Some Women of the AMRC Digital Sheet Music Collection

This exhibit showcases a selection of American women composers' works published between 1880 and 1920. These decades were a notable time of change, marked by technological and societal developments that included industrialization, railway expansion, internal and international wars, and women's suffrage.

In the midst of this period of growth and conflict, women began to gain visibility as composers in the United States, and their work began to receive more serious attention on the stage and in the media. Despite having fewer opportunities for musical education than their male counterparts, many female composers of this time nonetheless produced sophisticated, elegant, and popular musical compositions for performers and audiences at both the professional and amateur levels.

The Digital Sheet Music Collection of the American Music Research Center at CU Boulder contains approximately 180 scores of piano and vocal pieces composed by women during this eventful era in the United States.