This thesis examines Charles Willson Peale’s utilization of visual metaphors within his founding institution, The Philadelphia Museum. After establishing himself as a portrait painter, it became second nature for Peale to employ an aesthetic approach when developing museum exhibits and programs. Throughout his practices he continuously used imagery and objects to represent broader fields of research, along with his views as a naturalist and American patriot. By using these allegorical forms to arouse the public’s curiosity, he was able to attract more visitors to his museum and subsequently draw them into the learning process. / text

Dissertation (D.M.A.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed May 28, 2009). Advisor: Andrew Harley; submitted to the School of Music Includes bibliographical references.

Philadelphia has been a renowned center for musical development since the American Revolution. The city continues to produce influential composers who elevate the cultural tapestry of American art music. Women composers in Philadelphia have been writing innovative vocal music since the eighteenth century, including patriotic songs, children's songs, folk songs, parlor songs, musical farces, operettas, operas, cantatas, choral music, sacred music, art songs, and chamber music. The introduction of this monograph illuminates the lineage of a selected group of Philadelphian women composers. This includes biographical sketches, musical examples of their works, and a summary of their contributions, giving an inspiring account of their outstanding talent. An increasing number of women composers are producing large-scale vocal works including orchestral choral works and operas. Art songs, however, accompanied by piano or in collaboration with a variety of instruments, continue to be an integral part of the output of contemporary women composers. Solo vocal art song collaboration is popular, and rightly so, for several reasons. The result of using a combination of instruments not only creates multi-textural sonorities, but also allows for “conversation” among the different performers. Secondly, composers can assign an instrument to be played in a particular fashion to create a specific atmosphere. Thirdly, art song is an intimate medium that does not require a large performance venue, so the cost is minimal. Also, there is a theatrical element in ensemble art song that pleases the audience as they experience the collaboration between the musicians as they interact with one another. Finally, in today’s technologically advanced society there are more opportunities for ways of expression through various kinds of multimedia. Internationally acclaimed Philadelphia composer Andrea Clearfield has composed a large body of vocal works. She has written many arrangements of art song for a variety of voice types in collaboration with selected instruments. Her chamber work, A reminiscence sing for soprano, clarinet, and piano, is set to Walt Whitman’s “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” from his collection of twelve poems, Leaves of Grass (1855). The musical setting captures the essence of the American Romantic poet Walt Whitman, whose works celebrate nature, unity, and humanity. Through musical and textual analysis, I aim to offer performance goals for the singer. These include maintaining keen intonation while navigating dissonant open intervals, communication with the clarinetist throughout the work, and using Clearfield’s organized architecture of form to the utmost advantage to reveal the complex symbolism of Whitman’s poem. Pulitzer Prize-winning and three-time Grammy winner Jennifer Higdon composes music that creates a kaleidoscope of textures. Her chamber work for soprano, violin, cello, and piano, Love Sweet, comprises five poems by Imagist poet Amy Lowell. I intend to reveal how Higdon’s skillful use of prosody creates the images that Lowell expresses in her poetry. This skill ultimately aids the singer in successfully relaying the text. Higdon uses extended jazz harmonies, strong rhythmic motifs, and dampened string technique in the piano to provide the cycle’s cohesiveness. The city of Philadelphia has a rich musical heritage, to which women composers have contributed a great deal. As new vocal works composed by Philadelphia women continue to be an integral part of the mainstream classical repertoire, we must invest time and scholarship in understanding, performing, and teaching these new works. By studying the lineage of women composers in Philadelphia, one can learn about the significance of the city’s cultural landscape and discover the opportunities available to young composers. Through careful musical and poetic analysis, focusing on performance and interpretive strategies for collaborative art songs by Andrea Clearfield and Jennifer Higdon, I aim to prove these works accessible, enlightening, and fulfilling for performers and audiences alike. / Music Performance

During an era when the Seminoles were little regarded in Florida, despite mass Indian reform nationwide, Minnie Moore-Willson of Kissimmee and Ivy Stranahan of Fort Lauderdale attempted to bring reform to the state. Living amongst members of the tribe, both women used their familiarity with Seminole life and practices, as well as their political and social connections, to enact change for the tribe. This was done, respectively, through the creation of reservations and attempting to increase educational and vocational opportunities for tribe members. This thesis examines the lives and activism of Minnie Moore-Willson and Ivy Stranahan over the first two decades of the twentieth century and details their attempts to reform federal and state policies towards Seminoles in Florida. It illustrates the relationships of the women with each other, the Seminoles, and political power brokers in early twentieth century Florida, and attempts to determine their motivations. In doing so, the thesis argues that, though often ignored in the historiography of Seminoles in Florida, these women served as key figures in enacting Seminole-related reforms during the era. Examining Moore-Willson and Stranahan's lives and works affords a greater understanding of how non-Seminole women conceptualized and carried out Florida reform efforts and provides a new perspective for evaluating the early stages of Florida Seminole reform and comparable efforts in other areas of the United States.

This dissertation investigates the ways in which Philadelphia artists and architects visualized, comprehended, and reformed the city's rapidly changing urban environment in the early republic, prior to the modern articulation of "ecology" as a scientific concept by late nineteenth-century naturalists such as Ernst Haeckel. I consider a variety of different media--including popular depictions and manifestations of Penn's Treaty Elm, fireplace and stove models by Charles Willson Peale, architectural designs for the Philadelphia Waterworks by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, and a self-portrait bust by the sculptor William Rush--in order to demonstrate that the human body served as a powerful creative metaphor in Philadelphia circa 1800, not only for understanding and representing natural processes in political or aesthetic terms, but also for framing critical public discourse about the city's actual environmental conditions. Specifically, I reveal how this metaphorical framework produced a variety of effects in art and architecture of the period, sometimes facilitating and at other times obscuring an understanding about the natural world as an arena of dynamic transformation. By revealing the previously unexplored environmental significance of the objects in question, my dissertation asserts that ecological change played an instrumental role in shaping artistic production and urban development in the decades following United States independence. / Art History

This investigation was based on a production performed by the Irving, Texas, Community Theatre in March, 1978, directed by the author of this thesis. The paper concerned the problems of producing a play under adverse conditions, such as lack of money, inadequate technical equipment, and a small stage. Chapter I included an investigation of the reviews of the original production in order to establish criteria by which to judge the Irving production. Chapters II and III dealth with varied technical aspects and their application under the adverse conditions. Examples of the technical factors were included in Chapter IV, with a scene synopsis. Chapter V contained a primarily favorable analysis based on the critic's and the audience's judgments, indicating most production elements to be successful.