ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a broader perspective on changes taking place in the music profession in the first half of nineteenth century regarding status of female musicians, which in part provided context for the Royal Society of Female Musicians' (RSFM) foundation. It offers a closer examination of the demographics of the music profession, providing new evidence for a substantial increase in the proportion of unmarried female musicians working independently in the profession between the 1790s and the 1850s. The chapter exposes the centrifugal pressure of economic competition that continued to be a thorn in the side of those seeking greater unity and nobler aims for the music profession. One of the major reasons why the RSFM was founded and why campaigns, such as that for Eliza Salmon, attracted such attention was a growing perception that the number of independent female musicians had increased rapidly in recent decades.
