dissertation topic?

In this time of major lifestyle changes, my interests have been quite diversified. I've been bouncing back and forth from old and new research topics. Finding mendeley has been a lifesaver. But today's topic for intense internet scouring? Thoughts towards the dissertation.
Here now is just a iconographic preview of what might be part of my dissertation topic.

Princess Watahwaso (or Watawaso)

Chief Tendehoa

"Indian" performers of the early 20th century. Much more information can be found on her; he is quite the enigma. We're in the baby stages. But gotta love archives beginning to digitize all their materials!

details found after the fact

Rehashing old research subjects always allows you to find information you wish could have been used on the prior projects. Just found James Huneker's autobiography and his description of the beginnings of The Etude. I just love his writing voice- full of hyperboles mixed in with truths and such vivid descriptions.

About this time I met Theodore Presser, who, as everyone knows, has started musical orphan asylums, homes for reformed musicians, and sanatoriums for hands lamed by excessive use of the thumbs on the black keys. Then, Mr. Presser was a lean, hungry-looking man with his head full of half-crazy schemes; at least, they seemed so to me. He had started a musical monthly whose pulse, temperature, and respiration he watched as if it had been a chick in an incubator. And it was a chick of uncertain health. I wrote paragraphs for it; betimes, I spread my wings and flew to the editorial roost and sounded my little cock-a-doodle-doo. My salary was as ever, nothing; but Theodore let me splash about in his pond and I was contented. Many nights we went to the post-office there anxiously to open letters. What a hurrah of joy when a dollar bill was found for an annual subscription! Presser, who is the Henry Ford of Philadelphia sheet-music, saw further ahead than I. The Etude has a subscription list that must make envious even Mr. Bok. Presser did all with his canny Yankee patience and shrewdness. He knew that the daughter of the plumber, the daughter of the policeman, hankered after music, and he deliberately built a machine to cater to their needs. The curious part of it is that he really improved their taste. The most famous pianists contribute to The Etude, are read and inwardly digested. I am in hopes that if these "few lines may meet his eye" -- as they say in manuals of writing made easy for servant-girls-- that he will give me a bed for my old bones in one of his eleemosynary institutions.

from Steeplejack, pg 201-2.

Rubinsteins in Petticoats

I've been postponing posting to the blog for over a month. I had hoped my next post would be the link to the electronic copy of my document. But alas, things in the graduate school are as tedious as ever. I also haven't been doing an awful lot of studying, writing, reading, or scholarship to report. There's been painting, moving, and trying to learn to relax instead.

But now I have returned to this website. To tell of the latest project and changes to my scholarly lifestyle. Instead of beginning work full time on a phd come August, I will begin work full time, at a job at an archive, and work part time on the next degree. Besides hopefully allowing me to have a semi-normal life in an 8-5 time frame, I think this will allow me to write more. I plan on using this blog to report latest finds at my job, in my dissertation hunt, and the first writing-for-publication project I plan to undertake. Before moving full force into possible dissertation themes entirely, I want to write one article that branches off from my thesis. One rabbit hole that I didn't completely go down. One avenue that I can't stop thinking about.

Where to begin with this. I have a title, as the title of this post alludes. Other than that, I have keywords that I now list below. This is where I will start, and I'll see where it takes me.

piano girl
propriety
creation versus emulation
old versus new
changing gender perceptions
James Huneker and Old Fogy
The Etude
performance roles and performing roles
salon versus classical music
accomplishment
the piano in the home

The keywords make it seem very similar to the thesis and archetyping, but I'm hoping it goes in a somewhat different direction, more focused upon Huneker and the expectations of women in American musical society, especially dealing with performing music (where, what, and how). And so now I begin. Step 1: get to the root of Huneker- where did he get these ideas and did others have them....

More to come.