There is a need for historical studies in music education that focuses on the common person. Historians in general have been doing this for years, but music education history has yet to catch up to the field. Although there have been many biographies and biographical studies about the more well-known music educators, little has been done investigating what teaching was like for the average teacher, and even less is known about teaching music in the early years of music education in the United States. A Musician and Teacher in Nineteenth Century New England: Irving Emerson, 1843-1903 argues...