Eva Augusta Vescelius: Life and Music Career Before 1900

Abstract

Abstract Eva Augusta Vescelius was a prominent woman who contributed to the development of music therapy practice in the United States. From the turn of the twentieth century, she worked to establish the use of music for health, starting with her first public paper presentation in 1900. Vescelius was the first known person in the United States to collectively experiment on the effects of music and health, establish a music therapy practice, found the first music therapy association, and disseminate the first journal dedicated to music therapy. Little is known about Vescelius’s lifetime of experiences before 1900 that contributed to her mark on the development of music therapy. Furthermore, the dominant historical narrative of the professionalization process of music therapy in the United States, which was formally organized nearly a half a century after Vescelius began advocating, has not fully considered the contributions of Vescelius and other founding women. The purpose of this historical study was to expand knowledge about Vescelius’s life before 1900 and what contributed to her career transition as a professional vocalist. The analysis of primary and secondary sources contributed to the development of the presented biography. Results demonstrate the viability of historical research across the entire continuum of music therapy development and provide an expanded narrative of an important female founder. Ongoing historical research about founding women music therapists is needed in order to counter the existing dominant historical narrative that Vescelius and other women before 1950 minimally contributed to the development of music therapy.