Helen Heffron Roberts
| Helen Heffron Roberts | |
|---|---|
| Born |
June 12, 1888 Chicago, Illinois |
| Died | March 26, 1985 (aged 96) North Haven, Connecticut |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | American Conservatory of Music, Columbia University |
| Occupation | Anthropologist, ethnomusicologist |
Helen Heffron Roberts (1888–1985) was an American anthropologist and pioneer ethnomusicologist. Her work included the study of the origins and development of music among the Jamaican Maroons, and the Puebloan peoples of the American southwest. Her recordings of ancient Hawaiian meles are archived at the Bernice P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu. Roberts was a protege of Alfred V. Kidder and Franz Boas.
She was born in Chicago on June 12, 1888, the oldest of three children born to accountant William Hinman Roberts and his wife, artist Dana Alma McDonald Roberts. Her parents provided piano lessons for her at an early age and encouraged her towards a career as a classical pianist. Upon the completion of her basic education at Monticello Seminary, Roberts furthered her studies, graduating from Chicago Musical College in 1909 and the American Conservatory of Music in 1911.
While at the conservatory, Roberts began to realize that she did not have the abilities to achieve her parents' dream of becoming a classical pianist. Besides not having the hand dexterity, she suffered from unspecified recurring health issues. In an interview in later years, she cited both her health and an early interest in Native American culture as the motivations for her travels to the southwestern United States. Over the next several years, her continued post graduate work at the conservatory was interspersed with employment as a music teacher in Kansas, Texas and Mexico, where she was often joined by family members.
Her archaeological interests also began during this time period, and she apprenticed under Alfred V. Kidder at his site excavations in Pecos, New Mexico. In 1916, she published "Doubling coiling" (pottery) in American Anthropologist.Berthold Laufer of Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History added his encouragement to that of Kidder who advised her to enroll at Columbia University. Under the tutelage of Franz Boas, known as the father of American anthropology, she changed her life goals from a career as either a music teacher or professional musician, to the study of the origins and progression of music in ethnic cultures. Boas advised her that as pioneer in the relatively new field of ethnomusicology she would have little competition.
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