Frances Densmore was born in Red Wing, Minnesota on May 21, 1867 to Benjamin Densmore, a surveyor and civil engineer and Sarah Greenland. All throughout her life she loved music. According to the Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement Six, Densmore’s first memory of Native American music dated from her childhood, “when Sioux Indians sang and drummed nearby well into the night.” Her mother encouraged her to appreciate the music. She attended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music from 1884 to 1886. After attending the conservatory, she studied the piano under the direction of Carl Baermann. She attended Harvard University for two years and studied counterpoint. Densmore then took this appreciation for music and began lecturing in St. Paul on Indian music.
Densmore first began recording music when a tune hummed by Geronimo caught her attention. In 1904, Frances began to travel and record Indian tunes that she was interested in. It wasn't until 1907 that she was paid for recording the Indian music by William Henry Holmes of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Over the years, Densmore continued to record music for the bureau. Her first project was the Chippewa, then the Mandan, Hidatsa, and the Sioux in the Dakotas, all between 1910 and 1915. Densmore describes the Chippewa music in two volumes that were published from 1910 to 1913. Teton Sioux Music was another collection of Densmore's that was published in 1918. It is among the best ethnographies of the Sioux. She also wrote The Indians and Their Music in 1926. This work brought her attention from a wide range of readers.
Every summer between 1920 and 1930 she was recording on a different reservation, traveling all over the United States in the process (Dictionary of American Biography Supplement Six, 1956-1960 pg.162). She worked with the northern Pawnee of Oklahoma, the Papago of Arizona, Indians of Washington and British Columbia, Winnebago and Menominee of Wisconsin, Pueblo Indians of the southwest and even the Tule of Panama. During this same time she managed to write The American Indians and Their Music in 1926, bringing her a lot of attention from a wider audience.
Densmore never quit. In the 1930’s the Southwest Museum and the Bureau of Ethnology published her monographs on the Menominee while she continued to travel around the states and record music. She also started to catalog the instruments and songs that she had recorded. During this time Densmore received a grant for $30,000 to oversee the proper transcription and transfer of the Densmore Smithsonian collection.
Frances Densmore died on June 5, 1957, and was buried in Red Wing, Minnesota. She proved to be an excellent ethnomusicologist and her work is still appreciated today. Throughout all of her interactions with the Indians she never let them forget that she was doing this to preserve their music and way of life, increasing the public's appreciation for the music.
Resources:
Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Seventh Edition. London. Collier Macmillan Publishers. 1984.
Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement Six. New York. Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1980.
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Volume 5. New York. German Lute Books. 1980.
Written by: Cindy Piehl and Jodi Ratzlaff