Guide to the Emily Boettcher Bogue (1907-1992) Papers
| Collection Title: | Emily Boettcher Bogue (1907-1992) Papers |
| Dates: | 1907-1996 |
| Identification: | 19/3/6 |
| Creator: | Boettcher, Emily, 1907-1992 |
| Extent: | 11 Boxes |
| Language of Materials: | English |
| Abstract: | Boettcher earned her Bachelor and Master degrees in music from Northwestern University before returning as a music instructor from 1930 – 1939, after which she married and moved to England. The Emily Boettcher Bogue Papers fill eleven boxes and span the years 1907 through 1996, with the bulk of the material dating between 1936 and 1954. Included are biographical materials; concert programs; scrapbooks; diaries and notebooks; correspondence; and teaching and professional materials. |
| Acquisition Information: | The Emily Boettcher Bogue Papers were donated to the University Archives on December 3, 1997, by Bernard Dobroski, Dean of the Northwestern School of Music (Accession #97-210). |
| Processing Information: | Eileen Davenport; April, 1998. |
| Separated Materials: | Photographs of Emily Boettcher (including photographs from her travels and of friends and colleagues) were separated and added to the University Archives Photograph Collection; one cassette was separated and donated to the Music Library; six linear inches of duplicate and extraneous materials were discarded. |
| Conditions Governing Access: | None. |
| Repository: | Northwestern University Archives Deering Library, Room 110 1970 Campus Dr. Evanston, IL, 60208-2300 URL: http://www.library.northwestern.edu/archives Email: archives@northwestern.edu Phone: 847-491-3354 |
Biographical/Historical Information
Emily Charlotte Boettcher Bogue was born on June 16, 1907, in Miller, South Dakota. Boettcher was a concert pianist as well as music instructor. Boettcher earned her Bachelor and Master degrees in music from Northwestern University before returning as a music instructor from 1930 – 1939, after which she married and moved to England. She continued to teach private lessons, and also toured as a pianist. Upon her husband's retirement, Boettcher moved to California. She died in 1992.
Boettcher was educated in South Dakota and in Lewiston, Montana, where her family moved in 1917. Boettcher began taking piano lessons in Miller; in Lewiston, she continued her lessons, began writing her own compositions, and performed at recitals, festivals, weddings, and meetings. Her playing won a state contest in 1922. After her graduation from Fergus County High School in 1924, Boettcher attended the Northwestern University School of Music, earning a Bachelor of Music Degree in 1926 and the Master of Music degree in 1928.
After studying in Vienna and Berlin for a year, Boettcher returned to Northwestern, where she was an Instructor in the School of Music from 1930 to 1937. She performed at numerous concerts in the Chicago area, and spent most summers in Europe, primarily in Germany, to continue her musical studies.
In 1938, Boettcher married Dr. J. Yule Bogue (1904-1996), Professor of Physiology at the University of London. Her last institutional teaching experience was the summer session at Northwestern in 1939. After 1940, she and Bogue resided in England.
Boettcher's career as concert pianist included concert tours in Germany; appearances with the Evanston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the London Philharmonic; and radio concerts for the BBC. Although World War II interrupted her professional career, Boettcher joined the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA) and toured England, performing for local musical societies, army camps, the home fleet, and munitions and airplane factories.
After the war, Boettcher continued to perform for the BBC, gave recitals in the London area, and offered private lessons. Boettcher and Bogue lived in England until Bogue retired in 1966, at which time they moved to Portola Valley, California where Boettcher died on April 13, 1992. In his wife's memory, Bogue established the Emily Boettcher and J. Yule Bogue Endowed Fund for Graduate Students at the Northwestern University School of Music. The first recipient of this scholarship was named in 1993.
Scope and Content
The Emily Boettcher Bogue Papers fill eleven boxes and span the years 1907 through 1996, with the bulk of the material dating between 1936 and 1954. Included are biographical materials; concert programs; scrapbooks; diaries and notebooks; correspondence; and teaching and professional materials.
Biographical materials include an informal biography, by Elsa Heald, which consists of a typed, chronological arrangement of excerpts from Boettcher's letters and diaries; general materials pertaining largely to her education and career in music; and clippings detailing her concert performances.
Concert programs fill four folders and date between 1920 and 1962; they document Boettcher's appearances as both a student and professional musician.
Four scrapbooks contain concert programs, both of Boettcher's performances and of those of her students.
Of particular interest are Boettcher's diaries, notebooks and correspondence, which together give a vivid picture of her life at Northwestern, her studies abroad, and her professional and daily life in England before, during, and after World War II. Boettcher was a habitual diarist, keeping a separate volume for each year between 1938 and 1992, with the last entry just days before her death. The single interruption is 1940. The earlier diaries, kept while Boettcher was studying in Germany, contain eye-witness accounts of Hitler's public activities; later ones depict life in England during the war and the difficult post-war years. Diaries are arranged in chronological order.
For forty years, Boettcher maintained a regular correspondence with her family. The majority of the letters were written by Boettcher to her mother; only a few letters Boettcher received have survived. During her early married life, when Boettcher was fulfilling professional obligations, she maintained daily communications with her husband. The correspondence files also contain letters from Boettcher's students, including pianist Margaret Bonds, and her colleagues in the music world, such as Arne Oldberg, Seiji Ozawa and John Alden Carpenter.
Correspondence has been arranged first into two general categories: general and family correspondence and subject correspondence. The general and family correspondence is arranged chronologically and dates between 1916 and 1992. Subject correspondence is arranged first into folders according to name of correspondent, organization, or topic with whom or with which Boettcher dealt. Within these folders it is arranged chronologically. It is important to note that, throughout the papers, Boettcher's given and surnames appear variously as Emily, and Charlotte, Bottcher (the spelling used by her family), Boettcher, and Bogue. Following her marriage, she continued to use the name Emily Boettcher professionally, but used the name Charlotte Bogue privately.
Teaching and professional files include small amounts of materials relating to Boettcher's musical compositions and arrangements, folk music, students and teaching.
Subjects
Corporate Name
Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.). School of Music--Faculty
Personal Name
Subjects
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
