Blog post created by Molly Bugg, Towson Special Collections and University Archives intern, Summer 2025.
When I first started at Towson University Archives, I did not know a lot about Emma Weyforth nor about this school. I admit I was a little nervous to start research because of the sheer size of the archives, but I was also excited at the prospect of uncovering her personal history.
About Emma Weyforth
Emma Weyforth came to Towson State Teachers College (STC) in the fall of 1925 and joined the music department. After her first few years, she rose to become the director of the Glee Club in 1928. In her first year as director, men were allowed to join the regular Glee Club. She grew as a teacher and director just as the school did; expanding their curriculum as Emma expanded the Glee Club. She helped to grow the Glee Club to the largest it had ever been in the school’s history up until that point. One student remarked in the May 1940 edition of Tower Light that around 400 students had joined the Glee Club since 1928, when she became the director. Indeed, her tenacity and her passion for music allowed her to guide her students through the turmoil and uncertainty of the Second World War, giving them many opportunities to support the soldiers.
The Music Department also developed a lot during her time at STC, the year before she joined there was a basic three music courses. The year after she joined, STC had already expanded their catalogue with two additional music courses focusing on teaching music. By 1932, they added classes originally only taught by Emma (The World Today in Music and Appreciation of Music). She and other music teachers helped to expand the scope of the music department with not only more required courses but introducing more electives as well. I learned that she took great pride in being a teacher and was always pushing both herself and her students to a higher standard. She was also a major advocate of making music more accessible, as evidenced by her belief in “Music for Every Child; Every Child for Music” as well as her work with the Women’s Association of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO).
The Research Process
The first place I started my research, naturally, was the collection itself. There were a multitude of letters from former students, mostly former Glee Club members, as well as some of her family. Reading through all of the letters sent to Emma was especially interesting; it gave me initial insight into her character, her work and her family. It also provided me with a little bit of knowledge of the school through the personal anecdotes remembered by former students. I gathered a lot of biographical information about her from The Baltimore Sun Historic Archives, which was a very helpful resource. In this portion of my research, however, I also learned that I needed to be more patient when it came to scouring through not as relevant information. I found a lot of less significant information about her life that did not tell me much about either her personality nor her personal history, such as weddings she attended or vacations she went on with her family.
The next place I looked at was the STC Bulletins for information about the history of the college, as well as the TowerLight. Through these resources I was able to find out when she started here, what classes she taught as well as the history of the Glee Club. A lot of information pertaining to Emma was found in conjunction with information about the Glee Club. I also found a lot of useful information about the Glee Club in Tower Light as well as some more interesting insight into her personality through the articles she posted in the newsletter. One thing I came to admire and appreciate about Emma was her tenacity and her mindset of continual improvement. She expected a lot of her students, but it was all for their benefit. She worked to improve the Glee Club every year, becoming more ambitious in its scope and in the number of events they participated in.
After finishing my research, I gained a newfound appreciation for historical archives as well as a greater knowledge of how to gather and search for information. Something I learned during my research was filtering my results to find the most helpful and relevant information. I became much better at finding what I needed in a more efficient and timely manner. If I were to do this kind of project again, I would come in with the mindset of the larger picture of the project as opposed to focusing too much on every detail of her life. I think there will always be questions left unanswered when it comes to researching, unfortunately either because the information was not recorded, it has been lost to time, or it has not been uncovered yet. But a lot of the questions I had about research itself have been answered through my experience here.
All in all, I am very grateful for the work that other people have done in archives over the years to preserve the history that I am now able to look at for my own research. I am also grateful for the skills I have picked up at my internship here that will help me moving forward. I hope to continue my own research at some point, as I am fascinated by the process of uncovering a historical person’s life and ancestry.