National Conservatory of Music of America

After three years of existence, the conservatory petitioned the US Congress for $200,000 (approximately $5.7mil in 2023, adjusted for inflation) to support the institution, saying that "... hundreds of candidates have had to be rejected from lack of room to accommodate them and of funds to increase the staff of Professors which would be required by their admittance.

Thurber changed strategy and then began lobbying for federal government support and funding of a national conservatory to be based in Washington, DC.

A bill "to incorporate the National Conservatory of Music of America" was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Benjamin Harrison on March 3, 1891.

After that date and after a rapidly changing series of directors, the National Conservatory of Music of America started to fade, not from a single catastrophic failure such as bankruptcy, but more through the declining energies of its driving force, Mrs. Thurber herself.

There were also concerns from many private institutions that a federally funded national conservatory on the European model would reduce their own schools to the role of a "feeder system.

"[2] In 1913 the school attempted to hire German composer Engelbert Humperdinck as director, but although he signed a contract, the Prussian government refused him permission.

In June 1918, Congressman Henry Bruckner of New York had introduced House resolution 6445 to establish a national conservatory of music.

Thurber's National Conservatory of Music of America was also represented at these hearings by her lawyer Vernon E. West and secretary Mrs. Charles Shirley.

13562 submitted earlier that year, and attempted to regain federal support for their conservatory after decades of inaction, even claiming they would not ask for any funding from Congress.

There is no record of operations after 1930, though based on a letter from President Roosevelt to Thurber in 1935, it appears she continued to solicit federal funding for the conservatory.

Its prestige was greatly enhanced by the directorship of Dvořák, and it offered a yearly prize in the area of "American music," a competition that led to the recognition of a number of young composers from the United States.