Sara Hershey-Eddy

Sara Hershey-Eddy (née Sarah Hershey; 1837 – 8 July 1911) was an American musician, pianist, contralto vocalist, vocal instructor, and musical educator.

For several years past, after completing her studies abroad, Mira has taken an active interest in the operations of the Hershey Lumber Company and has held office therein as secretary and vice-president,[3] before becoming a Hollywood hotel proprietor and property developer.

[4] Upon leaving Philadelphia, she went to St. Mary's Hall (now Doane Academy), Burlington, New Jersey, where she remained a year and a half, when she came West with her parents to Muscatine, Iowa, and began teaching, going East at intervals for the purpose of study.

[6] After a stay of 3.5 years in Berlin, she went to Milan, Italy, where she studied singing with Professor Gerli, and visited the classes of the older Lamperti.

[4] Having accomplished her aims in the Italian schools she went to London, England, and studied with Charlotte Sainton-Dolby, in oratorio and English singing, for a number of months.

She received an offer to take charge of the vocal department of the Pennsylvania Female College (now Chatham University), Pittsburgh, which she accepted, with a salary the largest ever paid to a woman teacher in that state.

In August, 1875, she came to Chicago and founded the Hershey School of Musical Art, with William Smythe Babcock Matthews,[4] which become the leading institution of its kind in the West.

The closing recital, June 23, 1879, was turned into an ovation, the program consisting almost entirely of original works written expressly for the occasion.

[6] For years, Hershey-Eddy was a prominent member of the Music Teachers' National Association, and did much to make that organization a success.

At Indianapolis, in June 1887, she was elected to the Board of Examiners in the vocal department in the American College of Musicians.

Until the study of singing is dignified to this position and accepted as educational, and is not regarded merely as an accomplishment on a par with dancing, the children of our race will be deprived of its elevating and humanizing influences.

Superficial playing or singing is wrong, because it is not only useless, but injurious, inasmuch as it is a bar to the progress of music and its adoption as a means of general culture.