Natalie Curtis Burlin: A Life in Native and African American Music (review)

Natalie Curtis (1876-1921) was a pioneering ethnomusicologist remembered at her death as "a sincere and sympathetic friend of Native Americans and African Americans" who had hoped to use music to dispel misconceptions about and improve the lives of members of both groups (5); nonetheless, Curtis was also steeped in the racialist and anti-modernist thinking of her day. In this first book-length biography of Curtis, Michelle Wick Patterson draws on a wide array of primary and secondary sources to shed light on Curtis's life, career, and vision for America. Since most of Curtis's publications appeared before her marriage and adoption of the name Burlin, she is known among scholars of Native and African American music and folklore as Natalie Curtis.

Patterson shows that Curtis came from a close, well-connected, and relatively wealthy family that encouraged engagement with the arts and social issues as well as women's education. Curtis was an "avid [participant] in New York City's music scene" who turned her love of Wagner's operas into a keen interest in a national American music rooted in its "own folk" (38, 79). A visit to the Southwest introduced her to Native American music and inspired her life's work: collecting and promoting Native and African American music with the hope that the "universal" language of music would temper assimilation policies and ease race relations by showing white audiences the value of the people and their cultures (177). Additionally, Curtis was devoted to fostering a national American culture, so she supported concerts by African American musicians, engaged in debates about Indianist music, and composed choral pieces and songs based on the work she collected. Patterson shows that Curtis was unusual in combining collecting with activism and working with both Indians and blacks. Yet as an anti-modernist, Curtis was also typical in idealizing and othering Native and African Americans and their cultures. Curtis moved to Paris with her husband, the artist Paul Burlin, and just as she was finding an enthusiastic audience and potential publisher for translations of her work, she was killed in a car accident in the fall of 1921.

Curtis's life intersected with many familiar figures associated with the West: Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Lummis, and Mabel Dodge. Extensive contextual material suggests parallels with women such as Matilda Coxe Stevenson and Alice Fletcher and illuminates turn-of-the-century politics at Hopi and the policies of Indian agents and commissioners. Too often, though, the context gets in the way, and we lose sight of Curtis. In addition, Patterson favors description, neglecting sustained analysis and comparison. There is also too little attention to potential parallels with Native American artists and activists because Patterson focuses on Curtis's belief in music as a cultural force.

Patterson concludes that Curtis is worth remembering for her vision of an inclusive America, where women, Indians, and blacks have voices and all regions are significant. Especially for those interested in European American engagement with people they deemed "primitive," this study is valuable. Sadly, Curtis's significance is not fully encompassed by this overly descriptive and repetitive work; however, others can draw on Patterson's research to achieve more in-depth analysis of Curtis's collecting, music, and place in US history and culture.