Women’s History Month March 2020 is an ideal time to highlight American composer and author Augusta Browne. It’s now 200 years since Augusta Browne was born in Dublin, Ireland, and came to North America as an infant. And it’s now 100 years since the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that guaranteed American women the right to vote. What better time to find inspiration in a forebear for women musicians as they seek their own paths in culture and commerce?
Augusta Who?
Who was Augusta Browne? Augusta Browne composed and published music from her teenage years until her death in 1882. She produced some two hundred works of music over her lifetime and also authored short stories, poems, many essays, and two books. Browne energetically pursued publication of music and prose during the Victorian era despite strict codes of conduct and gendered roles for women. I first encountered her music in one antebellum magazine after another, beginning with Godey’s Lady’s Book, followed by the Columbian Magazine, then in a dozen other periodicals. Her entrepreneurial attitude leapt out from magazine pages. She was a go-getter during an era we do not usually associate with career women.