Agnes Woodward

Agnes Woodward (January 1872 — June 1938) was an American music educator and professional whistler, founder and head of the California School of Artistic Whistling in Los Angeles, California.

Agnes Woodward, from a 1918 publication.
Agnes Woodward, from a 1917 publication.

Early life

Anna Agnes Woodward was born in Waterloo, New York and raised in Tecumseh, Michigan,[1] the daughter of Charles Meredyth Woodward and Martha McGlashan Woodward. Her father was a military surgeon and veteran of the American Civil War.[2] She trained as a singer at the Detroit Conservatory of Music.[3] Actress and screenwriter Bess Meredyth was her first cousin.[4]

Career

Woodward sang with the Whalom Opera Company briefly as a young woman.[5] She moved to California with her widowed mother[6] and studied birdsong[7] to develop her own "Bird Method" of teaching whistling,[8] and opened the California School of Artistic Whistling in 1909,[9] with branches later opening in Glendale, Seattle, Yakima, Chicago, and Portland. Her school's prospectus laid out her belief that "There is an art of whistling which belongs to the higher musical accomplishments, and which, in the majority of cases, falls to the lot of the young woman."[3] Most of her students were young women, including Helen Porter, whose father was the mayor of Los Angeles.[10] But she taught men and women of all ages;[11] she trained actor John Wayne and singers Bing Crosby and Pat Boone as whistlers.[12]

By 1916 she was managing the tours of several of her more successful students,[13] including Margaret Gray McKee,[14] Gertrude Willey, Nina Kellogg, Felice Jung, Mary Louise Hand, and Shirley Irvine.[15] In 1918 Agnes Woodward and her "Forty Whistling Girls" entertained at a Red Cross benefit in Los Angeles, adding "Over There" to their program for the occasion.[16] She wrote a textbook on the subject, Whistling as an Art, published in 1923, with later editions in 1925 and 1938.[17]

Personal life

Agnes Woodward died in June 1938, aged 66 years, in Los Angeles, California.[1][18]

References
  1. J. M. Schlitz, "(Anna) Agnes Woodward" Grove Music Online (November 2013).
  2. "Lieut. Col. Charles Meredyth Woodward" Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Meeting of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States (Berlin Printing 1897): 64-66.
  3. Daniel H. Resneck, "Whistling Women" American Heritage (August–September 1982).
  4. Debra Ann Pawlak, Bringing Up Oscar: The Story of the Men and Women Who Founded the Academy (Pegasus Books 2012). ISBN 9781605982168
  5. "Miss Agnes Woodward" Fitchburg Sentinel (July 6, 1938): 10. via Newspapers.com
  6. Elizabeth Deuel, "Interesting Westerners" Sunset Magazine (March 1921): 47.
  7. "Whistling, a Modern Art, and What a Los Angeles Woman Has Done for It" Out West (April 1917): 119.
  8. "Whistling is Latest Fad of Society Folk" Los Angeles Herald (September 19, 1912): 3. via California Digital Newspaper Collection
  9. Jessica Gelt, "Whistle a happy tune at the Masters of Musical Whistling competition" Los Angeles Times (September 7, 2017).
  10. "Whistlers Appear on Varied Programs" Los Angeles Times (August 28, 1932): 52. via Newspapers.com
  11. "Teaching Many to Whistle" Lyceum Magazine (March 1917): 44.
  12. Sondra Farrell Bazrod, "Music: She Whistles While She Works" Los Angeles Times (February 17, 1991).
  13. "Whistlers to Tour" Lyceum Magazine (July 1916): 24.
  14. "Canary at May Festival" Lyceum Magazine (June 1916): 26.
  15. "Pacific Coast Whistlers Who Are Open for 1917 Engagements" Lyceum Magazine (December 1916): 19.
  16. "Red Cross Ball" Los Angeles Times (February 10, 1918): 33. via Newspapers.com
  17. Agnes Woodward, Whistling as an Art (Carl Fischer Inc. 1938).
  18. "Miss Agnes Woodward" Los Angeles Times (June 21, 1938): 18. via Newspapers.com
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