Agnes Woodward
{{short description|American music educator and professional whistler}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Agnes Woodward
| image = AgnesWoodward1918b.png
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_name = Anna Agnes Woodward
| birth_date = January 3, 1872
| birth_place = Waterloo, New York, U.S.
| death_date = June 18, 1938
| death_place = Los Angeles, California. U.S.
| other_names =
| occupation = Music educator
}}
Agnes Woodward (January 3, 1872, Waterloo, New York — June 18, 1938, Los Angeles, California) was an American music educator and professional whistler, founder and head of the California School of Artistic Whistling in Los Angeles, California.
Early life
Anna Agnes Woodward was born in Waterloo, New York and raised in Tecumseh, Michigan,J. M. Schlitz, [http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002263333 "(Anna) Agnes Woodward"] Grove Music Online (November 2013). the daughter of Charles Meredyth Woodward and Martha (McGlashan) Woodward. Her father was a military surgeon and veteran of the American Civil War.[https://books.google.com/books?id=5flXAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22Charles+Meredyth+Woodward%22&pg=PA64 "Lieut. Col. Charles Meredyth Woodward"] Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Meeting of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States (Berlin Printing 1897): 64-66. She trained as a singer at the Detroit Conservatory of Music.Daniel H. Resneck, "Whistling Women" American Heritage (August–September 1982). Actress and screenwriter Bess Meredyth was her first cousin.Debra Ann Pawlak, [https://books.google.com/books?id=cBtbBAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Charles+Meredyth+Woodward%22&pg=PT31 Bringing Up Oscar: The Story of the Men and Women Who Founded the Academy] (Pegasus Books 2012). {{ISBN|9781605982168}}
Career
Woodward sang with the Whalom Opera Company briefly as a young woman.[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/22320002/agnes_woodward_1938/ "Miss Agnes Woodward"] Fitchburg Sentinel (July 6, 1938): 10. via Newspapers.com{{open access}} She moved to California with her widowed motherElizabeth Deuel, [https://books.google.com/books?id=cl9XsO9A0AcC&dq=Agnes+Woodward+whistling&pg=RA2-PA47 "Interesting Westerners"] Sunset Magazine (March 1921): 47. and studied birdsong[https://books.google.com/books?id=-wdRAQAAMAAJ&dq=Agnes%20Woodward%20whistling&pg=PA119 "Whistling, a Modern Art, and What a Los Angeles Woman Has Done for It"] Out West (April 1917): 119. to develop her own "Bird Method" of teaching whistling,[https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH19120919.2.27 "Whistling is Latest Fad of Society Folk"] Los Angeles Herald (September 19, 1912): 3. via California Digital Newspaper Collection{{open access}} and opened the California School of Artistic Whistling in 1909,Jessica Gelt, [http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-whistling-competition-20170907-story.html "Whistle a happy tune at the Masters of Musical Whistling competition"] Los Angeles Times (September 7, 2017). with branches later opening in Glendale, Seattle, Yakima, Chicago, and Portland. Her school's prospectus laid out her belief that "There is an art of whistling which belongs to the higher musical accomplishments, and which, in the majority of cases, falls to the lot of the young woman." Most of her students were young women, including Helen Porter, whose father was the mayor of Los Angeles.[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/22319119/agnes_woodward_1932/ "Whistlers Appear on Varied Programs"] Los Angeles Times (August 28, 1932): 52. via Newspapers.com{{open access}} But she taught men and women of all ages;[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZAscAQAAMAAJ&dq=Agnes+Woodward+whistling&pg=RA7-PA44 "Teaching Many to Whistle"] Lyceum Magazine (March 1917): 44. she trained actor John Wayne and singers Bing Crosby and Pat Boone as whistlers.Sondra Farrell Bazrod, [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-17-tm-1740-story.html "Music: She Whistles While She Works"] Los Angeles Times (February 17, 1991).
By 1916, she was managing the tours of several of her more successful students,[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZAscAQAAMAAJ&dq=Agnes+Woodward+whistling&pg=RA1-PA24 "Whistlers to Tour"] Lyceum Magazine (July 1916): 24. including Margaret Gray McKee,[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZAscAQAAMAAJ&dq=Agnes+Woodward+whistling&pg=PA26 "Canary at May Festival"] Lyceum Magazine (June 1916): 26. Gertrude Willey, Nina Kellogg, Felice Jung, Mary Louise Hand, and Shirley Irvine.[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZAscAQAAMAAJ&dq=Agnes+Woodward+whistling&pg=RA6-PA19 "Pacific Coast Whistlers Who Are Open for 1917 Engagements"] Lyceum Magazine (December 1916): 19. In 1918, Woodward and her "Forty Whistling Girls" entertained at a Red Cross benefit in Los Angeles, adding "Over There" to their program for the occasion.[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/22319285/agnes_woodward_1918/ "Red Cross Ball"], Los Angeles Times (February 10, 1918): 33. via Newspapers.com{{open access}} She wrote a textbook on the subject, Whistling as an Art, published in 1923, with later editions in 1925 and 1938.Agnes Woodward, [https://archive.org/details/WhistlingAsAnArt Whistling as an Art] (Carl Fischer Inc. 1938).
Personal life
References
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External links
- {{FadedPage|id=Woodward, Agnes|name=Agnes Woodward|author=yes}}
- Muhammad Khaliluddin, [http://claytonsahib.weebly.com/artists/agnes-woodward-the-california-school-of-artistic-whistling "Agnes Woodward and the California School of Artistic Whistling"] Phantom Empires (May 12, 2017). A blog post about Woodward, with clippings and illustrations.
- [http://collection.pasadenadigitalhistory.com/cdm/ref/collection/p15123coll2/id/264 A 1928 photograph of a recital at the Agnes Woodward School of Whistling, from the Huntington Library and the Pasadena Digital History Collaboration]
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Category:American women educators
Category:Educators from New York (state)
Category:Educators from Michigan
Category:People from Tecumseh, Michigan