Series: Professional papers
Arrangement of the Materials: Arranged into four subseries: Administrative, Classroom Teaching, Research and Performance Preparation, and Other Activities.
Scope and Content Note

Papers documenting Stratman-Thomas’ correspondence with other music faculty at UW-Madison include both incoming letters to Stratman-Thomas and drafts of outgoing letters written by her. Most of this material deals with her struggle to retain her position at the University of Wisconsin in the first half of the 1940s. The correspondence reveals her dissatisfaction with the Director of the University’s School of Music for much of that period, Carl Bricken. Later correspondence (from the 1960s) is sketchy at best, but includes Stratman-Thomas’s 1961 letter to S.T. Burns, then Chairman of the School of Music, announcing her retirement, as well as then-University President C.A. Elvehjem’s official response. News clippings compliment the faculty correspondence, as they mostly deal with the controversy generated by Bricken’s appointment as School of Music Director, as well as his resignation from that position in 1942. Like the faculty correspondence, the faculty meeting minutes are spotty, dealing primarily with the period following Dr. Bricken’s resignation as Director. From 1944 until at least 1946, the minutes were recorded by Stratman-Thomas herself in her capacity as Secretary of the School of Music Faculty. Dedications and memorials include the University Faculty’s Memorial Resolutions on the deaths of Miles L. Hanley and of Irene B. Eastman; Stratman-Thomas was a member of the latter’s Memorial Committee. There are also materials and historical information pertaining to the 1969 dedication of the new School of Music Facilities in the Humanities Building. Music school brochures include mock-ups and drafts of UW School of Music Brochures, as well brochures for music schools and summer music programs from a number of other universities and educational institutions.

Classroom teaching comprises materials used by Stratman-Thomas in course preparation and teaching, and is subdivided by subject into counterpoint, form, fugue, Medieval music, and 18th-20th century music. There are also miscellaneous teaching materials, including typewritten notes for a course entitled “Correlations of music and literature,” and a complete typescript outline of all six volumes of the first edition (1901-1905) of the Oxford History of Music.

Research (other than folk music) and performance preparation is divided between Michael Haydn and Lucy Woodworth Ricketts. The Michael Haydn material includes Stratman-Thomas’s paper “The choral works of Michael Haydn (1737-1806)” with accompanying musical examples and related research materials. She presented the paper at the 1940 conference of the Mid-Western Chapter of the American Musicological Society (AMS). Also included are handwritten scores and parts (onionskins and reproductions) for two of Haydn’s works, at least one of which was performed by students at the University. Also present is a typescript of the finished paper and its accompanying musical examples. The Lucy Woodworth Ricketts material consists of printing mockups of four of Ricketts’s songs, three of them setting poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay; as well as published versions of three of the songs that are the work of others.

Other activities include solo performance, which documents a few concerts in which Stratman-Thomas appeared as a soprano soloist. Also performance related was Stratman-Thomas’s directorship of the University Women’s Chorus, represented in the collection by a number of the chorus’s concert programs, as well as related letters of appreciation and newspaper clippings. Stratman-Thomas also served as musical director of the Presbyterian Student Center Foundation’s University Presbyterian Church, an activity reflected here by items such as church service programs and a photograph of the Church’s choir. As a student, Stratman-Thomas had been a member of the professional women’s music fraternity, Sigma Alpha Iota (SAI); after graduation, she continued to be active in the organization, serving as the University of Wisconsin’s Rho Chapter faculty advisor for a number of years. As with most of the activities documented in this subseries, the SAI records are not comprehensive, but they do include, among other things, a complete directory of members, 1921-1961, and manuscripts of songs used in SAI ceremonies. For a time, Stratman-Thomas managed the University’s Pro Arte quartet; this is reflected in a bit of correspondence and a few concert programs that in some cases include program notes that she herself wrote. Also present are a scant few records reflecting her activity as a member (and at one point, President) of the Haydn Club, which engaged in the study and performance of music. Miscellaneous concert programs and publications do not document activities in which Stratman-Thomas was directly involved.

Subseries: Administrative

Faculty correspondence, 1938-1967; undated

News clippings, 1934-1942; undated

School of Music faculty meeting minutes, 1940-1958

Dedications and memorials, 1954-1970; undated

Music school brochures, 1944-1969; undated

Subseries: Classroom Teaching

Counterpoint, undated

Form, 1930-1941; undated

Fugue, undated

Medieval music, undated

18th-20th century music, undated

Miscellaneous teaching materials, 1935-1951; undated

Outline, Oxford history of music (1901-1905), undated

Volumes I-III

Volumes IV-V

Volume VI

Musical instrument postcards, undated

Subseries: Research and Performance Preparation

Michael Haydn

Research, 1939-1940; undated

Research, 1939-1940; undated

Conference paper, "The choral works of Michael Haydn," 1940-1942

Michael Haydn, “Gradualien für die vier Sonntage des Advents, No. 3: Pro donimica i universi,” undated

Michael Haydn, “No. 2 Offertorium de omni tempore: Domine Deus,” undated

Lucy Woodworth Ricketts, 1930-1944; undated

Subseries: Other Activities

Solo performance, 1930-1944; undated

University Women's Chorus, 1944-1953; undated

University Presbyterian Church, 1941-1945; undated

Sigma Alpha Iota, 1931-1970

Pro Arte Quartet, 1946-1960

Haydn Club, undated

Miscellaneous concert programs and publications, 1926-1967

Wisconsin Idea Theater, 1947