IOWA WOMEN’S ARCHIVES
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA LIBRARIES
IOWA CITY, IOWA
SIOUX COUNTY
WOMEN’S CHORUS
RECORDS, 1938-1955
1 linear inch
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ACQUISITION: |
The records (donor no. 627) were
donated by Melvina Mulder in
1999. |
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ACCESS: |
The records are open for research. |
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COPYRIGHT: |
Copyright has been transferred to the University of Iowa. |
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PHOTOGRAPHS: |
SCVF. |
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PROCESSED BY: |
Doris Malkmus, 1999. |
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History
The
Iowa State College Cooperative Extension Service and the Iowa Farm Bureau
organized the County Women’s Chorus program in 1937 to provide social and
cultural opportunities for rural women. Choruses
met two to four times a month to practice under a volunteer director. They performed at various functions
throughout the year, culminating in a statewide festival performance and
competition at the Iowa State Fair. The
Sioux County Women’s Chorus was organized in 1938 under the leadership of Mrs.
Roggen. That year, it was rated one of
the top four choruses of the state’s sixty-four women’s choruses.
In 1939, the Sioux County
Women’s Chorus was invited to represent Iowa at the New York World’s Fair. The chorus raised funds for the trip from
various County Farm Bureau offices and extension services across the state, as
well as many Sioux County businesses.
The chorus women went to New York, sang on a nationally broadcast radio
program, and sang on stage at the world’s fair before Eleanor Roosevelt gave
the keynote address for the Rural Women’s Day on May 23, 1939. The chorus continued to perform at the local
and state level until the County Women’s Chorus program was phased out in
1993.
Scope and
Content Note
The Sioux County Women’s Chorus collection consists
of a scrapbook about and a handwritten reminiscence of the chorus’s trip to the
New York World’s Fair in 1939 and measures 1 linear inch. The scrapbook includes newspaper and journal
articles about the trip to New York. It
also includes newspaper articles about the 1955 Festival Chorus at the Iowa
State Fair, plus photographs, memorabilia, and other records. The handwritten history is an undated,
first-person account describing many events during the trip to and from the
1939 World’s Fair.
Related
Collections
Neil Bjurstrom Rural Music Collection
The
County Women’s Choruses series of this collection includes newspaper clippings,
photographs of various county choruses and sheet music commonly used by the
choruses from 1939-1993. This collection
is held at Iowa State University in Ames.
Box no. Description
**PRESS <control n> to indent each level
SCVF