Born into a wealthy family on November 7, 1875, Eleanor Hague studied privately in Italy and France. During the first decade of the 20th century, she was a member of the People’s Choral Union in New York (formed in 1897 by Dr. Frank Damrosch) in which she assisted in the work of instruction. Later, she directed church choirs in that same city and was a member of the New York Oratorio Society.[1]
In 1911, Hague published her first article, “Spanish-American Folk-Songs,” in the Journal of American Folklore, which, over the course of the next few years, was followed by an additional six articles that appeared in the same journal.
But from whence did this interest come?
The answer, perhaps, was articulated by one of her close friends, the violinist Elisabeth Waldo. The two had met in California during the early 1940s through the intervention of Dr. Remsen Bird, the former president of Occidental College, while Waldo was preparing a solo tour of Latin America. In fact, Hague and Waldo left for Panama on August 22, 1943.[2] Years later, in an article that appeared in Western Folklore, Waldo believed that Hague’s “feeling for folklorismo … was due to her splendid heritage…”[3] Waldo adds:
[S]he was born to distinguished parents, James D. and Mary Ward Foote Hague. … A prominent geologist and mining engineer, Mr. Hague automatically exposed his family to fields and climes far from home base. Her inherent love and feeling for peoples of all cultures motivated Eleanor Hague’s work and left its impress on all the articles and books which she authored.
In addition, Hague used her inheritance to support her research into Latin American music, particularly that of Mexico.
Her role as a pioneer of musical Pan-Americanism was firmly established in 1934 by the publication of her book, Latin American Music, Past and Present. Though mostly a historical survey of the development of folkloric musical traditions in Latin America from the Colonial period to the mid 20th century, in the fifth and final chapter of this book, “The Sophisticated Music of the Present and its Prospects,” the author provides a brief description of Latin America’s classical music and its composers from about the last third of the 19th century to about the beginning of the fourth decade of the 20th. This chapter is followed by a roughly three-page “partial list of musicians” from nearly every Latin American country.
Most authors and critics throughout the nation wrote approvingly of Hague’s book. Isabel Morse Jones, for example, the music and dance critic of the Los Angeles Times, wrote, “[s]he has made a unique contribution to the historical knowledge of the Southwest for a truer understanding of early and even present-day Latin America [which] is arrived at after studying these natural expressions of emotion.”[4] The American folklorist and newspaper columnist, James Frank Dobie, found it to be “a rarely beautiful book in format and illustration and may certainly be depended upon for scholarly information.”[5] Over a decade later, however, though Nicolas Slonimsky wrote that its ninety-eight pages “yield little specific information,” he nevertheless characterized the book as having been “sensitively written.”[6]
From about 1933 until 1947, Hague directed and funded the Jarabe Club in Pasadena, California, which was a Mexican club for singing and dancing. She also enjoyed a long association with the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles as a member of the finance committee,[7] and from 1942 until 1949 as a trustee of the organization.[8]
Consequently, for her near lifetime of work and advocacy on behalf of the music of the Americas, Eleanor Hague has rightfully earned her place as one of our most important pioneers in the field of musical Pan-Americanism.
Selected Writings
“Spanish-American Folk-Songs,” Journal of American Folklore, vol.24/93 (1911), 323–31.
“Spanish Songs from Southern California,” Journal of American Folklore, vol.27/105 (1914), 331–32.
Folk Songs from Mexico and South America, arr. E. Kilenyi (New York, 1914).
“Eskimo Songs,” Journal of American Folklore, vol. 28/107 (Jan.-Mar. 1915), 96-98.
“Five Mexican Dances,” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 28/110 (Oct.-Dec. 1915), 379-381.
“Spanish-American Folk Songs,” Memoirs of the American Folklore Society, vol.10 (1917), entire issue.
Early Spanish-Californian Folk-Songs, arr. G. Ross (New York, 1922.)
Music in Ancient Arabia and Spain (London, 1929), translation and abridgement by E. Hague and M. Leffingwell of J. Ribera y Tarragó, Historia de la música árabe medieval y su influencia en la Española (Madrid, 1927).
Latin American Music: Past and Present (Santa Ana, CA, 1934).
“Some California Songs,” Masterkey, vol.8 (1934), 15–18, 115–17.
“California Songs—III,” Masterkey, vol.11 (1937), 89–93.
“La música en California,” Anuario de la Sociedad Folklórica de México, vol.6 (1945), 83–86.
“Regional Music of Spain and Latin America,” Bulletin of the American Musicological Society, vol. 7/26, 26.
—John L. Walker
[1] Robert Stevenson, “Eleanor Hague (1875-1954) Pioneer Latin Americanist,” Musical Aesthetics and Multiculturalism in Los Angeles, ed. Steven Joseph Loza. (Los Angeles, CA: Ethnomusicology Publications, Dept. of Ethnomusicology and Systematic Musicology, UCLA, 1994), 130. The Oratorio Society was founded in 1873 by Frank Damrosch’s father, Leopold Damrosch, who was the patriarch of one of New York’s most important musical families.
[2] “Sharps and Flats,” The Los Angeles Times, 8 August 1943.
[3] Elisabeth Waldo, “Eleanor Hague (1875-1954),” Western Folklore vol. XIV/4 (Oct. 1955), 279.
[4] Isabel Morse Jones, “Latin-American Music and Dance Lasting Inspiration,” The Los Angeles Times, 6 May 1934.
[5] J. Frank Dobie, “Son-of-a-Gun Review,” Southwest Review XX/2 (January 1935), 25.
[6] Nicolas Slonimksy, Music of Latin America (New York, NY: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1945), 14.
[7] W. W. Robinson, The Story of the Southwest Museum (Los Angeles, CA: The Ward Ritchie Press, 1960), 30
[8] “Southwest Museum Re-elects President,” The Los Angeles Times, 22 January 1942.