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Eleanor Hague

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Eleanor Hague
A white woman with short sandy hair, cut in a fringe, wearing glasses
Eleanor Hague, from a 1920 newspaper
BornOctober 7, 1875
San Francisco, California
DiedDecember 25, 1954
Flintridge, California
Occupation(s)Folklorist, musicologist, antiquarian
Parent(s)James Duncan Hague and Mary Ward Foote Hague
RelativesArthur De Wint Foote (uncle); Kate Foote Coe (aunt); Margaret Foote Hawley (cousin)

Eleanor Hague (October 7, 1875 – December 25, 1954) was an American folklorist and musicologist, who specialized in the traditional music of Latin America.

Early life and education

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"Mary and Eleanor Hague in a Hammock" (1883), drawing by their aunt, Mary Hallock Foote

Hague was born in San Francisco, California, the daughter of geologist and mining engineer James Duncan Hague and Mary Ward Foote Hague.[1] Through the Foote family, she was related to the Beechers and to many other prominent New England families. Writer Kate Foote Coe was her aunt; her uncle Arthur De Wint Foote was a noted engineer, and husband of book illustrator Mary Hallock Foote.[2] Another aunt married politician Joseph Roswell Hawley; his daughter, her first cousin Margaret Foote Hawley, was an artist.[3]

Hague studied music in New York and Massachusetts, and abroad in France and Italy.[1]

Career

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As a young woman in New York, Hague was a member of the New York Oratorio Society, and was a church choir director.[1]

Hague collected, preserved, and published folk songs from Latin America and Spanish California.[4][5] She was credited as arranger on a 1925 Victor recording of "Carmela" by Dusolina Giannini.[6] She is best known for discovering the bound manuscript notebooks of Joseph María García, an eighteenth-century Mexican dance master, who made shorthand notations about how to perform specific dance steps.[7] She also translated folksongs from Spanish to English, working with Luisa Espinel, Juan Bautista Rael, and Marion Leffingwell.[1] She sometimes performed the songs she collected, singing and playing piano or guitar.[8]

In 1932, Hague lectured on early Spanish music at the Los Angeles Public Library.[9] In the 1930s, she funded studies of Native American music, including composer Harry Partch's transcription of Charles Fletcher Lummis's wax cylinder recordings,[10] and Frances Densmore's anthropological work.[11]

Hague founded the Jarabe Club at a settlement house in Pasadena, California, to teach Mexican traditional music and dance to young people, and she directed the students' performances.[4][12][13] In 1941, she directed the Jarabe Club dancers when they performed in the National Folk Festival in Washington, D.C.[14]

Publications

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  • "Mexican Folk-Songs" (1912)[15]
  • "Brazilian Songs" (1912)[16]
  • Folk songs from Mexico and South America (1914, with Edward Kilenyi)[17]
  • "Spanish Songs from Southern California" (1914)[18]
  • "Eskimo Songs" (1915)[19]
  • "Five Mexican Dances" (1915)[20]
  • "Five Danzas from Mexico" (1915)[21]
  • Spanish-American Folk Songs (1917)[22]
  • Early Spanish-Californian folk-songs (1922, with Gertrude Ross)[23]
  • Latin-American Music Past and Present (1934)[24][25]
  • "Regional Music of Spain and Latin America" (1943)[26]

Personal life and legacy

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Hague died in 1954, at the age of 79, in Flintridge, California. She left her papers to the Southwest Museum, including the Joseph María García manuscript.[27][28] In 1996, the Children of the Hague Manuscript, an ensemble of young musicians in Atascadero, California, performed music based on the Joseph María García notes at several concerts.[29]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Koegel, John (2013). "Hague, Eleanor". Grove Music Online. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.a2283056. Retrieved March 3, 2023.
  2. ^ "The Foote Family". The North Star House. Retrieved March 3, 2023.
  3. ^ "Margaret Foote Hawley". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved March 3, 2023.
  4. ^ a b Martí, Samuel; Hague, Eleanor (1969). The Eleanor Hague Manuscript of Mexican Colonial Music. Southwest Museum.
  5. ^ Jones, Isabel Morse (May 6, 1934). "Latin American Music and Dance Lasting Inspiration". The Los Angeles Times. p. 38. Retrieved March 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ "Eleanor Hague". Discography of American Historical Recordings. Retrieved March 3, 2023.
  7. ^ "Joseph María García Manuscript: Volume 1, Eleanor Hague Collection". Los Californios: Music and Dance of Mexican-Era California. Retrieved March 3, 2023.
  8. ^ "Well-Known Authority on American Folk Songs". The Pasadena Post. October 8, 1920. p. 7. Retrieved March 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ "Pre-Bach Spanish Music Library Lecture Topic". The Los Angeles Times. March 6, 1932. p. 43. Retrieved March 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ Gilmore, Bob (January 1, 1998). Harry Partch: A Biography. Yale University Press. p. 93. ISBN 978-0-300-06521-3.
  11. ^ Jensen, Joan M.; Patterson, Michelle Wick (June 1, 2015). Travels with Frances Densmore: Her Life, Work, and Legacy in Native American Studies. U of Nebraska Press. p. 195. ISBN 978-0-8032-4873-1.
  12. ^ "Jarabe Dancers to Present Play". Pasadena Independent. October 13, 1948. p. 28. Retrieved March 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ "Jarabe dancers at Museum Sunday". The Highland Park News-Herald. March 24, 1939. p. 2. Retrieved March 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ^ Jones, Isabel Morse (April 12, 1942). "Sharps and Flats". The Los Angeles Times. p. 55. Retrieved March 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ^ Hague, Eleanor (1912). "Mexican Folk-Songs". The Journal of American Folklore. 25 (97): 261–267. doi:10.2307/534822. ISSN 0021-8715. JSTOR 534822.
  16. ^ Hague, Eleanor (1912). "Brazilian Songs". The Journal of American Folklore. 25 (96): 179–181. doi:10.2307/534810. ISSN 0021-8715. JSTOR 534810.
  17. ^ Hague, Eleanor (1914). Folk songs from Mexico and South America. New York: Gray pref.
  18. ^ Hague, Eleanor (1914). "Spanish Songs from Southern California". The Journal of American Folklore. 27 (105): 331–332. doi:10.2307/534627. ISSN 0021-8715. JSTOR 534627.
  19. ^ Hague, Eleanor (1915). "Eskimo Songs". The Journal of American Folklore. 28 (107): 96–98. doi:10.2307/534562. ISSN 0021-8715. JSTOR 534562.
  20. ^ Hague, Eleanor (1915). "Five Mexican Dances". The Journal of American Folklore. 28 (110): 379–381. doi:10.2307/534853. ISSN 0021-8715. JSTOR 534853.
  21. ^ Hague, Eleanor (1915). "Five Danzas from Mexico". The Journal of American Folklore. 28 (110): 382–389. doi:10.2307/534854. ISSN 0021-8715. JSTOR 534854.
  22. ^ Hague, Eleanor (1917). Spanish-American Folk-songs ... and New York, The American folklore society.
  23. ^ Early Spanish-Californian folk-songs, New York: J. Fischer & Bro., 1922, retrieved March 3, 2023
  24. ^ Hague, Eleanor (1934). Latin American music, past and present. Santa Ana, Calif.: The Fine arts press.
  25. ^ Corbató, Hermenegildo (March 1, 1936). "Review: Latin-American Music Past and Present, by Eleanor Hague". Pacific Historical Review. 5 (1): 84–86. doi:10.2307/3633326. ISSN 0030-8684. JSTOR 3633326.
  26. ^ Hague, Eleanor (1943). "Regional Music of Spain and Latin America". Bulletin of the American Musicological Society (7): 26. doi:10.2307/829339. ISSN 1544-4708. JSTOR 829339.
  27. ^ Russell, C. H. (2019). "The Eleanor Hague manuscript: A sampler of musical life in eighteenth-century Mexico", Inter-American Music Review 14(2), 39 – 62.
  28. ^ "Eleanor Hague Collection, album". The Autry Museum of the American West. Retrieved March 3, 2023.
  29. ^ James, Adam St (June 7, 1996). "Young musicians bring lost treasure to life". The Tribune. p. 20. Retrieved March 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
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  • Evelyn Louise McCarty, "A Performance Edition of Selected Dances from the Eleanor Hague Manuscript of Music from Colonial Mexico" (Northwestern University, D.M.A. dissertation, 1981).
  • "Marian and Eleanor Hague in a Hammock" (1883), a drawing by Mary Hallock Foote, in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery