- 2 “[Women musicians] are no longer alone; they have found a friendly and welcoming family; they have (...)
- 3 In the decades prior, some smaller musical associations for women had been founded in France, e.g., (...)
1The Union des femmes artistes musiciennes [Union of Women Musician-Artists]—generally referred to by its acronym, the UFAM—was an association founded in 1910 by a group of opera singers and socialites in the aim of aiding women musicians in need. Headed by Lucy Tassart (1863–1946), herself a salon singer, the UFAM can be defined as a hybrid of several charitable models: part arts charity, in organizing concerts for the benefit of female musicians; part mutual aid society, in encouraging mutual aid between members; and part trade union, in working to build a network of active or aspiring professional female musicians. However, union rhetoric or vocabulary did not figure in the speeches of Lucy Tassart and the UFAM leadership. They were more likely to describe their enterprise as a “family,”2 a metaphor that points to its permeable nature, which places the UFAM within the broad and diffuse fabric of networks and spaces (institutional or otherwise) in which the reformist ideas of the day were forged and contemplated, described by Topalov (1999) as a “reform nebula.” While the UFAM shared a mutualist philosophy with many enterprises within this reform nebula, it seems also to have been modelled after musical associations that emerged as the musician profession was redefined by liberalization of the music market in the nineteenth century (David-Guillou 2013). While bearing similarity to the Association des artistes musiciens [Association of Women Musician-Artists] founded in 1843 by Baron Taylor (Audéon 2007), the UFAM differed in that its target audience was women. This situates it within an ecosystem of women’s associations formed under the French Third Republic, such as the Union des femmes peintres et sculpteurs [UFPS – Union of Women Painters and Sculptors] and the Union des femmes professeurs et compositeurs de musique [UFPC – Union of Female Music Composers and Teachers], founded in 1881 and 1904. As observed by Juliette Rennes (2007) and Florence Launay (2008), women artists—“les femmes-artistes,” to use a period expression—were among the first working women to form professional groups at the turn of the century.3 The UFAM was part of this movement, emerging slightly later than the first women’s unions, but at nearly the same time as unionization reached the artistic professions.
- 4 The concerts organized by the UFAM from 1911 to 1939 are the subject of a dossier in the Dezède dat (...)
2Like these associations, the UFAM set up various aid schemes based on mutualist principles: a relief fund, allowances for rent and holidays, legal and medical assistance, and a project to create a retirement home for elderly artists, etc. In 1912, it rounded out its activities with the creation of the UFAM Orchestra and Choirs, made up entirely of female members.4 In 1914, the association also occupied a studio where members could perform before an audience of benefactors and impresarios. Setting up a self-sufficient local job market, primarily in Paris, that was sustained by and for women musicians, became the association’s primary focus during the interwar period. Its other main activity was opening a retirement home for elderly women artists in Samoreau, Seine-et-Marne, to provide refuge for female musicians at the end of their careers, following in the example of other mutualist enterprises (Rauch 2015).
- 5 The UFAM’s annual reports, pronounced by Lucy Tassart or a Board member, present a summary of the a (...)
- 6 The main existing records of the UFAM’s activities are held by the Archives Nationales de France (A (...)
- 7 These accounting records are part of an unclassified set of documents recently discovered on the pr (...)
- 8 The sources at our disposal do not allow us to identify which individuals were involved in drafting (...)
- 9 NdlT: or what is sometimes called “work-relief,” also bearing resemblance to the more modern notion (...)
3In a previous article on the UFAM, published in the journal Transposition (Gouzi & Macé 2023), we examined the ways in which this association was set up to act as an agent of socialization, seeking to impact the working conditions of women musicians, their inter-professional relationships and the ensuing performances. This first article did not discuss the statements made by UFAM members, notably those compiled in the association’s annual reports,5 nor the accounting records produced by its Board of Directors.6 However, when considered in the light of other textual corpora in the economic literature, the UFAM’s statements and rhetoric appear to reflect notions strongly linked to theoretical debates of the day in the field of political economy, particularly with regard to ways of combating poverty. Whether in internal sources (UFAM annual reports and accounting records7) or so-called external sources (press reports, the language in which was presumably provided by the association), the UFAM statements available to us appear almost exclusively to be after-the-fact renditions. The annual reports, probably written by the UFAM president or a Board member8 for the association’s archives, but also for members and potential public and private donors, read not as meeting minutes but as well-reflected communications. This gives the documents at our disposal a quality of manifesto, articulating a theoretical position which, incidentally, was not always applied in practice. The aim of our study here is to analyse the UFAM’s rhetoric in relation to notions that may have influenced its policies and the actions of its members. In particular, we examine how the UFAM changed during the interwar period—against the backdrop of societal debates on the issues of charity and “assistance through work”9—gradually shifting from a philanthropic model to a reformist one.
4After examining the historical context in which the UFAM was created, we analyse the paradigm shift that occurred in its leaders’ rhetoric, through their contact with theoretical notions borrowed from the field of political economy. We then discuss the key notions of assistance through work [assistance par le travail] and “odious gratuitousness” [odieuse gratuité] and examine how they were negotiated through the prism of gender.
- 10 On a related subject, see also Mathilde Daubresse, “Comment fonder des syndicats de musiciennes,” R (...)
5As a point of departure, it is important to understand the context in which the UFAM was founded. As Florence Launay (2008) and Laura Hamer (2018) have shown, employment prospects for women musicians in the early twentieth century were limited by multiple socio-economic phenomena—teaching (a field in which women were over-represented) being the exception. There were almost no women musicians in the ensembles or orchestras of theatres or concert companies, as noted by Mathilde Daubresse, founder of the UFPC, in an opuscule entitled Le Musicien dans la société moderne (1914). Women musicians often faced fierce competition between peers,10 which only intensified with the growing numbers of women completing degrees in music from the late nineteenth century onwards (Launay 2008). While this competition was most pronounced for positions in orchestras or ensembles, it also extended to other areas of activity likely to employ female musicians, as observed by a journalist from Le Petit Écho de la Mode, reporting on the UFAM:
- 11 René D’Anjou, “Les belles œuvres féminines sociales,” Le Petit Écho de la Mode, 19 March 1911, p. 1 (...)
How many women who have sacrificed their youth studying an art that demands years of courage, find themselves without engagements, lessons, or paid performances, simply because the market is saturated? With candidates far outnumbering opportunities, the competition is fierce in every professional branch of music, whether in theatres, concerts, salons, or teaching. The Union des Femmes artistes musiciennes was created11 to help remedy this hardship.
- 12 See the changes in the number of female applicants to the Conservatoire (Sendra 2019). For piano cl (...)
- 13 Minutes of the 42nd session of the Conseil Supérieur d’Enseignement du Conservatoire [Conservatoire (...)
- 14 Speech by M. Charles René, chairman of the general meeting, 31 March 1919, UFAM brochure, BMD.
6The lack of jobs and opportunities for women in music was structural. There were a number of contributing factors, among which we cite the following two findings from the UFAM’s era. First, the number of women musicians pursuing degrees in higher education rose dramatically in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and continued to grow up until World War I.12 In 1904, on the decision of its academic advisory board, the Paris Conservatoire introduced a cap on the number of female students allowed in bowed instrument classes, in order to limit the “invasion” of these classes by female musicians.13 For women who managed to complete a music degree despite this numerus clausus, obtaining a position in an orchestra (the primary employer of instrumentalists) was also a difficult feat. Mathilde Daubresse conducted a study on this subject, transcribed in her 1914 opuscule, for which she interviewed eminent orchestra conductors (Vidal, Messager, d’Indy, etc.) on the question of female musicians (Daubresse 1914: 80–93). Those who admitted being reluctant to include female musicians in their ensembles presented various arguments, such as: what might be considered an unappealing visual effect of women’s presence in the orchestra sections, their supposed inability to endure long rehearsals, and a suspected lack of vigour, etc. In addition to the economic hardship that came with the difficulty in finding employment, a female musician had the added disadvantage of a compromised legal status, entailing dependence on a father or husband, regardless of her professional activity. The consequence of these various forms of structural marginalization was that female performers were oriented towards unpaid activities, which rarely distinguished pro bono art from artistic labour. Salons, for example, which were the primary performance venue for many of the female musicians associated with the UFAM, maintained what would later be decried in an annual report as “odious gratuitousness.”14 In these situations, when female musicians did receive pay, the remuneration not only fluctuated but was also concealed, leaving no possibility for visible, correctly remunerated artistic work (Campos 2022). The artistic labour of women was also plagued by moral stigmas, as underscored and amplified by commentary in the press when the creation of the UFAM was announced:
First, let it be said that many women take up music without a natural inclination for it, perhaps even going against an aversion to the arts and music. Equipped with little education and only rudimentary, superficial knowledge, they embrace a musical career as a way to make a living.
- 15 A. M., “Mme Tassart et l’Union des femmes artistes musiciennes,” Le Monde musical, 15 December 1910 (...)
They succeed in this often through their skill, and their charm if they set their sights on theatre; and through their activity, tenacity, and “know-how” if they take the path of teaching.15
7Some contemporary commentators took the view that the highly disadvantaged situation in which many female musicians would find themselves—in an artistic labour market they ended up in almost “by error”—would make them potential paupers and require that they be given charity. In 1910, the UFAM’s articles of association defined three categories of membership: bienfaiteurs [benefactors], for wealthy patrons who wanted to support the association financially; sociétaires [society associates], for women musicians well-established in the professional world; and adhérentes [members], for women musicians in need. The last two categories were reserved exclusively for women, which fostered gender solidarity that transcended class differences. As such, in this initial model, the first two categories (bienfaiteurs and sociétaires) could practice a form of charity (financial or moral) aimed at the third (adhérentes).
8This use of charity was paradoxical: the UFAM, like the UFPC, seems to have been created in the aim of promoting recognition of women’s artistic work, as a form of production requiring remuneration, not an offering that could be haphazardly rewarded by a gift in exchange. However, the inappropriateness of unpaid work (“gratuitousness”) and recognition of artistic labour as a productive activity were not clearly stated, especially during the association’s early years, when the economic plights of its members were evoked in fairly vague and often miserabilist terms. This maintained a certain haziness on the subject, which can be explained in part by the social standing of the UFAM’s Board members. For the most part, the directors were salon singers from an elite bourgeois milieu, steeped in republican and philanthropic values, but with only partial knowledge of or insight into the job market their members faced. Some knew of the market only what they had observed as teachers and mentors to protégés, as was the case for Marie Rôze, whose students appear to have made up the first cluster of UFAM members:
- 16 “Une bonne œuvre,” Gil Blas, 15 March 1910, p. 2. Accessed on Gallica.
Madame Rôze, single-handedly, had long been running her own little relief fund (I know this from a very reliable source); she did not just recommend her students but helped them perform, brought them audiences, when necessary… lent them an evening gown. And she was frustrated by her limited means. Now she is thrilled. She has been understood; others share her convictions.16
9Many UFAM members were opera singers and, like their benefactors, found work opportunities in salons, but there is no indication that the UFAM Board members had a clear idea of what a job in an orchestra entailed, nor of work opportunities for women musicians in cabarets or casinos.
- 17 We do not have adequate data for the period 1910–1914.
10Up until 1918 (with the exception of 191417), the UFAM’s economic model was based almost exclusively on donations from its benefactor members (most of whom were close acquaintances of Lucy Tassart) and from Board members (who were mainly prominent figures in Parisian social circles). The following graph, based on the UFAM’s financial reports, compares its disbursements to its members, shared between 1) the sums given as charitable aid (i.e., the redistribution of donations), and 2) remuneration paid for concerts given by, and for the benefit of, members.
Figure 1
Comparison of sums given versus performance fees paid to UFAM members (1914–1945).
Crédits: Apolline Gouzi and Arthur Macé
11The available sources do not allow us to determine how the UFAM conducted, in practice, its system of aid for female musicians. Neither the terms of remuneration nor the conditions required to receive assistance are clearly defined in the association’s archives. Nevertheless, it appears that it was the UFAM’s Board, and especially its president (whose home was the association’s registered office and primary meeting place), that managed and deliberated on day-to-day business, acting as an intermediary between patrons (bienfaitrices) or established professionals (sociétaires) and members in need (adhérentes). In addition to playing this role of financial intermediary, the Board also referred members to contacts who could help them improve their circumstances. In an annual report included in Daubresse’s opuscule, Tassart states:
All requests for material aid were met. Medical consultations and legal advice were provided free of charge, by competent figures to whom we cannot adequately express our gratitude. Significantly reduced rates were granted by various rail companies. Our protégés have been offered paid performances in various social circles and lessons and teaching engagements with wealthy families (Daubresse 1914: 108).
- 18 Minutes of the annual general meeting, January 1914, AAEC.
- 19 UFAM 1913 annual report, AAEC.
12The association’s leadership soon realized, however, that a charity-based system of aid was insufficient, particularly as its membership continued to grow: in January 1914, the UFAM treasurer reported 1,224 female musician members.18 Although the exact number of patrons and members before and after this date is not known, the UFAM Board reports clearly underscore the association’s continuous growth in membership and its desire to expand its scope of action and to offer female musicians stable, regular, and more substantial sources of income. Over time, the UFAM increasingly saw the need to organize large, and therefore lucrative, concerts; and creating work opportunities for its members took precedence over its redistribution of donations through charitable aid. From 1913 onwards, we can see a paradigm shift begin to take shape in the UFAM’s policy, although it would not be complete until the interwar period. This sentence from the 1913 annual report captures the gist of this new approach: “Our clear, well-defined aim is to provide assistance through work, not vulgar handouts.”19
- 20 Marcel Lecoq, L’Assistance par le Travail, et les Jardins Ouvriers en France, Paris, Giard and Briè (...)
- 21 Henri Joly, “Assistance et répression,” Revue des deux mondes, 29, 1905, p. 117–151; Louis Rivière, (...)
- 22 Assistance through work was also part of the programme defended by the Fédération nationale des jau (...)
13The paradigm shift in the UFAM’s policy, reflected in its budgets and affirmed in its annual reports, was rooted in an economic notion born in the late nineteenth century, that is, the principle of assistance through work. This notion is mentioned several times in the UFAM’s reports, and is cited in press promoting the UFAM and as a guiding principle in the reconfiguration of its activities. The proliferation and popularity of references to assistance through work must be understood in the context of broad criticism of all forms of public welfare, which was particularly virulent in the three decades preceding World War I. Welfare bureaus [bureaux de bienfaisance] were criticized for duplicating private charity, and accused of giving money to people who were perfectly capable of working (as opposed to the impotent). According to Timothy Smith, there were 14,500 “bureaux de bienfaisance” in France in 1883, providing assistance to some 1.4 million people in need per year (Smith 2000: 155). Many essays and articles of the day20 called for the abolition of certain forms of public welfare and, in some cases, even the abolition of all forms of aid for the able-bodied poor, as part of a “crack down” on mendicity.21 Similarly, in the decades leading up to the war, articles in La Revue philanthropique frequently touched on the issue of welfare or assistance, without it necessarily being the main subject of study. Viewed as a remedy to charity, assistance through work was promoted by rationalist theorists as an enduring manner of lifting the poor out of poverty, by providing them not with momentary pecuniary aid but with stable employment. Assistance through work was presented as a solution that could put an end to poverty, mendicity, and vagrancy.22
- 23 Paul-Gabriel D’Haussonville, “L’Assistance par le travail,” Revue des Deux Mondes, 122, 1894.
14In an essay entitled “L’Assistance par le travail,” the Orléanist Paul-Gabriel D’Haussonville23 placed this notion at the centre of his thinking on reforming private charity and public welfare. At the time, this text was one of the most widely disseminated overviews of the subject. Like many of his contemporaries, D’Haussonville sought to conceptualize how to practice charity at a time in which the political context at the end of the Ordre Moral had led him to abandon political office. Topalov, whose work has involved mapping the vast “reform nebula” to which D’Haussonville belonged, refers to the latter as an “Ordre Moral convert,” that is, part of a group who, after accepting the republican regime as necessary to escape the spectre of the Revolution, voluntarily withdrew from politics during the 1890s, instead frequenting intellectual circles. The figure of D’Haussonville illustrates how “philanthropic patronage, in the context of the monarchists’ political defeat, came to extend to broader reformist causes” (Topalov 1999: 367–368), as evidenced, for example, by the proliferation of conferences on social aid during this period. Published in the Revue des deux mondes in two parts (“I. Should we practice charity?” on 1 March 1894 and “II. How to practice charity?” on 1 May 1894), D’Haussonville’s essay “L’Assistance par le travail” is an overview compiling various information on political economy, from sources that are not cited. This text, which reads like a manifesto in the form of a study, is presumably the repository of both Paul-Gabriel D’Haussonville’s experience and that of his wife, Pauline D’Haussonville, herself a patroness of various philanthropic organizations (Battagliola 2009). The essay is structured as a practical guide for those who wish to practice charity, whether in the private or public sphere. It is worth noting that, unlike his contemporaries who saw assistance through work as a clear, albeit coercive, solution to the problem of poverty, the author here adopts a more moderate stance and does not call into question the whole notion of private charity.
15Summing up the various debates of the day around the forms that charity should take, D’Haussonville defines the notion of assistance through work as follows:
Almsgiving, even when practised with the best of intentions and received by someone who is not an exploiter, nevertheless deserves some of the declamations being indiscriminately directed against it. Those who practice, I would not say the science (a word that strikes me as too ambitious) but the art of charity, are troubled by this drawback. They wonder whether there might not be a way of helping the needy in a way that would be both smart and effective, by providing them with a way of earning a living, if they are fit to work. This would confine the role of charity to that of intermediary, and the person being aided would in a sense be helping himself. This is the reasoning behind the notion of assistance through work.24
16In this definition, those organizing assistance are no longer positioned as responding directly to poverty by providing a means of subsistence, which would be the old definition of charity. Rather, the provider of assistance serves as a link between the poor and an earned income—acting as an intermediary. In the case of the UFAM, we find a similar rhetoric and vocabulary, both in its annual reports and in related press articles: the association’s directors position themselves as intermediaries between members and work opportunities.
Figure 2
UFAM advertisement published in Art Musical, 12 June 1936
Source: Gallica-BnF website, accessed on 13 March 2024.
17However, in the speeches by UFAM leadership, the term “assistance” seems not always to refer directly to the notion of “assistance through work.” A gradual semantic shift can be observed, starting a few years before World War I and stabilizing in the early 1920s. The term “assistance,” originally used in the UFAM’s founding articles of association to mean material “aid” or “support” (e.g., medical and legal), also came to mean “assistance through work.” Using the abbreviated form (simply “assistance”) perpetuated a certain ambiguity between the two meanings and their concrete applications—ambiguity that is echoed in press clippings mentioning the UFAM from this period:
- 25 “Informations musicales,” Gil Blas, 7 November 1911, p. 3. Accessed on Gallica.
Lessons on all instruments are available through this large group of artists and teachers. The Union provides pianists and artists for matinees and evening events, etc. The group’s philosophy is that the best way to help artists is to find them work25.
- 26 “L’U.F.A.M.,” Comœdia, 29 November 1911, p. 2. Accessed on Gallica.
The Union’s […] female members include instrumentalists of great talent, who are not only excellent teachers but can successfully perform in soirees, matinees, and concerts. Engaging these valuable artists through the Union is the best way to encourage art through work. This is the main focus of this sizeable and important association, which, at not yet two years old, is already a thousand members strong26.
- 27 UFAM 1936 annual report, AAEC.
- 28 “Indiscrétions,” Le Carnet de la semaine, 28 May 1916, p. 20. Accessed at the BnF.
18Articles of this type abound in the press, and echoing the speeches of the UFAM’s directors themselves, in both the stances developed and the vocabulary used. It is likely that the UFAM’s Board was directly involved in drafting these texts. One annual report explains that “the UFAM is delighted to play the role of impresario!”27 Once the notion of “assistance through work” had been incorporated into the UFAM’s discourse, the creation of work opportunities became its leadership’s main objective, as stated in a journalist’s praise of the association in 1916: “The distinguished president, Madam Lucy Tassart, carries out the most useful and artistic work by giving U.F.A.M. members not handouts but paid engagements.”28
- 29 Paul-Gabriel D’Haussonville, “L’Assistance par le travail,” cited article, p. 400.
19It is important to keep in mind that, in the wake of writings by D’Haussonville and his contemporaries, assistance through work was not seen as a blanket solution to poverty. Rather, as discussed above, it was appropriate only for certain categories of poor, that is, “the able-bodied poor.”29 Distinguishing the “able-bodied” from the “indigent” poor, according to categories from an already long-standing typology (Smith 2000), assistance through work was seen as an alternative to indiscriminate handouts (Jung 2018: 70). The distinction between the “able-bodied” (individuals deemed fit to work) and the “indigent” (the elderly, infirm, war-wounded, etc.) can offer insight into the case of the UFAM. In line with the theorists making use of this distinction, the UFAM leadership also, implicitly, adopted this typology. The vast majority of women musicians aided by the UFAM fell into one of these two categories, as members could be young women musicians unable to find work, or older musicians at the end of their career. Two starkly different types of aid were provided for these categories: assistance through work for the first, and welfare assistance (“assistance-soutien”) for the other (with the association’s retirement home for elderly women musicians in Samoreau, near Paris), according to this distinction drawn by Topalov (1999: 38). Unlike theorists who categorically rejected indiscriminate welfare, D’Haussonville advocated for a combination of the two approaches, similar to the model practised by the UFAM.
20At the end of the second part of his essay, D’Haussonville warns against too strict an application of the “assistance through work” model:
If an organization providing assistance through work, founded in the heart of Paris, is on the brink of closing its doors unless it can find a generous benefactor to come to its aid, it is because it has relied too much on work and not collected enough money from its subscribers. In one form or another, […] an organization providing assistance through work will always need subscriptions, subsidies, or donations, to be able to exist. In short, charity must always involve the giving of money, and this form of aid [through work], so popular today, is but a judicious and roundabout form of almsgiving.30
- 31 UFAM 1913 annual report, AAEC.
21Thus, D’Haussonville views the giving of money (“almsgiving”) as a material necessity of charitable work, albeit less desirable than assistance through work. It should come as no surprise, then, that the UFAM’s leadership did not want the association’s activities to be qualified as “almsgiving” or handing out charity, adamantly stating, “Our clear, well-defined aim is to provide assistance through work, not vulgar handouts” in its 1913 annual report.31 In another part of his work, D’Haussonville even parodies those who reject any form of “almsgiving”:
- 32 Paul-Gabriel D’Haussonville, “L’Assistance par le travail,” cited article, p. 42.
If they [opponents of charity] want no more of it, it is because they associate it with almsgiving, which is something they categorically oppose. […] In a widely read opuscule, Mr Paul Desjardins has devoted no less than nine pages out of eighty to scourging almsgiving: it is useless; it is a transfer of egoism; it implies a system of suzerain and serfs; it sustains poverty, and so on. The thing to do with a man in need is to redress his ideal of life and make him love it. Suppose you were to enter the room of a poor devil in the grip of intolerable pain, which a poultice of laudanum or a morphine injection would suffice to soothe; would not your first impulse be to run to the chemist and, if he refused to give the wretch credit, to pay yourself for the poultice or injection and bring it back? You would be wrong; this would be you behaving to him like a suzerain to a serf. You should pull up a chair, sit by his bedside and, while he moans beside you, try to make him love life by redressing his ideal.32
22Seeking a reasoned and reasonable theory of the practice of charity, D’Haussonville advocated for a combination of both tendencies. As reflected in the UFAM’s Samoreau retirement home for elderly female musicians, the UFAM leadership sought to give charity when needed, alongside its mission of offering assistance through work. In practice, the needs within the female musician typology led the UFAM directors to take this dual approach, combining the two modes of charitable action.
- 33 Letter from Adeline Guérin-Desjardin dated 27 December 1947, AEEC.
23Thus, the UFAM continued to use a hybrid model, even though the discourse in its speeches and in the press focused on its creation of work opportunities, more than its giving of charity. Moreover, the UFAM leadership seized on the indigent versus able-bodied dichotomy, distinguishing between the “right” and “wrong” sort of jobless person, such that that some female musicians were denied UFAM membership. This view is reflected in this excerpt from a UFAM director’s letter to a teacher: “With regard to your student, the Committee considers that she does not fit into the category of artists we should be helping,”33 apparently due to insufficient musical ability on the part of the student in question. The musicians the UFAM chose to support were not ordinary paupers: while they had little or no economic capital, the UFAM’s aim was to allow their “artistic” capital to fructify, hence the recurring idea in the association’s annual reports of its “revelation” of female artists deemed as having natural talent. In a sense, this was a different take on the notion of “assistance through work” advanced by the theorists. Whereas D’Haussonville was considering the indigent poor, presumably unable to participate in the workforce, women musicians already had a profession. Thus, the “revelation” of artists facilitated by the Union can be seen as two-fold, the revelation of not only artistic talent but also the ability to work. Moreover, members without recognised musical talent seem to have had a harder time obtaining support from the UFAM. Indeed, when the association was founded, the idea of supporting members with little artistic potential was a subject of concern in the music press, as expressed by this journalist from Le Monde Musical:
- 34 A. M., “Mme Tassart et l’Union des Femmes Artistes Musiciennes,” Le Monde Musical, 15 December 1910 (...)
[The Union] has not yet decided to organize auditions or concerts to enable its protégés to showcase their talent. We can only congratulate the Board of Directors on this choice. Real talent always finds a way of making itself known.34
24In practice, the way the UFAM applied the indigent typology was somewhat more complex than the basic able-bodied/indigent binary. The UFAM split women musicians into a different pair of broad categories, that is, those with career potential, and those without talent. However, how the Board determined which category a musician belonged to remains unclear.
- 35 Paul-Gabriel D’Haussonville, “L’Assistance par le travail”, cited article; Édouard Cormouls-Houles, (...)
- 36 UFAM 1919 annual report, AAEC.
25In a sense, this echoes a notion frequently encountered among the theorists of assistance through work, which is that such assistance must never give poor people the hope of freedom from poverty if these individuals are, by nature, devoid of capital.35 Perhaps this is why the UFAM 1919 annual report calls for charity “in its noblest and highest sense […] in the sense of fraternity in Art.” To support women musicians in need, yes, so long as this essentially served what the UFAM deemed a greater cause: Art. The 1922 annual report summed up the UFAM’s philosophy in a single phrase: “Art through Charity.” In the association’s rhetoric, the adjective “artistic” is preferred to “charitable,” so as not to discredit its members, whose existence should not reveal any difficulties, as musicians should be, “at least in appearance, independent, and […] would be lost beyond hope if the audience could perceive that [they] are struggling.”36
26A recurring element in the UFAM’s speeches, as mentioned above, is strong criticism of the manner in which musical labour was remunerated. The issue of unpaid or “gratuitous” artistic work, called out on numerous occasions in UFAM reports and introductory speeches at its general assemblies, was a foremost matter for the association. Seen as a difficulty that female musicians systematically encountered at every stage of their careers, the lack of remuneration was decried on numerous occasions, as here in 1919 and 1923:
- 37 Speech by Mr Charles René, cited.
Of course, it is not about subsidizing all those who dream of making Art free from any material concern; that would be too vast a programme, too large a budget, and the requests far too numerous. […] Above all, the most useful and effective action would be to do away with gratuitousness, the odious gratuitousness of music in the world, to be replaced by fair remuneration of artistic services.37
- 38 Speech by Mr Jacques Pillois, 21 March 1923, UFAM brochure, BMD.
I know that you will do your utmost to combat the odious gratuitousness of artistic events.38
27It is worth noting that this denunciation was aimed at several specific systems. Beyond the musical economy of the salon world, which maintained a certain haziness between professionals and amateurs, the UFAM seemed to be decrying a collective tendency to consider art—and therefore musical performance—as a volunteer-type activity. In denouncing the unpaid nature of artistic work, the UFAM’s leadership was not content merely to describe this reality, apply theories to their own situation, or describe the living conditions of their members; rather, they wanted to create tools to analyse the reasons at the root of the problems their members encountered. The notion of “odious gratuitousness” encompassed these underlying reasons, reflecting a state of affairs that was both economic, as we have shown, and social.
28The denunciation of gratuitousness reflects a different rationalization effort than that at play in the member typology defined above. The typology established a classification of individuals similar to contemporary social reformers’ interest in “rationalizing how the labour market operates, in order to bring about the convergence of social concerns (the problem of poverty) and productivist concerns (ensuring a stable and high-quality workforce for a booming industry)” (Gautié 2006: 62). In contrast, denouncing gratuitousness meant viewing the problem of poverty in the music profession—in the case of female musicians—as a systemic problem that did not stem from the individuals, indeed, that was beyond any matter of typology and personal ability.
- 39 Speech by Mr Charles René, cited.
- 40 Ibid.
29With respect to the jobless, Gautié explains, at the turn of the twentieth century, the shift in focus from the individual to a single category—unemployment—particularly in public policies. We would argue that the UFAM leadership, situated at the intersection of these two phenomena, used a similar line of reasoning. The “odious gratuitousness” of artistic labour was understood to be the main obstacle keeping women musicians from finding work. Whereas the women at the head of the UFPS advocated for the professionalization of female artists (Garb 1994; Rinaldi 2021: 34), the UFAM’s leaders denounced the nature of artistic work itself, as it was not yet treated systematically as a marketable good. In other words, the UFAM positioned itself as combatting not joblessness but unpaid work, calling for “the fair remuneration of artistic services”39 to replace “gratuitousness, the odious gratuitousness of music.”40 Thus, the UFAM's attempts to rationalize the labour market for women artists stem from two concomitant traditions: on the one hand, a typology of individuals classified according to their productive capabilities (jobless female musician, second-rate female musician, elderly female musician, etc.) and, on the other, the systematic social problem of unpaid labour.
30While D’Haussonville seems not to make any gender distinction in his examples (the typical poor or destitute individual would, by default, be male), the UFAM’s actions were conditioned by gendered issues. As such, in aiding only female musicians and not men, what prism did the UFAM necessarily adopt? Did it take into account the specific experiences of female musicians or did it apply the theoretical ideals of assistance through work literally? While assistance through work was meant to enable members to achieve “independence” (a term frequently used to describe the goal of assistance, in UFAM annual reports), this word does not have the same connotations in a gendered perspective. In this regard, reading UFAM texts through the prism of feminist theories of the period allows us to qualify its use of the notions of political economy compiled by D’Haussonville.
31“Independence,” understood mainly in a financial sense, was a cause championed by many first-wave feminist organizations. This was true of the UFPS, which, from the late 1890s, advocated for the right of women artists to make a living from their profession:
- 41 Virginie Demont-Breton, “Allocution au Banquet de 1896,” Journal des femmes artistes, 64, May 1896, (...)
By developing women’s intelligence in every sense, by responding to all of their aspirations, we will give them the independence that saves them from so many dangers and protects their dignity. Independence as we understand it is independence through work, the conquering of the material part of life, encouraging the blossoming of ideas and the fertile daring to realize long-dreamed-of works.41
32The word “independence” refers to a theoretical notion (allowing the poor to emancipate themselves through work), but also to ideas developed at the same time in most women’s artistic unions. Similarly, the creation of the UFAM Orchestra and Choirs can be understood as a counterpart to the creation of the Salon des femmes in 1882, an annual non-mixed-gender exhibition intended to compete with the official Salon (Rinaldi 2021). In addition to theoretical texts, such as D’Haussonville’s essay, certain sources—especially in the fast-growing women's and feminist press of the period—certainly influenced UFAM members’ understanding of the situation of women musicians in the labour market, and how they sought to remedy this.
33However, if the UFAM did bring about emancipation, it is important to qualify this outcome. The associative framework enabled the UFAM's women leaders, rather than its members, to free themselves from certain gendered contexts, according to a mechanism articulated with regard to other associations of the day: “Women […] find [in charitable and reformist associations] a place of emancipation, a place of transition between practical experience and the theoretical phase, in parallel with classic philanthropic activity” (Topalov 1999: 180). As Topalov explains, for certain social and demographic categories (young men entering the administration, married women, etc.), associations were a place of initiation, participation, and social advancement, “a place for exercising politics” where “people learn and discuss […] without entering into the traditional forms of politics” (ibid.: 180). The UFAM functioned as an emancipating space for its female leaders, who gained access to responsibilities within the framework of a philanthropic activity, to which they would not have had access in a strictly professional context.
- 42 Lucy Tassart, “La femme dans les sports modernes,” La Revue : ancienne Revue des revues, 1 January (...)
34Finally, let us posit that the UFAM also functioned as a laboratory for a form of feminist activism for which the risk of social cost was limited. Lucy Tassart, its president, attended several major feminist meetings in the 1900s, notably the International Women's Congress held in Paris in 1900, alongside the Exposition Universelle (Rasmussen 1989), and published several pamphlets inspired, somewhat freely, by feminist ideas. The same year, she published a short article entitled “La femme dans les sports modernes”42 (Women in modern sports), which reflects the polymorphism of her relations with the feminist currents of the same period:
Our mission on this earth is to represent charm, goodness, and gentleness. The feminist movement that, each day, pushes us forward will soon make us the equals of men in all things of the mind, the sciences, the arts, medicine, and the bar. Unfortunately, sporting fads can only delay this great evolution. […] Sports take up too much space in the lives of many, becoming the greatest enemy of femininity. […] Let us do a bit of sport if it pleases our husbands, but not make it the sole purpose of our lives.43
- 44 “Discours au Banquet du 13 mai 1908 lu par Mme Vallet-Bisson,” Bulletin Officiel de l’Union des Fem (...)
- 45 1922 UFAM annual report, BMD.
35This excerpt describes Lucy Tassart’s feminism, and by extension, the feminism advocated by the UFAM in its early decades—similar to that practised by many bourgeois women attending militant associations and suffragette conventions in the day. For these women, it was about demanding civil equality between men and women, which first and foremost meant professional equality. The fight for women’s right to vote and other feminist demands were set outside this sphere, which, influenced by the meritocratic ideas of the Third Republic, saw work and compensation for work as the only means of achieving emancipation. In much the same way as the UFPS, which saw itself as a “women’s society”44 rather than a feminist one, and an “intellectual mutual aid organization” rather than a political one, the UFAM championed a form of gender equality that fell within the realm of the morally acceptable. By way of comparison, some UFPS leaders adopted rhetoric similar to the UFAM’s during the same years, reflecting some of the ambivalence towards the “feminist” and “women’s” movements of the day. The case of the UFPS highlights these strategies of moderation, or even conformism (Rinaldi 2021). Giving work opportunities to the UFAM’s female musicians was both a means of helping them escape poverty and, thanks to the professional success of some, lifting up the whole body of female musicians, and women in general. Neither militantly feminist nor bent on espousing the social struggles of the working class, its cause of “Art through Charity”45 also asserted a hierarchy of women’s professions and forms of female work at the turn of the century.
36Within first-wave feminism, the figurehead of the women’s work movement was Marguerite Durand, then editor of the feminist newspaper La Fronde. In its pages, as François Chaignaud (2009: 53) explains, “The fight for [women’s] civil rights is presented and perceived as the most moderate and inoffensive. The fight for civil rights is the endeavour of feminism seeking integration and respectability.” In its editorial line, La Fronde was moderate in its defence of women’s right to vote, but it did defend women’s access to professional arenas that were still closed to them, even more than women’s access to political spheres. The UFAM’s creation prompted occasional correspondence between Lucy Tassart and Marguerite Durand, the former hoping that the latter would promote the association in La Fronde:
- 46 Letter from Lucy Tassart to Marguerite Durand dated 25 May 1926, BMD.
I am sure you have not forgotten your promise to launch a serious press campaign to ensure that first prize winners from the Conservatory, with equal talent, find the same opportunities as men, either in Sunday concerts or in subsidized theatres, from which women are at present totally excluded. It is unconscionable that girls and women of great talent can find no other work than in cinemas or brasseries. It is truly a glaring injustice, and I can name several of those whom I call “my children” who, slayed by exhaustion, by the lack of air and heat in these establishments, now have tuberculosis; who are now, through us, being placed in preventoriums or sanatoriums, as their condition requires, where they receive the most devoted care.46
37As this letter reflects—as in the case of women's access to sports—the main concern is for women to gain access to professional opportunities, while at the same time protecting them against adverse effects, such as the potential corruption of their health and morals.
38Although the UFAM had almost no link to militant feminist activism, despite certain UFAM speeches published in the press, the actions and speeches of its leaders can be described as “feminist” in the broad sense of the term, engaged specifically in the push for women’s civil rights. Even without fully embracing certain aspects of first-wave feminism, the UFAM’s women leaders did themselves experience the movement. While the founding aim of the UFAM was to combat a systemic gender-related problem—by supporting women musicians—it seems that its mission changed during the interwar period, shifting to a focus on musical activities—sometimes charitable, but not feminist in scope. In this regard, it is not surprising that the UFAM’s annual international competition, started in 1930 to promote young female talent, was opened up to men in 1940. This change can be seen as marking the end of the feminist action that characterized the first decades of the UFAM’s existence—the end of an era for the UFAM, coinciding with the end of feminism’s first wave.
39In studying the UFAM, a feminist reading can offer important insights into notions developed by the contemporary theorists of charity. The use and promotion of the notion of “assistance through work” is grounded in a theoretical foundation of which the UFAM’s leadership had some indirect knowledge, from the popularized form in press articles or more allusively in D’Haussonville’s essay. “Work” was not just a remedy for welfare or charity, understood as a system of organized patronage; it was also—above all—a means of asserting women’s social independence in the artistic sphere. To describe its female musician members as “unemployed” was to highlight the fact that they had a profession and, through the negation (their lack of employment), that they belonged to a job market that often excluded them. Creating work opportunities for women musicians was a way of proving that they were capable of working and, in so doing, advancing a cause that can be described as “feminine” rather than feminist. As used by the UFAM, the word “assistance” was polysemous, referring to different, albeit complementary, realities. It clearly stemmed from a reading of contemporary theorists of charity, and the UFAM’s relative application of theoretical concepts of the day to its activities, at least as described in its annual reports. At the same time, “assistance” was synonymous with gendered support, within the context of a women’s association.
40Our description of the UFAM’s economic policy is of course dependent upon the nature of the sources consulted. Without reducing the UFAM’s annual reports and member speeches to mere statements of intent, it remains difficult, when the sources at our disposal are biased, to study the extent of the association’s concrete action within a musical economy in which it saw itself as an intermediary. Nevertheless, our examination of UFAM speeches allows us to make several observations. First, a comparative reading of UFAM member speeches and Paul-Gabriel D’Haussonville’s essay suggest that they shared common notions, insofar as both present the same reasoning in their criticism of charity and elevation of assistance through work. However, while the UFAM did adopt some of the vocabulary of the “reform nebula,” it remained in the margins of this reformist fabric: its female members were not the indigent or jobless described by D’Haussonville. The women musicians that became members of the UFAM were certainly at the bottom of the ladder in the musical economy, but this cannot be compared to the systemic, structural mechanisms of poverty at large described by the rationalist theorists.
41With regard to the UFAM’s use of the economic notions discussed here, it is important to emphasize that unlike D’Haussonville’s essay, the UFAM’s annual reports were not theoretical works. It is unlikely that Lucy Tassart and her colleagues undertook to theorize their actions before implementing them; any theorization on their part seems more like retroactive justification. The annual reports are not forward-looking but descriptive: they retrace how the association transformed itself over time in response to the problems encountered by its members. Theorization of the UFAM’s actions occurs after the fact, as a means of both analysing and legitimizing them, especially if we consider that the association’s actions were subject to criticism if they supported any artistic “non-values.” The use of political economy terms, specifically from a current that made the criticism of charity its credo, helped the UFAM position itself as a reformative association. This theoretical borrowing allowed the UFAM to avoid suspicion of being a women’s enterprise that naively promoted women artists with no knowledge of the economy in which it operated. More generally, the example of this association allows us to re-evaluate the way in which the parties to these women’s artistic networks found ways to make accommodations to external criteria—in this case, the vocabulary of political economy—as part of a strategy of legitimization.
