Peabody Preparatory
Founding a Community Music School
Before she was a reporter, May Garrettson Evans studied violin at the Peabody Conservatory and earned a teacher's certificate in 1889. She recognized the need to expand the community's access to musical instruction and prepare interested students for possible advanced study in the Conservatory.
When May and Marion Evans opened the Peabody Graduates' Preparatory and High School of Music in 1894, they rented a house on Centre Street and hired a few graduates of the Conservatory to teach classes. Expecting perhaps 50 students in the first year, they were surprised to find more than 300 applicants. The school quickly had to add more teachers and expand into every available room of the house--even the cellar and attic.
The school's rapid growth caught the attention of the Peabody Conservatory and its new director, Harold Randolph. In 1898 it was incorporated into the Institute as the Peabody Preparatory Department with May Garrettson Evans as superintendent and Marion Evans as associate superintendent.
May Garrettson Evans at the Peabody Preparatory
Evans in two of her offices. The Preparatory quickly outgrew its original office on Centre Street and relocated a few times before settling in Leakin Hall in 1926.
Branching Out
In its first few decades the Prep continued to expand its reach, attracting hundreds of students every year to its classrooms in Mount Vernon and in branch offices established around the area, including some in low-income neighborhoods. The school set tuition at 25 cents per week for individual lessons and offered classes for young people after school and work. Additional classes were directed toward parents and educators.
In a 1914 interview, Evans attributed the success of the school to three factors: "First, the real need of it; second, its democratic educational ideals; and last, but most important of all, the hearty cooperation among its teachers, their eagerness to share with one another their pedagogical ideas and discoveries, and their standards, both musical and personal."
The Prep also expanded its educational programs. In 1914 the school added a dance department and began offering classes in eurythmics and ballet. The school offered night classes in music appreciation and drew more than 400 people to participate in a community singing program that would soon be adopted by Baltimore's municipal music program.
When May and Marion retired in 1929, the Preparatory had more than 2,000 students and 75 faculty at Peabody in the recently opened Leakin Hall, and hundreds more students attended programs at the branch locations. The Prep continues to be a leading community school in music and dance.
Peabody Preparatory faculty and staff, 1914
Preparatory faculty, 1914. May Garrettson Evans is seated in the center, and to the left is her sister Marion. Note the large proportion of female faculty and the eerie cut-and-paste editing of some of the figures to make the portrait complete.
Dance Research
In 1928, May, Marion, and their sister Bessie, a Preparatory faculty member in dance, visited Navajo and Pueblo communities in New Mexico to study their dance and songs. Bessie gave a dance recital of American Indian Songs and Rhythms later that year at Peabody, and she and May published a book of dance steps in 1931.
Marion Dorsey Evans scrapbook page
Marion Dorsey Evans, associate superintendent of the Peabody Preparatory.