Above: unidentified pianists of the last century, c. 1910.

   For most of the 1800s, having a piano in one's parlor was a symbol of family prosperity, but it required a daughter, a wife, an aunt, or a sister to play it, for the piano was considered a "woman's" instrument, and few men willingly approached the keys; the men who did most likely had mothers or aunts who taught piano and insisted they learn the classics. Then came the ragtime era. Men, along with many a young lady, began to discover the thrill and challenge of playing ragtime piano. Concurrently, sheet music publishing was becoming a highly profitable industry. New and exciting musical jobs were opening for virtually anyone who could sight-read, transpose, and play piano well. Salesclerks were needed to promote and demonstrate the publishers' latest tunes at the piano in department stores and music shops. Accomplished pianists were needed in the publishers' offices to introduce vaudeville stars to new materials and rearrange or transpose the songs to suit each performer's style and range. Others were hired to promote the publishers' latest "plug" songs via song-slide productions, silent film accompaniments, piano roll recordings, and the like. Who were the best qualified for these jobs? Women, and many of the composers listed below got their start in such professions. Women also populated the teaching staffs in the numerous branches of The Christensen School of Popular Music and similar institutions. Women ensured that even the smallest town in the U.S.A. had a music teacher, and women were the most likely to purchase sheet music to play at home on the piano. In 1906 veteran lyricist Harry Williams advised would-be tunesmiths to "be sure to have some little love theme running through the story[because] the popular music business, to a large extent, is kept alive by young women from fifteen to twenty-five years of age." [American Musician and Art Journal, Aug. 28, 1906, page 7.] Fortunately many of those young women were enamored with ragtime and contributed their share to its popularity and development. What follows are the composers we know about.

Following is an excerpt of the "A" portion of the lexicon; the remainder of the article, from B-Z, appears in our issue.

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