ABSTRACT
Chapter 3, “A composer in the making: Radcliffe,” argues that Mabel Daniels developed her identity as a composer of operettas at Radcliffe College. Women’s college fiction, Daniels’s personal papers, and Radcliffe College archival materials document a tradition of composing operettas at Radcliffe (1898–1909). Women’s composing and performing operettas reflected their traditional roles in the home, in amateur and domestic music making, and in charity pursuits for bettering society. Radcliffe women wrote operettas for fun and entertainment, but also to fundraise for various educational and charitable causes. It is at Radcliffe, an institution of the “female public sphere,” that Daniels received her start in composition and conducting and enhanced her skills in performance and orchestration. Of all her collegiate composing peers, Daniels was the only Radcliffe woman who succeeded in using this operetta tradition to construct an identity as a professional composer.
