Named musicians, women’s ensembles, and their documented work.
The collection includes women’s ensembles and individual musician records alongside photographs and accounts of musical work. Source wording helps distinguish a named ensemble from a broader assumption about membership or participation.
A reunion or anniversary photograph may preserve the memory of a group without demonstrating continuous activity across the intervening years. The Norman Ladies Band account illustrates why that distinction matters.
Ensemble
The Oklahoma Hall of Fame states that Everette Green Fry organized the Kiltie Band in Oklahoma City in 1923. Archival photographs document Captain Fry's group and the later American Legion Post 35-sponsored Kiltie Band.
Read the record →
Ensemble
A band organized by Will Rigdon is documented in a dated group photograph whose metadata names the musicians.
Read the record →
Archive photograph
Photograph taken for a story in the Oklahoma Journal newspaper. Caption: "Grable, Grable, Mrs." Headline: Grable, Miss Carol.
Read the record →
Archive photograph
Photograph taken for a story in the Oklahoma Journal newspaper. Caption: "Presenting a program of harp music for members of the Shakespeare Club was Melissa Moore, Norman, daughter of Mrs. E. Robert Heatley (right) , program chair
Read the record →
Archive photograph
Looking over music purchased with funds given to the Junior Symphony Orchestra by the Ladies Music Club are Mrs. William H. McPhersonleft and T. Burns Westman, director of the Junior Symphony.
Read the record →
Archive photograph
Demonstrating her skills on the harp is Laura Zorn,11, from Rolling Wood Elementary School. Seen here with judges Mrs. William H. McPhersonleft and Lucian Thompson from the School of Music, New York University.
Read the record →
Archive photograph
"Oklahoma City businessmen enroute to their downtown offices in the early 1890's might stop in at a ""shoeblack"", portorstaffed by a long-aproned young women who applied whiskbrooms".
Read the record →
Archive photograph
Photograph taken for a story in the Oklahoma Journal newspaper. Caption: "Jones high school students rehearse a scene from the musical comedy, "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown," to be presented at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday in th
Read the record →
Archive photograph
Panel of the "1992 Reunion Committee" with photos of people and objects. Top left photo two women has handwriting: "Co-Chairmen" Middle photos has handwriting of "Work-Work-Work." Photos of people has handwriting: "Plan-Plan-Plan.
Read the record →Future interviews will connect these sources with the recollections of people who made music.
Explore the oral-history project →