime, native American music, music in Colonial America, native piano music, and jazz. ⁶⁵ This broad spectrum showed how the cultural pluralism and the multiplicity of ideas found in America’s music “offer a rich heritage through which our young people can become acquainted with their nation,” ⁶⁶ as well as give visibility to regional composers and performers and ethnic folk singers and dancers. Commission member Leona Wilkins summarized the initiative: “With the Bicentennial upon us, it is time now to let American music help shape a new awareness of our national heritage and the place of the individual within it, while furthering the goals of music education.” ⁶⁷

Several activities were reported around the Bicentennial. All state music education organizations were asked to register Bicentennial events under a threefold format—Heritage U.S.A., Festival U.S.A., and Horizons ‘76. The National Music Council’s Bicentennial Parade of Music selected 200 prominent music sites designated as historic music landmarks. MENC was represented on the Council, and the list of landmarks was published in the journal in January 1977. ⁶⁸ The Music in Our Schools Day (MIOSD), launched in 1975, devoted the 1976 MIOSD to activities initiated by MENC’s Bicentennial Commission. One of its objectives was to pay tribute to America’s Bicentennial through “the many types of musics that are indigenous to our pluralistic society.” ⁶⁹ The Bicentennial afforded MENC, through its journal, the chance to advance the plural narrative of American music and to integrate the music of the American heritage and contemporary musical forms. The presence of this dialogue on American music in the journal prepared the profession for a cultural imperative that was to become a central focus of the journal for the rest of the 20th century.

The Multicultural Imperative

Several writers across the decades expressed the belief that public school music education had contributed significantly to the cultural maturity of the nation. This theme took on a specific focus in the last quarter of the 20th century. Writing on the topic of “Music Education’s Cultural Imperative” in 1987, Michael Mark observed that the United States had developed into a very musical nation and had become a world music leader. ⁷⁰ The richness of American musical life and music education, he pointed out, is so deeply woven into the fabric of society that it is often taken for granted. Through public relations and government relations programs since the mid-1960s, MENC had fulfilled the responsibility to remind Americans not to take their artistic culture for granted. To remain viable, he cautioned, the goals of music education must remain congruent with the musical and educational needs of the society. ⁷¹ This observation was particularly relevant given the changing demographics and political ideologies of the time.

Several articles in the 1980s and beyond addressed the cultural and musical implications of demographic change and presented images of musical America (or American music) as a community of cultures, ⁷² a cultural mosaic of diverse expressions, ⁷³ the myriad styles that make up the American musical fabric, ⁷⁴ a polyglot of musical languages, ⁷⁵ or a set of vernacular musics “born in the U.S.A.” ⁷⁶ Robert Garfias observed that “we as Americans have, in large measure, been taught to view the American culture as one homogeneous tradition. Upon reflection, we all realize that there are a number of different cultures that we consider American . . . an almost limitless number and variety of cultures in America.” ⁷⁷ Many of those musical cultures were an outcome of the “unprecedented flow of humanity” ⁷⁸ through generations of immigration, evident in the centennial celebrations of the Statue of Liberty in 1986. To mark the centennial, former MEJ Editor Charles Fowler described the impact of “the boundless diversity within this great uprooted swarm of people” on the musical development of the nation. ⁷⁹

The ever-evolving narrative of what constituted American music was reflected in several articles in the 1980s—for example, Thomas Elward’s call to broaden national songs beyond the National Anthem to multiple national songs including “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” ⁸⁰ Patricia Shehan’s call to include children and their songs in the search for a national music style, ⁸¹ or James Scholten’s reminder that we have come of age musically as a nation, so let us accept “our vernacular musics, the ones ‘born in the U.S.A.,’ with joy and pride” and treasure the diversities they embody. ⁸² Patricia Shehan Campbell and Chee-Hoo Lum later described those diversities on the landscapes of musical America from the perspective of “united yet varied identities.” ⁸³ Similar to many writers before them, the authors drew on Walt Whitman’s poem, “I Hear America Singing,” this time to make the point that “American music is the music that Americans make,” ⁸⁴ varied like the carols Whitman heard as he captured in poetry the essential diversity and creativity of individuals who comprise American society. As the multicultural imperative was advanced in professional thinking and in the school curriculum, a campaign to revive community music accompanied it during the 1990s, as did a grassroots advocacy campaign to show that Music Makes the Difference.

Coming Full Circle—Get America Singing . . . Again!

Community music-making, a topic that received much attention in the early years of the journal, and to a lesser degree in the 1970s, was revived in the 1990s. Writing in the January 1990 issue, Patricia Foy recounted the history of the community singing movement between 1913 and 1930. ⁸⁵ In the same issue, Charles Elliott lamented the decline of community singing and claimed that as a nation, “we no longer celebrate our cultural heritage in song. We are becoming a nation of nonsingers.” ⁸⁶ Music educators, and MENC as their organizing body, ought to be concerned with the declining role of singing in society and the musical life of the entire nation, he argued. On a much smaller scale than his predecessors writing of the early decades of the journal, Elliott considered music educators to be at least partially responsible for the musical life of the nation. ⁸⁷ To advance toward the goal, both Foy and Elliott advocated for community singing as an idea whose time had come again. They were not alone in their thinking. Elliott’s words received favorable comments from readers in subsequent issues.

Within a few years, Will Schmid took up the torch of community singing and during his term as MENC President (1994–96) launched the “Get America Singing . . . Again!” campaign. Its two main objectives were to establish a common song repertoire that “Americans, of all ages, know and can sing” and to promote community singing at concerts, public festivals, and other public events. ⁸⁸ Reflecting Leonhard’s idea of a community coalition from the 1970s, one of the goals of this movement was to work with community music and arts agencies “to preserve and strengthen a vital American culture.” ⁸⁹ This initiative of the 1990s to revive a singing tradition and contribute to American culture prepared the way for the kind of response called for after the national tragedy of September 11, 2001.

The tragedy elicited a strong response from MENC, evident in the narrative that was woven through the pages of the journal. The November 2001 issue, titled “O Say, Can You Sing . . . ?”, included several articles about music education in this time of crisis. MENC President Mel Clayton (2000–2002) reminded teachers of the importance of music as “an anchor to which all people in our country have turned for solace, hope, solidarity, and expression of love and commitment.” He noted the responsibility of music teachers to foster a renewed sense of patriotism and appreciation “for the ideals on which our country was built” and to take the lead in helping students and their families recognize the positive power of music in our lives. ⁹⁰

Relevant teaching materials were described in the issue—the code for the U.S. National Anthem, ⁹¹ the two song volumes that developed from the Get America Singing . . . Again campaign, as well as the MENC Sing America! Patriotic Collection. ⁹² In the same issue, with a title resonant of the MENC response to World War II, “Music Unites America,” Executive Director John Mahlmann highlighted the invaluable service that teachers provide to the nation and its citizens, particularly in helping America “find its voice during these troubled times.” ⁹³ MENC furthered the cause of restoring America’s voice when it launched the National Anthem Project in Washington, D.C., on March 10, 2005, in conjunction with the World’s Largest Concert, with the Oak Ridge Boys as the official musical ambassadors. ⁹⁴ The Project culminated in a grand finale on Flag Day, June 14, 2007, in Washington, D.C. ⁹⁵

As the fervor of patriotism waned, the dominance of national political goals in music education diminished. The NAfME Strategic Plan 2011–2016 does not include language pertaining to nation or national culture. The goal is that “all students will receive a comprehensive, sequential music education that prepares them for lifelong involvement in music.” ⁹⁶ The absence of reference to the nation reflects current values that emphasize personal and collective well-being: “the joy and power that music education brings in uplifting the human spirit and fostering the well-being of society” and the strength that comes from working together with stakeholders (arts educators and like-minded groups, parents, families, communities) to promote music, music education, and policies that build a better society for all. ⁹⁷ With increased attention to the social nature of music-making in recent decades, many articles advocate for a social approach to music education. In a sense, we end the century of MEJ with a return to the expansive social and cultural perspectives found in the early days of the journal, albeit framed within different ideologies and assumptions. ⁹⁸

Music for All Americans, Then and Now

Early leaders writing in the journal sought to nationalize music education and to extend its reach into all communities. One hundred years later, authors continue to reference this fundamental goal, but with an expanded view of the collective that includes marginalized and underserved individuals and groups and multiple generations. The June 2012 issue posed the question: “Music for All . . . ?” on its front cover, and authors responded with several articles on music and justice viewed through the lens of social class, cultural diversity, access, and music in prisons. Related articles on social class, as well as disability and gender and sexual orientation in other journal issues, ⁹⁹ attest to a strong focus on the social responsibility of music educators to all students.

Building citizenship through music education, a goal that was popular in the 1910s and 1920s as a way to endorse the ideology of Americanization, is approached from a different perspective when David Elliott advocates for “music education as/for artistic citizenship.” The difference highlights a move from a nationalist view of America and a homogenous definition of American music and culture to a focus on social well-being through participation in “all forms of music-making and listening.” ¹⁰⁰ What is consistent in the writings at the beginning and the end of the century is the broad scope of how music education was envisioned. In 1914, Peter Dykema noted that the profession’s field of work “stretches beyond the school room and includes more than the children,” ¹⁰¹ and almost a century later, Elliott connects artistic activity with “all types of formal and informal musical interactions at all levels in schools and communities.” ¹⁰² Similarly, writers at both ends of the century focused on music and participatory culture, with community singing dominant in the 1910s and 1920s, expanding to multiple forms of musical engagement including those shaped by digital technologies and media a century later. ¹⁰³

Reflections

The story of the relationship between American music education and “the destiny of musical America” is a fascinating one, as mirrored in the Music Educators Journal and its forerunners, 1914–2014. If history can serve to illuminate the state of things today, what insights can we gain by looking back at the past century through the voices that live on through this journal? I chose the theme of music education and changing narratives of musical America based on what the early leaders believed about the role of public school music in American culture. The theme was threaded through several different narratives, from creating a musical America through community music to promoting American music to responding to the call of the nation in times of crisis.

The themes that dominated the journal’s initial years—community music and music education in time of war—were also dominant in the past two decades of its first century in publication. The narrative had come full circle, but with radical changes occurring in the intervening years. The narrative surrounding “American music” changed, from the early years of advocating American art music as home product versus imported good, to gradually expanding views of American music to include folk music, music of one’s place and time, multicultural music in the context of heritage and living cultures, vernacular music, community music, to all music-making in the United States. Following this narrative highlights the role of music education in the nation’s coming of age, culturally and musically—from a time of insecurity about the “home made product” to a time of being at home with the diverse musical genres that are part of the American cultural mosaic.

The impact of two world wars and the national crisis of 9/11, as well as the marking of historical landmarks such as the Bicentennial in 1976, influenced the presence of American music in the schools. The rhetoric surrounding these times of crisis was focused on music education in service to the nation through the teaching of patriotic and national music. The function of music education was seen as indispensable to national welfare, the building of citizenship, and the overall destiny of the United States. Such times of national crisis caused music education leaders to reassess their function and stand strong in their response.

As views of American music and the place of music education in it expanded over the century, the diversity of those championing and informing that expansion through the journal diminished. Issues in the first half of the century included regular articles from scholars in education, musicology, and government, commenting on the vital role of music in public education, encouraging teachers to nurture American musical culture, providing scholarly articles on American music and curricular resources for music teachers, or presenting an outsider perspective that likely helped the profession to reflect on its path forward. By the end of the century, such articles were seldom featured, mirroring a move away from the interdisciplinary culture and interdependent outlook that characterized the journal and the professional organization in earlier decades. ¹⁰⁴ Professional independence and autonomy can be viewed as a positive development; however, the narrowing of perspectives channeled through the journal may well have had negative implications for the nature and quality of professional discourse at large.

A similar kind of contraction was evident in the change from music education as an adaptive and fluid organism functioning in interaction with the community in the early decades to an autonomous institution at a distance from its roots and the raison d’etre for its existence. As the organization became an institution with its own identity in the spheres of music, education, and politics, consolidated in part by the journal, the need for formal advocacy programs increased, particularly from the 1960s forward. The MEJ can serve as a forum to bring back voices from American music and education into the sphere of music education discourse and to receive support and critique from those outside the institution in the process of going forward. Insights from earlier decades of the journal indicate a building of professional self-worth and agency in the first five decades with public school music viewed as a national asset, a foundation of American culture, a contributor to cultural maturity of the United States, and the bedrock on which culture rests. From the established solid role of music education in American music and culture, what factors contributed to the need for creating formal advocacy programs described in the journal in subsequent decades? How might the profession refocus its direction using the journal as a medium to navigate such change?

Returning to the initial declaration of early leaders that music educators have “the destiny of musical America in our hands” might prove to be a way to renew hope and to evaluate its relevance in contemporary times. The vision for musical America has been reimagined over the century as an outcome of political ideologies, changing demographics, relationships between school and society, and the advent of new technologies and media. Based on a reading of the organization’s primary journal, the institution of music education represented by it began with a strong vision for the place of music education in American musical culture, endorsed both within and outside the profession. In many ways, the democratic ideals surrounding that vision have remained at the core while adapting to political, social, and cultural changes abroad. The voice of Walt Whitman, cited many times over the century, captures the role of music educators in shaping the destiny of musical America across the century: from a dream of an America singing national songs to unite all people, to a dream of an America singing diverse songs to represent all people, to a dream of all Americans enabled to participate in music-making over a lifetime, contributing to the well-being of self and society.