Career
During their life together, Marian MacDowell realized how having a quiet room would support her husband's work. In 1896 she bought Hillcrest, a farm in Peterborough, New Hampshire, for their summer residence. Her husband appreciated how artists learned and were stimulated by interacting with people from other disciplines and here they had plans of creating a place where artists could come together.
In 1904 Edward MacDowell began to show evidence of a nervous disorder or dementia that ended his composing and teaching career. He lost virtually all mental capacity. Marian cared for him to the end of his life in 1908, in his last years with the help of a nurse Anna Baetz. After Edward's death, Baetz stayed with Marian MacDowell and helped with the Colony.
In 1907 Marian MacDowell initiated her and Edward's plan for an artists' colony, founding a residential institution in Peterborough, New Hampshire where artists could stay for limited periods of time to work. She transferred the deed of property for Hillcrest Farm to the Edward MacDowell Association to initiate the colony. She had a studio built there, and that summer invited the first artists: Helen Mears, a sculptor, and her sister Mary Mears, a writer. The latter published an article about the colony in the July 1909 issue of The Craftsman. Marian MacDowell conceived of ways to support both artists' need for solitude and for interaction.
To raise funds for the Colony's support and endowment, MacDowell began lecturing to women's clubs and musical groups. Encouraged at one session, she took up her performing career again at the age of fifty and became the foremost interpreter of MacDowell's music. "For approximately the next twenty-five years, traveled throughout the United States and Canada, giving between 400 to 500 concerts to raise money for the colony."
She frequently performed concerts for women's music clubs, such as the MacDowell clubs, named after Edward MacDowell. She inspired the formation of some of the MacDowell clubs and united ones that previously existed. These clubs were significant donors to the Colony and, in turn, brought the arts to their local communities. Marian MacDowell maintained close relationships with many of these clubs throughout her life, in addition to umbrella organizations such as the National Federation of Music Clubs and professional music sororoties: Sigma Alpha Iota, Delta Omicron, Phi Beta, and Alpha Chi Omega. She said women's groups raised far more money for the Colony than did men's fraternities.
Through her unceasing efforts to support both female and male artists in all disciplines, Marian MacDowell became a leading figure for the arts in the United States. The colony supported generations of artists in her lifetime, whose work expressed and contributed to American life. It continues to do so.
Read more about this topic: Marian Mac Dowell
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