Ruth Crawford Seeger

Ruth Crawford Seeger (born Ruth Porter Crawford; July 3, 1901 – November 18, 1953) was an American composer and musicologist. Her music heralded the emerging modernist aesthetic, and she became a central member of a group of American composers known as the “ultramodernists”. She composed primarily during the 1920s and 1930s, turning towards studies on folk music from the late 1930s until her death. Her music influenced later composers including Elliott Carter. She is best known for her String Quartet (1931), which is “regarded as one of the finest modernist works of the genre”. Early life Ruth Crawford Seeger was born Ruth Porter Crawford on July 3, 1901, in East Liverpool, Ohio, the second child of Methodist minister Clark Crawford and Clara Crawford (née Graves). The family moved several times during Crawford’s childhood, living in Akron, Ohio, St. Louis, and Muncie, Indiana. In 1912, the family moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where Clark died of tuberculosis two years later. After her husband’s death, Clara opened a boarding house and struggled to maintain her family’s middle-class lifestyle. Ruth began writing poetry at an early age and as a teenager had aspirations to become a