CHAPTER VI
1875-1890
The period of fifteen years from 1875 to 1890 was most certainly a period of progress. Not only was the country growing rapidly in population and wealth, but means of communication were much greater and more efficient than in the preceding years. The present writer well remembers a journey from San Francisco to St. Louis, and on to Boston in 1878, when there was one single track railroad between Oakland and Omaha. Cheyenne consisted of two rows of primitive looking wooden houses, behind which were "anchored" many emigrants' wagons, or "prairie schooners" as they were called. Only a few years later (in the early eighties) Colonel Mapleson visited Cheyenne with his opera company, which included Patti and Gerster, and wrote thus of the place: "Although Cheyenne is but a little town, consisting of about two streets, it possesses a most refined society, composed, it is true, of cow-boys; yet one might have imagined oneself at the London Opera when the curtain rose,—the ladies in brilliant toilettes and covered with diamonds; the gentlemen all in evening dress. The entire little town is lighted by electricity. The club-house is one of the pleasantest I have ever visited, and the people are most hospitable."
This account reminds the writer of a visit, not so many years ago, to Oklahoma City where the ladies resembled those of Cheyenne. There was, however, but one gentleman, within the writer's range of vision, in evening dress. And when Mapleson visited Cheyenne Oklahoma was an Indian reservation. Thus has civilization advanced.
In 1875 San Francisco was already a good-sized city, but almost the whole country between San Francisco and Chicago and St. Louis has been developed since 1875.
In San Francisco we find the establishment of the "Loring Club" in 1877. But good music was getting its roots in deeper in the East. In New York the "Symphony Society" was founded by Dr. Leopold Damrosch in 1878, and was followed in 1881 by the "Boston Symphony Orchestra," which was established through the liberality of Major Henry L. Higginson.
"The Music Teachers' National Association" was also formed in 1876, and while it is not in the public eye in the way that opera and concerts are, yet its influence throughout the land has been very marked, and has led to state associations, with their annual conferences, and exchanges of views among teachers.
In the concert world we find the names of several celebrities,—Rubinstein had visited America in 1872, and Hans von Bülow in 1875, Moritz Rosenthal in 1888, and Godowski in 1890. We find also among the noted pianists who were first known here in this period Arabella Goddard, Rafael Joseffy, Fanny Bloomfield-Zeisler and Josef Hofmann.
Some noted violinists also visited America, August Wilhelmj in 1878, Ovide Musin, Teresina Tua, and in 1888 Fritz Kreisler. But perhaps the most noteworthy event was the appearance of Maud Powell, an American woman, whose career placed her in the front rank of violinists, and has but recently ended with her death.