Introduction. "One would like to know"
PART 1. SOCIAL DIVERSITY AMONG AMATEUR WOMEN MUSICIANS. "The circle in which you move" : Gentility, Music, and White Women ; "Colored girls under the control of colored teachers" : Gentility, Music, and Women of Color
PART 2. REPERTORY. "Home! Sweet Home!' with brilliant variations" : Melody ; "I have no time to tell you now half the enjoyment these operas have given us" : Opera as Cultural Capital
PART 3. SCIENTIFIC MUSIC AND PROFESSIONAL MUSICIANS. "Distinguished success ... in teaching Music as a Science": Genteel Women Scientists ; "Of that ilk": Foreign Music Teachers and Genteel Pupils ; "A remarkable accomplishment for one of the gentle sex" : Other Professionals
PART 4. THE CIVIL WAR. "The female tribe as 'angels' on earth ... is being ... entirely dissipated" : The Parlor and the Civil War ; "Many shades of caste and kind" : The Civil War and the Public Gaze
PART 5. WOMEN MUSICIANS IN THE RECONSTRUCTION ERA. "She takes up music as a profession" : Career Women ; "Beethoven wrote it
that is enough" : Reconstructed Women Reconstructing Repertory
Conclusion. "This old piece of music keeps her name like a flower pressed in a book".