Densmore was born on May 21, 1867, in
Red Wing, Minnesota. As a child Densmore developed an appreciation of music by listening to the nearby
Dakota Indians. She studied music at
Oberlin College for three years. Her interest in American Indian music was in part driven by reading
Alice Cunningham Fletcher's work. During the early part of the twentieth century, she worked as a music teacher with Native Americans nationwide, while also learning, recording, and
transcribing their music, and documenting its use in their culture. Many of the recordings she made on behalf of the BAE now are held in the
Library of Congress. While her original recordings often were on
wax cylinders, many of them have been reproduced using other media and are included in other archives. The recordings may be accessed by researchers as well as Tribal delegations. Some of the Tribes she worked with include the
Ojibwe,
Mandan,
Hidatsa,
Sioux, northern
Pawnee in present day
Oklahoma,
Tohono O'odham in present day
Arizona, Indians of
Washington and
British Columbia,
Ho-Chunk and
Menominee of
Wisconsin,
Pueblo Indigenous peoples of the
southwest, including
Acoma,
Isleta,
Cochiti, and
Zuni,
Seminole in present day
Florida, and
Guna in
Panama. Densmore frequently was published in the journal
American Anthropologist, contributing consistently throughout her career. Her manuscript
A Study of Some Michigan Indians (1949) was the first publication in the
University of Michigan Press American Anthropologist monograph series. She wrote
The Indians and Their Music in 1926. Between 1910 and 1957, she published fourteen book-length bulletins for the Smithsonian, each describing the musical practices and repertories of a different Native American group. These were reprinted as a series by DaCapo Press in 1972. Raymond DeMallie describes Densmore's
Teton Sioux Music and Culture as "one of the most significant ethnographic works ever published on the Sioux." She also was a part of
"A Ventriloquy of Anthros" in the
American Indian Quarterly along with
James Owen Dorsey and
Eugene Buechel. Densmore died of
bronchopneumonia on June 5, 1957, at a hospital in Red Wing. She was buried in
Oakwood Cemetery. ==Awards==