Document Type

Article

Abstract

Toledo, Ohio native Helen Beach Jones (1857–1940) was a professionally trained church organist, choral conductor, and music teacher who paved the way for northwest Ohio’s art-music community today. Her story sheds light on the vibrant community of women musicians living in Toledo, Ohio, at the turn of the twentieth century, and as the founder and director of the Eurydice Club, a women’s chorus that was one of the city’s earliest and most prestigious music ensembles, she provided a home for women musicians throughout the region that lasted far longer than her tenure as conductor. In addition to her choral work, Jones was a driving force behind the city’s first symphony orchestras attempted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, long before the officially documented founding of what is now the Toledo Symphony Orchestra. Finally, Helen Jones composed the music for a popular eight-hour workday song, “Divide the Day,” in collaboration with her husband, the well-known Progressive Era mayor Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones, who wrote the text.