Yesterday, I headed north of the river, because there was a community event being held by Maryhill Burgh Halls Trust, and a group I’ve recently started following was manning a stall there – the Protests and Suffragettes social enterprise.
A creative project & new social enterprise led by a team of artists, activists, & local historians working to recover and re-voice the histories of women activists in Scotland.
My interest stems from the work I’ve done researching late Victorian and early twentieth century Glasgow women involved in teaching, performing or publishing music. I’ve already published an extensive article in the RMA Research Chronicle, and I’m giving a conference paper later this year. I’d like to find out if two of ‘my’ ladies were actively involved in the early suffrage movement. My guess is that they may have been sympathisers, if not active in the cause. The older lady lived before the Suffragette movement as such, and I’m not expecting to find the younger of the two doing anything particularly audacious, but it would be nice to find any trace of supporting the cause, even just as a member of some organised group! (I’ve already mentioned my trip to Glasgow Women’s Library on a similar mission a couple of weeks ago.)
Anyway, I thought it would be altogether lovely if I introduced myself today, since we’ve already been in touch via social media. And it was lovely. I took the opportunity to outline what I’m hoping to indeed find out about this particular mother and daughter.
Elevator Pitches
You’re always reading on LinkedIn about how you should have an elevator pitch just there on the tip of your tongue, so that your current project can be readily described to questioners who may not know very much about your work yet. As I travelled home, energised, after my outing, I reflected that actually, I need several elevator pitches, because I have two side projects as well as the main one!
Glasgow Women’s Careers in Music
One of my side projects, I’m currently exploring how different women’s backgrounds may have influenced the careers they pursued, in turn-of-the-century Glasgow.
The Glasgow Athenaeum School of Music
I’ve been exploring the careers of our first Principals, and contemplating the musical education that the institution offered in the first few decades. Another side project.
Publisher Thomas Nelson & Sons
This is the big project. I’ve been looking at the kind of educational music materials published in the first half of the twentieth century, and reflecting on the use made of Nelson’s four Scots song books by pupils and teachers. After archival work on the Nelson correspondence, I’m now conducting an oral history of the Sir John Leng Trust’s Scots Song medal competitions in Dundee. The idea is that I’ll use all this for a third book. Watch this space!
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 