Making Music in Los Angeles: Transforming the Popular
Catherine Parsons Smith
Abstract
This social history of music in Los Angeles from the 1880s to 1940 ventures into an often neglected period to discover that during America's Progressive Era, Los Angeles was a center for making music long before it became a major metropolis. The author describes the thriving music scene over some sixty years, including opera, concert giving, and promotion, and the struggles of individuals who pursued music as an ideal, a career, a trade, a business—or all those things at once. The book demonstrates that music making was closely tied to broader Progressive Era issues, including political and ec ... More
This social history of music in Los Angeles from the 1880s to 1940 ventures into an often neglected period to discover that during America's Progressive Era, Los Angeles was a center for making music long before it became a major metropolis. The author describes the thriving music scene over some sixty years, including opera, concert giving, and promotion, and the struggles of individuals who pursued music as an ideal, a career, a trade, a business—or all those things at once. The book demonstrates that music making was closely tied to broader Progressive Era issues, including political and economic developments, the new roles played by women, and issues of race, ethnicity, and class.
Keywords:
Progressive Era,
opera,
concert giving,
concert promotion,
political developments,
economic developments,
women,
race,
class
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2007 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780520251397 |
| Published to California Scholarship Online: May 2012 |
DOI:10.1525/california/9780520251397.001.0001 |
