Music Library Blog

LOCAL ARCHIVES, GLOBAL HISTORY: POST 8 BY EMMA WIMBERG

While Dr. Helen Hewitt was on her Guggenheim Fellowship in Paris, Hewitt’s mother, worried about Hewitt and how her time was going, wrote to her from the states to ask if she had found a women’s group with which to engage. Hewitt replied: 

“I asked [a French colleague] about women’s societies; and he said they had a group of women who met to sew, etc., Tuesday afternoons at the church. Mother, do you really think I should take more afternoons off for this sort of thing, when I have so much to do? It does seem as though there are enough women who have nothing to do afternoons who can take care of such matters. I feel as though my time should be spent where it will do the most good – – in my own work.” 

Hewitt was firm in her conviction about what she wanted in life: to establish herself as an organist and as a musicologist, making materials more accessible for others to study while publishing her own contributions to the field. She did not let the ideas about what a woman should be doing impact what she was going to do. This conviction—and the respect she earned through her work and actions—extended past musicology and into performance. During her time as a professor, Hewitt taught musicology classes and organ lessons. She studied under many famous organ teachers and was an incredible player in her own right, being highly sought after as an organist. This post will explore Hewitt’s reputation among performers and her dedication to the organ, and specifically to the organ studio at NTSU, its students, and the instrument the auditorium houses. This last point would eventually place Hewitt in a difficult position, where speaking her mind in the interest of attaining the best possible instrument for the university caused the Möller organ building company to consider filing a lawsuit against her for defamation. 

In the mid-twentieth century, French organists commonly toured America to showcase their talent, which allowed Hewitt to forge a strong friendship with the famed organist and composer Jean Langlais. During one visit to Hewitt’s Denton residence, Langlais spent many hours playing with Hewitt’s cat, Lady Quintadina, named after an organ stop and her kittens. He became infatuated with them and not only remembered to call on the cat’s birthday, Valentine’s Day, but also wrote a piece inspired by the Lady and dedicated it to Hewitt. The movement in his American Suite was thus titled Scherzo: Cats and was first performed before its publication on the Möller organ in the North Texas State University auditorium that Hewitt herself had worked so hard to improve. 

Figure 1: Newspaper clipping captioned “The Lady and the Cat.” University of North Texas Music Special Collections. Helen M. Hewitt Papers, 1887-1976, Series 1: Papers, Box 428, Folder 5. 

The story of Hewitt and the Möller organ began not long after her hiring at the university. There were few organs on campus and 50 organ students. Hewitt began trying to shift the studio to be smaller and more focused, and for these changes to take hold the students needed a quality instrument with which to work. In the mid-1940s Hewitt started asking for a budget to fix the Möller organ in the auditorium, the only performance instrument used during her tenure. However, the dean at the time was more focused on furthering the vocal department rather than the instrumental one, and had turned down the previously proposed repair contract even after it had been looked over by Möller. Once Hewitt left on her Guggenheim to Paris, the dean’s retirement and the department’s regime change brought instrumental music up the ladder of priorities. The new acting dean, Dr. Walter Hodgson, who later became the dean, immediately sought out Möller to finalize a contract for the construction of a new organ console. 

In March of 1948, the university signed a final contract with Möller Co. for $26,400 worth of work to be done on the new organ, including a new console, new stops, and general repairs. Hewitt remained very hands-on throughout the entirety of the re-build. She constantly gave her input on what stops she wanted included and how she wanted the instrument to sound upon completion. Correspondence from Hewitt lists specific requests she had for the instrument, requests that were not all filled. 

Just as construction on the organ came to a close in March of 1949, Hewitt fell ill and privately sought treatment for her ailment. During this time, there is a sizable gap in her usual letter-writing habits to the point where there are many letters from her close friends inquiring as to if she is angry with them because they had received no reply to subsequent letters over the course of a few months. This gap leaves much to be wondered concerning the final implementation of the organ and Hewitt’s relationship with the builder. 

If Hewitt was such a highly respected and loved figure among the university’s music department, then why did Dean Hodgson receive a disgruntled letter about her from a well-known organ company? There is documentation of Möller considering legal action against Hewitt, but why? Many of the letters between the two concerning her displeasure are not recorded in our archives, but there is mention of the feelings the two parties had for one another. Walter Hodgson, the dean who had overseen the project, wrote to Hewitt about a disgruntled letter he had received from the Möller company (see figure 2). It reads: 

Dear Hellen:

I am sorry too have to bother you with another letter right now, but I received quite a long letter from Möller, air-mail, special delivery, dated June 24, and I think that is quite important.

Ten days ago Mr. Schleigh came with an assistant and was here for four days. He is Fort Worth now so that we could get him again on certain occasions. He got the organ in fine shape for Stanley’s recital. (By the way, I turned in a card to change the “x” for Stanley’s recital to an “A” which I understood what you thought was right.) Now I have this letter from Ridgely in which he says that several churches which are prospects for large organs have been in touch with you and that you have given them negative reports regarding their work at the college. “There is one prospects in particular, the First Baptist Church at Lubbock, that is buying quite a large organ and the member of the committee, Mrs. Akinson, contacted Dr. Hewitt and received quite a negative report.”

Now I’ll ask Robert to write you regarding the voicing of the organ that Mr. Schleigh undertook. What I wonder is whether or not, in view of that, if we had better write saying that the organ has been improved. In other words, I think that we might do some harm by being too critical. You see, I wrote a very strong letter to W. R. Daniels, vice-president of Möller and received quite a long and conciliatory letter from his, and Mr. Schleigh arrived two days later.

In any case I wanted to let your know of Ridgely’s letter. He indicates that they are strongly on the defensive now and feel that they have done enough that we ought to be grateful. 

Let me know what you think. With affectionate regards from the whole family.

 

Very sincerely,

Walter H. Hodgson, Dean

School of Music

Figure 2: Letter from Walter H. Hodgson to Helen M. Hewitt. University of North Texas Music Special Collections. Helen M. Hewitt Papers, 1887-1976, Series 1: Papers, Box 420, Folder 8. 

This letter conveys a friendly scolding tone, where the dean does not truly reprimand Hewitt for her freedom in giving a negative coloring of her interaction with Möller, but gently tries to warn her of the current situation whilst trying to help figure out how to get the situation resolved. He also makes it clear that he has sent a strong letter of his own and that they are in this together. 

The next important part of this letter is that Dr. Hewitt did not go around spreading a bad coloring of Möller and their work. Rather, she was asked her opinion, and she gave an honest response. Hewitt had worked hard to gain the respect she had in the musicology and organist communities, and part of this meant being trusted to give sound, honest insight to problems and questions that others had. It would have been incredibly out of character for her to take this opportunity to forge a stronger bond with Möller by recommending them to everyone against her better judgement. 

It is also possible that Hewitt’s displeasure with Möller’s services could be from the poor conditions they left the school with while the organ was away being reconstructed. The first practice organ they left in its place began giving the school trouble, and scheduling the time to put a new substitute instrument in the auditorium was a nightmare as well. All of this, while the studio filled capacity at around 50 students. While much remains to be explored on this matter, it is clear that Hewitt wanted to make sure her organ students had an instrument of high caliber on which they could perform, and intended to make this need heard. 

Local Archives, Global History: Post 6 By Matt Darnold

This two-part series will first demonstrate Dr. Helen Hewitt’s commanding place as a woman in musicology, taking a special interest in her time in Paris, which was an integral part of the shaping of the UNT Music Library as it is known today. The second post will chronicle Hewitt’s relationships as a performing organist, and her dedication to UNT’s auditorium organ that almost caused her some legal trouble. Throughout both, one will readily see the lasting impression Hewitt has had on the university and on the field of musicology as a whole. She maintained a number of personal and professional connections across several academic fields and as a result, wielded a degree of influence and reverence that women have not been reflected as having in most histories of academia or musicology as a discipline. Hewitt made a name for herself during American musicology’s early years, and her letters demonstrate that success and her role as a helpful and kind scholar who was a resource to her university and her discipline. 

Portrait of Dr. Helen Hewitt.

“Dr. Helen Hewitt… is one of the outstanding scholars of the faculty and has made her influence felt far beyond the confines of the School of Music or even of the college. Two years ago she was President of this chapter of AAUP (American Association of University Professors). She has held many offices in our local chapter of AAUW (American Association of University Women). She is the perennial Chairman of the Graduate Music Committee… She has been nominated for presidency of the AMS for this next year.”

This quote from Dean Walter Hodgson to the Vassar College Vocational Bureau comes from the various correspondences found in the University of North Texas Helen Hewitt Paper Collection. It characterizes Hewitt as an influential and involved scholar who even during early years at UNT was making a name for herself both in her department as well as the field of musicology. Hewitt’s robust correspondence reveals that her knowledge and expertise was sought in the field. There are several letters asking her opinion on anything, from doctoral students, whom she had never met, manuscript transcriptions, to personal friends asking for her thoughts on other scholars who were being considered for university positions across the country. 

One correspondence that is particularly telling of Hewitt’s influence took place between herself and Hodgson from Fall 1947 to Summer 1948, which coincided with her Guggenheim Fellowship in Paris. Hewitt, at this time, was just being made a full professor in the School of Music at the North Texas State Teacher’s College, later to be known as the University of North Texas, where she had taught since 1942 while finishing her dissertation. These letters contain a mixture of personal and professional details ranging from concerns about the organ studio and the next year’s course schedule, to her living arrangements in Denton and membership in the French Musicological Society as a “foreign member.” Hodgson and Hewitt seemed to have a warm working relationship. Hodgson turned to her with a number of concerns and ideas. Hewitt wrote in a May 1948 letter that she “never wanted nor sought an administrative position… because [she] dislike[d] making judgments of even the most trifling consequences.” She had no problem, however, voicing her opinion on any and all matters in her letters to Hodgson. In the same letter she voices her concerns about the organ studio’s size, hoping to reduce it from 50 to 10 students. This correspondence is also one of the few in which we have Hewitt’s letters along with those she received, allowing us to recapture some essence of Hewitt’s own voice rather than just those who wrote to her. 

The highlight of Hewitt’s Paris letters is perhaps when Hodgson tasks her with scouring second-hand book stores in Paris for material to fill the school’s expanding Music Library, especially its organ collection. This quickly became a more general search for music, from opera scores to reference material, such as the well-known works of nineteenth-century Belgian musicologist and critic François Fétis. Hewitt seemed to embrace this task hardily, based on the enthusiasm displayed in some of her early letters, or she at least took it on eagerly as a young professor who was still establishing herself in her position at NTSC. A notable amount of money was granted to the Music Library at this time with around $700 eventually being sent to Hewitt in various installments to cover purchasing costs. There are also lists of the materials she acquired and shipped back to north Texas that likely remain in the library to the present. 

Hewitt became weary of this undertaking as time passed. In a March 1948 letter She sent an “S.O.S” in which she strongly tells Hodgson to get his “library committee together,” so she knew what books and scores to secure as she felt “uncertain” in making these decisions herself. She also forwarded a great deal of information on several possible purchases that would in her opinion benefit the library, such as three volumes of Couperin’s Pieces de Clavecin, all the volumes issued by the French Musicological Society, or “the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book.” Around April 1948, Hodgson recommended that Dr. Doty of the University of Texas write to Hewitt for “a list of musicological items that NTSC was not going to purchase.” Hewitt showed her frustration to Hodgson in her response to him written on April 13, 1948 in which she chides him for not just crossing off the items of her previous list and sending it to Dr. Doty and says that “he can write them directly if he wants.” Here we find Hewitt in a relatable situation as a person overwhelmed by professional responsibilities while attempting to complete her own research, showing us that although she was a renowned and accomplished researcher and educator and this work helped to advance the school’s music library, academia had a number of challenges and obstacles that we still find today in the way of young scholars. 

Despite these early obstacles, Helen Hewitt was determined to fight for the best possible education for both her musicology and organ students. As an organ professor, she oversaw the maintenance and specifications of the school’s organ even during her research in Paris. In 1947, Hewitt received a phone call from Denton, which at the time was quite an undertaking, concerning the organ in the main auditorium. Hewitt had long indicated the need for a new organ console, and while in Paris, she corresponded with Dean Hodgson to guide the school’s negotiation and approval of a repair contract with the Möller organ company. This project awaited upon her return to Denton and presented many of its own unanticipated challenges for Hewitt as she established herself at NTSU. 

Editor’s note: Stay tuned for more research on Hellen Hewitt in the next post by Emma Wimberg. 

Citation:

[Dr. Helen Hewitt], photograph, 19XX; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc977101/: accessed April 12, 2022), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.

Local Archives, Global History: Post 5 by Anna Wodny

Image 1. Letter from Pauline Cianciolo dated 13 December 1972 (Box 26)

Image 2. Letter from Marion Dittman dated 22 April 1969 (Box 12)

Image 3. Letter from Catherine Miller dated 28 December 1951 (Box 12)

Image 4. Postcard from Harriet Nicewonger dated 29 June 1969 (Box 11)

 

Heyer’s community connections to UNT also ran deep, and her library colleagues clearly valued her for more than her professional competencies. For many years, Heyer was the face of the music library, and her skillful guidance in its formative years paved the way for its present-day success. It is therefore no coincidence that events celebrating the music library’s twenty-five year anniversary overlapped with events honoring Heyer’s retirement. Within the Heyer collection, it is sometimes difficult to tell which items are tied to general library events and which pertain specifically to Heyer’s career—the two were practically inseparable in the minds of the UNT music community. Unquestionably the most memorable item that I came across during my research, a custom, Mardi-gras-esque bracelet commemorates Heyer’s years of service and the music library’s active years (Image 5). The engraving on the back of the pendant reads: “Music Librarian, NTSU, 1940–1965.” Although the quality and age of the accompanying photographs make it difficult to tell for certain, I believe that this picture, taken in 1965 at Heyer’s retirement luncheon, captures the moment of the gift’s exchange (Image 6). Following her retirement from UNT, Heyer relocated to Fort Worth but continued her library work by assisting Texas Christian University, her Alma Mater, with its music collection development, much as she had done for UNT. 

Image 5. Bracelet commemorating Heyer’s twenty-five years as NTSU’s music librarian, 1965 (Box 12)

Image 6. Photograph of Heyer taken at her retirement luncheon, possibly accepting the bracelet, 1965 (Box 12)

Image 7. Several pages from Heyer’s fiftieth anniversary curation planning, undated (Box 22)

Image 8. Cover and inside of UNT’s fiftieth anniversary reception invitations, 1991 (Box 22)

 

While many of Heyer’s friendships stemmed from professional connections, she also found time to maintain outside interests. She was an avid hand weaver and an active member of the Contemporary Hand Weavers of Texas Association, even serving as their vice president for several years. Perhaps her most tangible contribution to this community was the Index that she complied in 1962. It served as a guide to all articles printed in the Contemporary Hand Weavers’ newsletters between 1949 and 1961, its intent being to help new members quickly locate information relevant to their specific interests (Image 9). The guide’s formatting resembles the second edition of Historical Sets, which Heyer worked on concurrently. In this way, a touch of the professional crossed over to the personal (Image 10).

Image 9. Cover and page 1 of Heyer’s Contemporary Hand Weavers of Texas Newsletter Index, 1962 (Box 10)

Image 10. Page 7 of Historical Sets, Collected Editions, and Monuments of Music, Second Edition (Heyer, 1969)

 

“Isolated Pioneer” may be a fitting title for Anna Harriet Heyer in some contexts, but it does not adequately summarize the profound impact of her life and work. Despite the distance, Heyer connected many librarians across the country as she worked to increase knowledge and circulation of musical materials. Whether local or national, Heyer was an integral and beloved member of many communities, sometimes blurring the line between personal and professional commitments. Heyer’s thoughtful attention to individuals and dedication to realizing group goals are the threads that connect each of her relationships, demonstrating that her strength was truly one of numbers.