Timeline of music in the United States (1880–1919)

This is a timeline of music in the United States from 1880 to 1919.

1880 George Upton's "Women in Music" is the "first of many articles and reviews by prominent male critics which sought to trivialize and undermine the achievements of what was considered an alarming number of new women composers in the realm of 'serious' classical music".Hinkle-Turner, pg. 1 The Native American Sun Dance is banned. John Knowles Paine's second symphony, In Spring, premiers in Boston, and is "received with unparalleled success".Chase, pg. 342 Gussie Lord Davis has his first hit with "We Sat Beneath the Maple on the Hill", making him the first African American songwriter to succeed in Tin Pan Alley.Southern, pg. 242 Patrick Gilmore's Twenty-Second Regimental Band becomes the first fully professional ensemble of any kind in the country to be engaged in performances full-time, year-round.Hansen, pg. 223

1881 Henry Lee Higginson forms the Boston Symphony Orchestra; Higginson would personally run the Orchestra for almost four decades.Crawford, pg. 311 The Thomas B. Harms music publishing company is established solely to publish popular music, then referring to parlor music.Cockrell, Dale and Andrew M. Zinck, "Popular Music of the Parlor and Stage", pgs. 179–201, in the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Tony Pastor becomes an established theater owner on 14th Street in New York City, where he becomes the first person "to bid... for women customers in the variety theater", bringing that field out of "disreputable saloons" and transforming it "into decent entertainment that respectable women could enjoy".Chase, pgs. 363–364Hansen, pg. 233

1882 Theodore Baker's Über die Musik de nordamerikanischen Wilden is the first scholarly work to study Native American music;Crawford, pg. 383Chase, pg. 395 calls it the "first quasi-scientific treatise on North American Indian music".Levine, pg. xxxvNicholls, pg. 28 It is Baker's doctoral dissertation, on Seneca music, at the University of Leipzig. The Fisk University Jubilee Singers become the first black choir to perform at the White House, at the invitation of President Chester A. Arthur.President Bush Honors Black Music Month A chorded zither called the autoharp is patented in the United States.Seeger, Anthony and Paul Théberg, "Technology and Media", pgs. 235–249, in the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Rev. Marshall W. Taylor's Plantation Melodies, Book of Negro Folk Songs becomes the first collection of spiritual, put together by an African American.Darden, pg. 126 The Bethany Oratorio Society is formed in Lindsborg, Kansas, where a famous annual Easter performance of Handel's Messiah is shown today.Burk, Meierhoff and Phillips, pg. 183 The Chinese Exclusion Act greatly limits the immigration of Chinese people to the United States, amid a wave of anti-Chinese sentiment, leading to a reduction in Chinese musical practices. Yiddish theatre begins its period of greatest popularity and influence.Heskes, pg. 86

Mid-1880s music trendsThe Office of Indian Affairs outlaws a wide range of Native American customs and rituals, having begun with the Sun Dance in 1880. Norwegian American choirs begin to form organizations, putting together festivals and other periodic gatherings to celebrate Norwegian culture and music.

1883 The Metropolitan Opera opens in New York City.Crawford, pg. 525Burk, Meierhoff and Phillips, pg. 229 C. C. Perkins and J. S. Dwight publish the first history of a musical society in the United States, that of the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston.Blum, Stephen. "Sources, Scholarship and Historiography" in the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, pgs. 21–37 John Slocum, who began preaching revelations the year before, is seen as being healed by his wife Mary's prayers; the Slocums' followers come to create the Shaker Church, of which music is an integral part. F. L. Ritter publishes the first comprehensive music history of the United States, Music in America. The Freeman, an Indianapolis, Indiana-based periodical, is founded, soon becoming the primary trade paper for African American theatrical groups.Southern, pg. 237 Gretsch becomes the first drum manufacturer in the United States. J. S. Putnam's "New Coon in Town" is one of the first hit coon songs to be published.Clarke, pg. 62

1884 The first "thorough representations of German opera" in the United States are held at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, with Tannhäuser.Elson, pg. 116 The first "normal school for the preparation of music teachers" is established by Julia Ettie Crane in Potsdam, New York.Campbell, Patricia Sheehan and Rita Klinger, "Learning", pgs. 274–287, in the Garland Encyclopedia of World MusicBirge, pg. 139 Japanese immigration to the United States increases considerably following the legalization of labor emigration in Japan. The first summer training course for exclusively music teachers is held in Lexington, Massachusetts.Birge, pg. 133

1885 Charles Fletcher Lummis begins one of the earliest collections of Spanish folk songs soon after he arrives in Los Angeles.Crawford, pg. 437 M. Wittmark and Sons is formed to focus exclusively on publishing popular parlor music. A Hawaiian schoolboy named Joseph Kekuku is credited with inventing the Hawaiian guitar, in which strings are melodically picked and stopped by a metal bar, with the guitar held across the lap.Koskoff, pg. 130 Scott Joplin arrives in St. Louis, Missouri and soon becomes a fixture at the Silver Dollar Saloon, beginning his career which will put "his creative stamp on that great body of music that came to be known as classic ragtime".Chase, pg. 415; Chase indicates that the year, 1885, is approximate.Southern, pg. 324; Southern does not refer to any ambiguity in the year of Joplin's arrival in St. Louis. The Saloon is owned by John Turpin, an important patron of ragtime whose son, Thomas Million Turpin is known as the "Father of St. Louis Ragtime".Southern, pgs. 324–325 The Chicago Music Company releases the first opera by an American woman to be published, The Joust, Or, The Tournament, by G. EstabrookKirk, pg. 386 The Anglo-Canadian Music Publishers' Association is formed to protect the copyrights of European music publishers.

1886 (Approximate) Wovoka, a medicine man of the Northern Paiute, articulates the messianic message of the Ghost Dance spiritual movement, which fused Christian (particularly Presbyterian and Mormon) teachings with those of Wovoka's father, Ta'vibo, which revolved around traditionalism and resurrection. Several Swedish American choirs join together to form the Union of Scandinavian Singers, which becomes a major part of the Swedish American music industry. John Philip Sousa's "The Gladiator March" sells more than a million copies, marking a turning point in his career.Chase, pg. 323 The principal international agreement on copyright, the Berne Convention, is signed; the United States will not sign until 1989.

1887 The Dawes Act establishes the reservation system and distributes land to Native American families, destroying the traditional social setup of many indigenous cultures, leading to a reduction in traditional music and dance. Emile Berliner invents the first disc recording method and the gramophone.Southern, pg. 309 Abraham Goldfaden, the father of Yiddish theater, immigrates to New York City.Heskes, pg. 75 Wax cylinders replace tinfoil as a recording medium.

1888 Late 1880s music trendsThe Metropolitan Opera becomes financially solvent as it specializes in German opera. The modern form of Native American powwow traditions begin to evolve.

The American Folklore Society is formed, modeled after the Folklore Society of Britain, and dedicated to gathering and publishing the folk songs and stories of North America.Crawford, pg. 604Malone and Stricklin, pg. 29 Arthur W. Foote's The Wreck of the Hesperus is, along with his The Skeleton in Armor (1893), "regarded as a culmination of the long productive tradition of the dramatic cantata in America".Chase, pg. 383

1889 Antoni Mallek forms the Polish Singers Alliance, an influential national Polish American organization.Greene, pg. 97 The composer Edward McDowell premiers his Piano Concerto No. 2 in New York, establishing him as one of the most prominent composers of the era.Crawford, pg. 373 W. S. B. Matthews' A Hundred Years of Music in America is the first attempt at a history of "popular and the higher music education" in the country; it hails Lowell Mason as the founder of American music. The first African American woman to compose a produced opera is Louisa Melvin Delos Mars, with Leoni, the Gypsy Queen. She is also one of the three women who each became the first to have an operetta they composed produced, along with Emma Marcy Raymond's Dovetta and Emma Roberts Steiner's Fleurette. John Philip Sousa's "The Washington Post" establishes his reputation as the country's foremost composer of marches.Chase, pg. 324 Ethnologist J. Walter Fewkes becomes the first to use a phonograph, a treadle-run machine, to record Native American music and speechChase, pg. 398 Harriett Gibbs Marshall becomes the first African American woman to graduate with a degree in music from Oberlin College. She will go on to found the Washington Conservatory of Music.Southern, pg. 288 Louis Glass installs a coin-operated phonograph in a saloon in San Francisco, the first predecessor of the jukebox. Columbia Records releases the first catalog of recordings, consisting of ten pages worth of cylinder recordings. The catalog is intended primarily for jukeboxes.

1890 An era that has been called a "golden age" begins, centered around a group of composers in Boston including John Knowles Paine, Horatio Parker, George Whitefield Chadwick, Arthur Foote and Amy Beach. This group is variously called the Second New England School, the Boston Classicists or the Boston AcademicsCrawford, pg. 352 Native American music is recorded for the first time.Crawford, pg. 389 The Tin Pan Alley neighborhood begins to form in New York City, and Oliver Ditson & Co. becomes the most prominent music publisher of the era.Crawford, pg. 471 A Trip to Chinatown is a historical theatrical production, running for a record 657 performances. Jesse Walter Fewkes makes the first musical field recordings, specifically of Passamaquoddy songs and stories, performed in Calais, Maine by Peter Selmore and Noel Josephs. The Ghost Dance, a Native American spiritual movement, of which music and dance were integral parts, is banned after the Wounded Knee Massacre. Sam Jacks' Creole Burlesque Company opens in New York, and is a popular novelty act, unusual for a time in that the cast includes both men and women, and the show's format is more variety than minstrel show.Southern, pg. 301 Samuel W. Cole leads what is probably the first high school production of a full oratorio in the country.Birge, pg. 142

1891 George Washington Johnson became the first African-American to make commercial records. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra forms, with income from backers who pledged $1000 for each of three years. The backers formed an Orchestral Association, which hired a music director. Many cities subsequently used the same model, including Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Minneapolis. Leopold Vincent publishes the Alliance and Labor Songster, a pioneering early collection of labor songs.Crawford, pg. 449 Carnegie Hall is built in New York City as a venue for classical performances.Crawford, pg. 497 It will become the foremost concert stage in the city.Bird, pg. 133 Changes in copyright law under the International Copyright Act of 1891 make it impossible to publish foreign music without payment to the original composer or publisher.Sanjek, David and Will Straw, "The Music Industry", pgs. 256–267, in the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music This stimulates the establishment of American subsidiaries of foreign publishing companies.