Dr Karen McAulay explores the history of Scottish music collecting, publishing and national identity from the 18th to 20th centuries. Research Fellow at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, author of two Routledge monographs.
I have written a lot about diasporic enthusiasm for Scottish culture. Usually, I’m thinking about music, but today’s archival materials embrace almost every topic under the sun. If it can be taught, then educational materials can be published. And thus it is that I encounter an American author’s proposal to Thomas Nelson’s in Edinburgh, which bears out everything I’ve ever said about people’s affinity with the Auld Country. (Not to mention the annoying ‘Scotch’, a term unused by Scots!)
Thus I have a hankering, just for the romance of it, to have some of my verse published in Edinburgh, especially since I hope to be in that city in the not very far future […]
I can almost hear echoes of Brigadoon in the distance. But, the poet is practical. Recognising the paper shortages at the time (post-World War 2), the enthusiastic poet offers money to help defray initial costs, because …
Once out, I believe both of us will profit by its […] appearance.
There was only one problem. The editor replied,
We regret very much, however, that we are not publishing poetry at the present time.
As I’ve mentioned, I’m currently Heritage Collections Research Fellow at IASH, the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, at the University of Edinburgh. All guest fellows are invited to give a work-in-progress seminar, and it’s my turn on Wednesday 26 March at 1 pm. You can attend in person, or online – more details on the link below. The abstract tells you what my talk is about.
I’ll explain what I’m looking for, and introduce you to some of the individuals I’ve been finding out about. The one thing I can’t predict, is whether I shall by then have found the answer to my prime question!
Last Friday, I submitted an article. Yesterday, I did the minor edits for an accepted article and dispatched that, too.
And today, I headed to Edinburgh and resumed my archival pursuits. The city was initially bathed in golden sunshine, though this didn’t even last until lunchtime. It is certainly a very beautiful city.
Nearly spring in Edinburgh?
Unless you’ve experienced it, you can’t imagine how many brown folders of thin carbon copies will fit into an archival box. Carbon copies are as thin as airmail writing paper. The bulk of this particular box consists of NINETEEN folders of rejection letters just for one year, 1948.
You might think I didn’t need to concern myself about books they didn’t publish, but you never know what snippets about publishing policy or the economic climate – or anything else! – might turn up. (And you’d be surprised at the number of would-be authors who didn’t take a definite refusal AS a definite refusal, but kept writing to argue their case!)
‘Do Forward the Bathing Costume’
That was an unexpected postscript, in one of the letters that wasn’t a rejection. The publisher and author had evidently gone to the swimming baths, and the author went home without his trunks! Irrelevant, but it’s undoubtedly evidence they were on friendly terms, isn’t it?
I did discover – unneccessarily, but amusingly – that in the late nineteenth century, the managing director of this publishing house used to go open-air swimming in Leith before work in the summer. Clearly the tradition had either continued, or been revived, with the opening of the Portobello open-air pool in 1936 …
Our talented son, Scott McAulay, has just shared with us an image of his latest triumph – a foreword in another Routledge book. (He’s less than half my age, so who knows how much he’ll have published by the time he reaches my advanced years!)
So, this year, between us we’ve had a hand in three Routledge books, or four if you include the paperback edition of one I contributed to earlier:-
Looking forward to my Exchange Talk and Book Launch next Monday, I made a wee promotional video! Maybe I’ll see you there, if you’re in/around Glasgow.
Well, after all my Stationers’ Hall research a few years ago, you won’t be surprised to see me say that!
The Edinburgh Companion to Women in Publishing, 1900-2020 (Edinburgh University Press, 2024)
But I had reason to be grateful again today, when I needed to consult an expensive new book of essays from Edinburgh University Press. Only a few universities have it in electronic format (not accessible to external readers, for licensing reasons), but there was ONE printed copy in Scotland – presumably the legal deposit copy. A trip to the National Library of Scotland was called for. (I am so used to going upstairs to the rare books reading room, with all the book cushions and stands, weighted ‘book snakes’ and fragile volumes, that it was quite a novel experience to be heading to the general reading room to see a shiny new book in all its glory!)
From a drizzly start in Glasgow, it turned into a glorious warm and sunny autumn day, showing Edinburgh at its best. (Which is more than can be said for Glasgow, sulking in the rain upon my return!)
And the book was fascinating, despite seemingly not referencing anything related to music. It was wide-ranging in subject-matter and chronological coverage. (120 years is a long time in book-publishing.) I read a couple of chapters, making a mental note that I might have reason to come back to it again next year.
Sometimes, you need to look at a book, just to make sure you haven’t missed anything! I can finish my article now, reassured that I haven’t overlooked any unexpected new commentary. It was a long shot!
It’s a proud day – I’m so excited. (Amazon even recommended it to me the other day, which I found quite amusing!)
Table of Contents
(from the book – and the Routledge website)
Introduction
1 An Era of Opportunity for James S. Kerr and Mozart Allan
2 Nights Out Dancing and Evenings with the Children: Enduring Kerr and Mozart Allan Titles
3 The Saleability of Scottish (and Irish) Songs
4 Education, Preservation, Organisation
5 Expanding Horizons
6 Multimedia Technology, from Magic Lanterns to Recordings and Broadcasts
7 Publishing ‘Classical’ Music in Scotland
Conclusion
Description
(again, from the Routledge website)
Late Victorian Scotland had a flourishing music publishing trade, evidenced by the survival of a plethora of vocal scores and dance tune books; and whether informing us what people actually sang and played at home, danced to, or enjoyed in choirs, or reminding us of the impact of emigration from Britain for both emigrants and their families left behind, examining this neglected repertoire provides an insight into Scottish musical culture and is a valuable addition to the broader social history of Scotland.
The decline of the music trade by the mid-twentieth century is attributable to various factors, some external, but others due to the conservative and perhaps somewhat parochial nature of the publishers’ output. What survives bears witness to the importance of domestic and amateur music-making in ordinary lives between 1880 and 1950. Much of the music is now little more than a historical artefact. Nonetheless, Karen E. McAulay shows that the nature of the music, the song and fiddle tune books’ contents, the paratext around the collections, its packaging, marketing and dissemination all document the social history of an era whose everyday music has often been dismissed as not significant or, indeed, properly ‘old’ enough to merit consideration.
The book will be valuable for academics as well as folk musicians and those interested in the social and musical history of Scotland and the British Isles.
I was bemoaning my many failings yesterday, when I was told (firmly) that I should be more positive and regard myself as a success-story. Unfortunately, I grew up being made so aware of my deficiencies that I’m kind of pre-programmed to look on the dark side. I’ve never quite matched up to expectations!
There’s no Pleasing Some People
Mind you, the criticisms have changed over the years:-
You’re clumsy, untidy and hopeless at sport’;
‘Don’t be disappointed if you fail your 11-plus exam’;
‘You need a secretarial qualification – in case your research doesn’t get you a job’;
‘that “Dr” on your address-labels looks like showing-off’,
‘So-and-so says all those qualifications are ridiculous’,
Are you writing another boring book?’
Which just goes to show that some people are never happy, and maybe I should disregard the comments altogether. For what it’s worth, my books are fascinating! And I rather like my ostentatious “Dr”. Liking my ‘letters’ is probably a failing too.
Being a Successful Woman in the Early 20th Century
Tools of the trade?
However, when I consider how much harder it must have been to be a successful woman a hundred years ago, I’m mightily impressed by the women I’ve encountered during my researches into Scottish music publishing. I’m contemplating writing an article about them, but they are often ridiculously modest and very hard to track down, which presents a would-be writer with quite a few problems!
So, who have I got? No, I’m not going to name them just yet. Suffice to say, I have two ladies whose death certificates mention music publishing. And a piano teacher who wrote and self-published a handful of really rather good songs, along with raising three children. And the entertainer’s mother who arranged some Scottish hits. (So far, I’ve only traced documentation of her up to her marriage and the birth of her first child – so frustrating!)
Best of all – and I’ve only recently started researching this in more depth, so she gets the most passing of mentions in my forthcoming book – an incredible lady whose father-in-law started up the business, but who very definitely eventually ran the business herself, with her husband helping her (not the other way round). At the same time, she was a much sought-after conductor with her own orchestra. Wow! Impressive. She didn’t have children. In those days, I can’t imagine how she’d have done what she did, if there was a whole brood of Edwardian children with all their white frilly laundry to do, and no convenience foods! One maidservant? Or two?
I’ve encountered another woman, a singer, whose life looks equally fascinating in different ways. Not a publisher, this time, though. She needs a different article written about her.
Only this weekend, I was reading a blogpost which said that there weren’t really that many women booksellers in the Victorian era, which I think makes it all the more remarkable that these late Victorian and early-twentieth century Scotswomen were quietly forging careers in the music business. So, I shall carry on quietly digging away to find out what I can about them all, and at some point, one, or hopefully two interesting articles will emerge. Watch this space!
The book I’m getting published later this year is not my first.
But our son Scott McAulay has beaten me to it, in being the first to see a Routledge publication this year – two chapters in this essay collection. And I understand he’s in another collection, too. Scott has an architectural background – we have very different specialisms! I’m a proud mum.
The Pedagogies of Re-Use
One of Scott’s illustrations is by his older brother, by the way!
Yesterday, I set out to track down some music. It’s light music, not great music – almost ephemeral, you could say – but together, it tells a story.
I also wanted to find out more about the life of one of these fin-de-siecle Glasgow woman music publishers.
It’s not that easy. The music is scattered round our legal deposit libraries; the cataloguing isn’t completely consistent; and fin-de-siecle ladies, whether single, married, childless or proud mothers, didn’t leave much record of their daily lives. They’re hidden in the shadows of family members, and, whilst I imagine they knew one another, let me stress that this is NOT a tale of a female publishing cooperative!
I had a nice chat with a local history librarian, making an acquaintance who is now equally keen to find out more; then I headed home – as yet, none the wiser – to devise a complex spreadsheet of music titles. I’m visualising a pinboard with strings criss-crossing between ladies, libraries and work-lists.
So complex, indeed, that I still haven’t planned how best to get to SEE the music.
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 