Pauline Arnoux MacArthur

Pauline Arnoux MacArthur (1867 – May 22, 1941) was an American clubwoman, writer, pianist and librettist.

Pauline Arnoux MacArthur
A middle-aged white woman, wearing several strands of beads and a white collar over a black dress.
Pauline Arnoux MacArthur, from a 1915 publication
Born
Pauline Arnoux

1867 (1867)
New York
Died (aged 73)
New York
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Librettist, writer, clubwoman

Early life

Pauline Arnoux was the daughter of judge William H. Arnoux and Pauline Arnoux.[1][2] She claimed to be Austrian royalty, through a grandmother who was a princess.[3]

Career

Activism

MacArthur was active in social causes, including bringing concerts to prisons[4] and to settlement houses. She was president of the Women's Auxiliary of the University Settlement Society of New York. During World War I, MacArthur was founder and president of Le Cercle Rochambeau, a women's war relief organization, and president of the National Association for Mothers of Defenders of Democracy.[5] She had an apartment on the Champs-Élysées in Paris,[6] and may have been involved in the Allied secret service during the war.[3] She wrote "Short Talk on Suffrage" (1915), noting that "We suffer from inertia and from the dread of big changes which seem in the nature of upheavals. We will often go on reading in a failing light rather than move and turn on a full light."[7]

She was active in the National Council of Women's Department of Community Music, and founder and president of New York's Thursday Musical Club.[8] She was not a professional pianist, but played socially, on the radio,[9] and at benefit concerts with other musicians.[10]

The Apocalypse

As a librettist, MacArthur was known as co-writer (with Henri Pierre Roché) of The Apocalypse (1921), a dramatic oratorio.[11] The Apocalypse was based on Biblical themes (with sections titled "Belshazzar's Feast", "Armageddon", "Babylon", and "The Millennium"), but also had clear references to the more recent trauma of World War I.[12] The National Federation of Music Clubs held a contest, and awarded $5000 to the MacArthur/Roché libretto and the music by Paolo Gallico.[8][13] The Apocalypse was first performed at the Federation's biennial meeting in Davenport, Iowa, in 1921; the following year, was performed by the Oratorio Society of New York, at Carnegie Hall.[14]

Personal life

Pauline Arnoux married lawyer and diplomat John Roofe MacArthur II in 1889.[1] They divorced in 1930.[15][16] She died in 1941, in New York, aged 73 years.[17]

References

  1. "BRIDES AND GROOMS.; MISS PAULINE ARNOUX BECOMES MRS. JOHN ROOFE MACARTHUR". The New York Times. June 28, 1889. p. 4. Retrieved December 13, 2019.
  2. "Mrs. Pauline Arnoux". New-York Tribune. April 13, 1906. p. 7. Retrieved December 13, 2019 via Newspapers.com.
  3. "Mrs. MacArthur, Claimant to Throne of Austria, Dead". The Boston Globe. May 23, 1941. p. 18. Retrieved December 14, 2019 via Newspapers.com.
  4. MacArthur, Pauline (September 1917). "Music in the Prisons". Musical Monitor: 18–10.
  5. "The National Association for Mothers of Defenders of Democracy". Musical Monitor. 7: 439. May 1918.
  6. "Mrs. MacArthur, Claimant to Throne of Austria, Dead". The Boston Globe. May 23, 1941. p. 18. Retrieved December 14, 2019 via Newspapers.com.
  7. MacArthur, Pauline Arnoux (1915), Booklet : Short talk on suffrage. 1915, Ann Lewis Women's Suffrage Collection, pp. 10–11, retrieved December 13, 2019
  8. "Oratorio Society to Present 'The Apocalypse'". Musical Courier: 23. November 16, 1922.
  9. "14 Jan 1932 Radio Programs Meyers Parmet". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. January 14, 1932. p. 8. Retrieved December 14, 2019.
  10. "Concert for Christ Church". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. January 29, 1910. p. 8. Retrieved December 14, 2019 via Newspapers.com.
  11. Gallico, Paolo; MacArthur, Pauline Arnoux; Roché, Henri Pierre (1922). The Apocalypse: Dramatic Oratorio in a Prologue and Three Parts, for Chorus of Mixed Voices with Soli and Piano Accompaniment. G. Schirmer.
  12. Long, Siobhán Dowling; Sawyer, John F. A. (September 3, 2015). The Bible in Music: A Dictionary of Songs, Works, and More. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 17–18. ISBN 978-0-8108-8452-6.
  13. "National Music Prize List is Made Public". The Wilmington Morning Star. March 20, 1921. p. 17. Retrieved December 14, 2019 via Newspapers.com.
  14. "New York Oratorio Society: The Apocalypse". Musical Courier: 42. November 30, 1922.
  15. "News Briefs". The Daily Sentinel. October 9, 1930. p. 9. Retrieved December 13, 2019 via Newspapers.com.
  16. "Rich Husband So Miserly He Almost Starved Family". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. October 9, 1930. p. 32. Retrieved December 14, 2019 via Newspapers.com.
  17. "Pauline A. MacArthur". The Semi-Weekly Spokesman-Review. May 23, 1941. p. 5. Retrieved December 14, 2019 via Newspapers.com.
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