- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Illustrations
- Introduction: Toward a History of American Orchestras in the Nineteenth Century
- Part I Ubiquity & Diversity
- [I.1] Building the American Symphony Orchestra
- [I.2] Modeling Music
- [1.3] American Orchestras and Their Unions in the Nineteenth Century
- Part II The Orchestra & the American City
- [II.1] Invisible Instruments
- [II.2] Beethoven and Beer
- [II.3] Performances to “permanence”
- [II.4] Critic and Conductor in 1860s Chicago
- [II.5] Amateur and Professional, Permanent and Transient
- Part III Conductors, Promoters, Patrons
- [III.1] Bernard Ullman and the Business of Orchestras in Mid-Nineteenth-Century New York
- [III.2] John Sullivan Dwight and the Harvard Musical Association Orchestra
- [III.3] The Leopold Damrosch Orchestra, 1877–78
- [III.4] Gender and the Germanians
- Part IV America & Europe
- [IV. 1] “A Concentration of Talent on Our Musical Horizon”
- [IV.2] Ureli Corelli Hill
- Part V Orchestraf Repertory
- [v.1] Orchestral Programs in Boston, 1841–55, in European Perspective
- [V.2] Theodore Thomas and the Cultivation of American Music
- [V.3] Thinking about Serious Music in New York, 1842–82
- Aflerword: Coming of Age
- Bibliography
- Contributors
- Index
American Orchestras and Their Unions in the Nineteenth Century
American Orchestras and Their Unions in the Nineteenth Century
- Chapter:
- (p.78) [1.3] American Orchestras and Their Unions in the Nineteenth Century
- Source:
- American Orchestras in the Nineteenth Century
- Author(s):
- John Spitzer
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
Musicians' unions played critical roles in American orchestras in the nineteenth century, when the American Federation of Musicians was organized and musicians' unions became part of the American Federation of Labor. The unions tended to resemble one another closely. Nineteenth-century American musicians' unions shared three central features: closed shop, price list, and leader system. The weaknesses of nineteenth-century American musicians' unions were structurally based. Their influence differed according to the type of orchestra. Musicians' unions probably served least well for concert orchestras, and particularly poorly for philharmonic societies and symphony orchestras. Among the three types of American orchestra—casual, seasonal, and concert—musicians' unions fostered the success and well-being of the first two types and of the musicians who played in them.
Keywords: Federation of Musicians, Federation of Labor, American orchestras, closed shop, price list, leader system, concert orchestras, symphony orchestras
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- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Illustrations
- Introduction: Toward a History of American Orchestras in the Nineteenth Century
- Part I Ubiquity & Diversity
- [I.1] Building the American Symphony Orchestra
- [I.2] Modeling Music
- [1.3] American Orchestras and Their Unions in the Nineteenth Century
- Part II The Orchestra & the American City
- [II.1] Invisible Instruments
- [II.2] Beethoven and Beer
- [II.3] Performances to “permanence”
- [II.4] Critic and Conductor in 1860s Chicago
- [II.5] Amateur and Professional, Permanent and Transient
- Part III Conductors, Promoters, Patrons
- [III.1] Bernard Ullman and the Business of Orchestras in Mid-Nineteenth-Century New York
- [III.2] John Sullivan Dwight and the Harvard Musical Association Orchestra
- [III.3] The Leopold Damrosch Orchestra, 1877–78
- [III.4] Gender and the Germanians
- Part IV America & Europe
- [IV. 1] “A Concentration of Talent on Our Musical Horizon”
- [IV.2] Ureli Corelli Hill
- Part V Orchestraf Repertory
- [v.1] Orchestral Programs in Boston, 1841–55, in European Perspective
- [V.2] Theodore Thomas and the Cultivation of American Music
- [V.3] Thinking about Serious Music in New York, 1842–82
- Aflerword: Coming of Age
- Bibliography
- Contributors
- Index
