Materials to assist instruction have a long history in music education. Charles H. Congdon was the director of music education in St. Paul, Minnesota, from 1885 to 1898. He ceased classroom teaching and began his own music publishing company around 1900. He remained active in music education and was one of the charter members of MENC. Congdon is best known for the six songbooks in The Congdon Music Readers series. To assist the classroom teacher, he devised a series of large song scrolls to accompany his textbooks. He later developed a system to store and display these scrolls, and designed the first chromatic pitch pipe for school use. Congdon's texts, scrolls, scroll holders, storage cabinets, and pitch pipes all led the way for the commercialization of music materials today.
See, for example: William Billings, The Continental Harmony (Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1794), 3-34. See also the introductory instructional material in later compilations of choral material, e.g., Thomas Hastings and William B. Bradbury, The New York Choralist (New York: Mark H. Newman, 1847), 4-36; Lowell Mason, The Hallelujah ( New York: Mason Brother, 1854), 7-33.
2.
Probably the best known of these songbooks is Lowell Mason's Song Garden (Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1864).
3.
Edward B. Birge, The History of Music Education in the Public Schools of the United States (Chicago: MENC, 1928), 90.
4.
Luther Whiting Mason, The National Music Course: New Third Music Reader (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1888), advertisement on back cover; and Frederick Ripley and Thomas Tapper, The Natural Music Course: Harmonic Primer (New York: American Book Company, 1903 ), preface, 3; also Colleen Pinar, "The Natural Music Course," unpublished paper presented at the MENC National Biennial In-Service Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2006.
5.
For a list of more than one thousand music textbooks and songbooks published between 1860 and 1910, see Robert D. Oursler, "The Effect of Perstalozzian Theory and Practice on Music Education in the United States Between 1859 and 1900" (PhD dissertation, Northwestern University, 1966), appendix.
6.
I owe thanks to the MENC Archives in the Special Collections of the University of Maryland Music Library and the Library of the University of Idaho at Moscow for much of the information about Congdon and his music textbooks. In addition, a bit of serendipity made some of Congdon's materials available to me. The C. H. Congdon Publishing Company remained under private ownership in the family until 1992, at which time the estate sold the remaining inventory. Antique dealers purchased the music materials thinking the scrolls made nice wallpaper borders for children's rooms. In 2002, Diane Strong, an antique dealer in Pontiac, Illinois, sold me the Primer texts, scrolls, and pitch pipe described in this article. Further information came through personal communication with William Thompson, a distant cousin of "Charlie" Congdon.
7.
In 1906 alone, Roosevelt signed the Hepburn Railroad Regulation Act, the Pure Food and Drug Act, and the Meat Inspection Act. See Richard N. Current, T. Harry Williams, Frank Freidel, and Alan Brinkley, American History: A Survey, vol. 2, Since 1865, 7th ed. (New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 1987), 624.
8.
For general information about the Progressive era, see Current et al., chapters 21 and 22.
9.
"A Brief Overview of Progressive Education," n.a., http://www.uvm.edu/∼dewey/articles/proged.html (accessed July 4, 2006); "John Dewey: Philosophy of Education," n.a., http://www.wilderdom.com/experiential/JohnDeweyPhilosophyEducation.html (accessed July 4, 2006).
10.
Frederic H. Ripley and Thomas Tapper, The Natural Music Course ( New York: American Book Company, 1895); Horatio Parker, Osbourne McConathy, Edward Bailey Birge, and W. Otto Miessner, The Progressive Music Series (Boston: Silver, Burdett , 1915).
11.
Frederik Ohles , Shirley M. Ohles, and John G.Ramsay, Biographical Dictionary of Modern American Educators (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1997): 72.
12.
"Charles H. Congdon, Chorus Leader, Dead,"New York Times, March 25, 1928; "Congdon, Charles Harris,"Who Was Who in America, vol. 1, 1897-1942 (Chicago : A. N. Marquis, 1943): 249. Continuing in this vein, Eleanor Smith authored The Modern Music Series (New York: Silver, Burdett, 1905), and Robert Foresman produced The Lyric Music Series (Chicago/ New York: Scott, Foresman, 1914). Will Earhart later worked with Peter Dykema, Hollis Dann, and Osbourne McConathy to collate 55 Community Songs (Boston: C. C. Birchard, 1917) and the ensuing Twice 55 series of community songbooks (Boston : C. C. Birchard, 1919).
13.
Birge, 236; for the text of Congdon's presentation at the National Education Association, Charleston, South Carolina, meeting in 1900, see C. H. Congdon, "Should Music in the Public Schools Be Taught from the Song to the Exercise?"School Music Monthly11, no. 4(1901): 6-8.
14.
"Official Program of the National Educational Society,"The Musician Magazine9, no. 6 (1904): 233.
15.
Songs of the Nation, ed. Charles Johnson (Boston: Silver, Burdett , 1897).
16.
Birge, 262, 264.
17.
Charles H. Congdon , "The Boys are Coming Home" ( New York: C. H. Congdon [1918?]); "Roosevelt" (words adapted to the tune of "Maryland, My Maryland") in Progressive Battle Hymns, written, compiled, and published by Congdon, and published in 1912, likely in New York City. This is the first song in a collection intended for group singing at the First National Progressive Convention in Chicago , 1912.
18.
Congdon's obituary in the Stroudsburg Morning Press, March 26, 1928, describes the Living Flag for the Grand Army of the Republic Convention in St. Paul in 1896 with more than two thousand children involved.
19.
Who Was Who, p. 249; Western Union Telegraph from Henry F. Cochems to Charles H. Congdon, 1912, facsimile of the original obtained from William Thompson, personal correspondence, May 26, 2005.
20.
"Charles H. Congdon, Chorus Leader, Dead."New York Times, March 25, 1928, p. 31.
21.
William Thompson, e-mail correspondence with author, May 24, 2005.
22.
"C. H. Congdon, Former School Music Supervisor Here, Dead."St. Paul Pioneer Press, April 15, 1928, sec. 5., p. 11. The title of the present study comes from the phrase quoted in this obituary .
23.
"Anna Bernice Congdon Cowell [sic]." Pocono Record, March 15, 1992, p. A-5. Although her obituary spells her name as Cowell, the spelling Colwell is correct and is so listed in the copyrights to the 1937 editions. Mrs. Colwell was always called "Bernice." William Thompson, e-mail correspondence with author, May 24, 2005.
24.
C.H. Congdon , Congdon Music Readers, Number One The Primer , rev. ed. (New York: C. H. Congdon , 1920).
25.
C.H. Congdon , Primer I and Primer II, reprint ed. (New York: C. H. Congdon, 1937).
26.
For the 1937 editions, Bernice Congdon Colwell also used color. There are nine pages of introductory material for each book, also color coded: light green sheets for Primer I and peach for Primer II. The covers were in color. Primer I is yellow, Primer III is blue; both have treble clefs and music notes printed in pink on the fabric. Compared to the drab browns and grays of other texts of the day, these must have looked very attractive.
27.
Will Earhart , Kate Forman, and C.H. Congdon, The Congdon Music Readers Number Four: For Early Two-Part Sight-Singing ( New York: C. H. Congdon, 1918).
28.
Ibid. See pages 36, 72, 104, and 105 for examples of these "credits with adaptations." The Dalcroze selections are on pages 51, 64, 79, 96, and 101.
29.
Advertisement for Congdon's Music Rolls, School Music Monthly6/7 (1905-06): 31. Congdon Biography File, Special Collections in Performing Arts, University of Maryland Libraries.
30.
Advertisement for Congdon's Music Rolls, School Music Monthly6/7(1905-06): 1, 36. Congdon Biography File, Special Collections in Performing Arts, University of Maryland Libraries.
31.
Advertisement for Congdon's Music Rolls, School Music Monthly6/7 (1905-06): 35. Congdon Biography File, Special Collections in Performing Arts, University of Maryland Libraries.
32.
Advertisement, School Music Monthly 6/7 (1905-06): 36. Congdon Biography File, Special Collections in Performing Arts, University of Maryland Libraries.
33.
The difference between pitch pipes is evident in an advertisement for materials sold through the Oliver Ditson Company. The Musician Magazine10, no. 9 (1904): 387. This ad shows "tuning guides" for violin, banjo, and guitar as well as "Congdon's patent tuning pipe."
34.
Advertisements, School Music Monthly6/7 (1905-06): 1, 35, 36. Congdon Biography File, Special Collections in Performing Arts, University of Maryland Libraries.
35.
Advertisement on back cover of Congdon's 1920 edition of Primer I.
36.
His obituary cites the pitch pipe as one of his achievements as a music educator. Pioneer Press, p. 11.
