Born: 22 November 1857, United States
Died: 23 August 1956
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Marian Griswold Nevins
The following is republished from the Library of Congress. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
“It took long years for me to realize what a different world I would have had, and how narrow my usefulness would have been should this child have lived. Aside from the fact that I know now that some of the happiest moments are those where the husband and wife are brought closer together through the intimate companionship, which is inevitably broken where there are children too, of course, the Colony would never have existed.”
Looking back over her long life, Marian MacDowell, the wife of American composer and pianist Edward MacDowell, reflected on the direction it had taken. She gave up a promising future as a pianist to devote herself to her husband’s career, insisting that “the fostering of a great creative gift was an infinitely higher mission for her, than interpreting the works of others.” Her only child was stillborn, and she lost her beloved Edward after twenty-three years of marriage when he succumbed to a devastating nervous disorder at the age of forty-six. Marian MacDowell was fifty years old when her husband died in 1908. She spent the rest of her life—another forty-eight years—creating the artists’ retreat that was his final wish. Returning to the piano after more than twenty years, she became the foremost interpreter of Edward MacDowell’s piano music, and traveled across North America playing concerts to benefit the fledgling MacDowell Colony. The last half of her life is synonymous with the birth of the MacDowell Colony, an institution that has left its mark on the cultural landscape of this country and continues to nurture and support creative artists today.