12 - Clara Schumann, ‘Clara Schumann’ and the American Press

Summary

Even though she never traversed the Atlantic to tour or visit the New World, Clara Schumann was a regular subject of the American press in the second half of the nineteenth century. However, her widespread celebrity meant that daily newspapers, trade journals and leisure periodicals fashioned Schumann in many different – and sometimes competing – ways. On the one hand, factual reports informed readers of her professional activities, personal life and European reception. On the other hand, such information could be used by editors like John Sullivan Dwight, critics like George Upton, writers like Aubertine Woodward, and publishers like John Church, to advance their own agendas. As a result, the Schumann depicted in the American press in the aggregate during her lifetime might more accurately be characterized as ‘Schumann’ – a symbolic figure who not only appealed to America’s nascent celebrity culture, but who could also be invoked to shape important aesthetic, social and artistic issues.