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Alma Nash
Musician
(1883-1965)

Early Life

Alma was born June 14th, 1883, to Mother Mary C. (Houston) and Father George A. Nash. Alma was the only child of Mary and George Nash, though her parents would later adopt another daughter named Elizabeth. George Nash was a physician and surgeon in Maryville, as well as a well-respected member of society. 

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After graduating high school Alma decided to attend the Maryville Seminary and studied string instruments. After graduation, she joined a performance group and travelled the country, but she soon returned to Maryville where in 1905 she started her own musical academy, the Maryville School of Banjo, Mandolin, and Guitar, located on the second floor of her father’s surgical practice on Buchanan Street. She also formed several local performance groups, such as the Elite Mandolin Orchestra in 1903.

Image from NCHS

1913 Suffrage Parade Background

In 1913 the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was organizing a dramatic parade to put the issue of women’s suffrage directly on the national stage. The parade was planned and choreographed by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns who were the newly appointed chairs of NAWSA .

 

The planned date of the event March 3rd was also very strategic as it was the day before Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration and would therefore garner and even larger audience and media response as people would already be in the capital. A call was put out to all the states for bands and other organizations who expressed interest in the cause of suffrage and were willing to come to the nation’s capital

Missouri Ladies Military Band

Alma Nash and the Missouri Ladies Military Band, which had been formed in 1910, applied to participate and received an official invitation in January 1913 to join the suffrage parade in Washington D.C. The Maryville band would be the only all-female band in the parade. The only problem was that they would have pay for their own train fare, find accommodations, arrange their uniforms, and learn to march. Primarily a concert-based ensemble, they had never performed in a parade before. They had a little over a month to get all arrangements finalized while learning to march in time. After rigorous training, the Missouri Ladies Military Band left Maryville on train for Washington D.C. and arrived just a few hours before the parade was set to begin.

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Here the band can be seen marching in D.C. for the parade.

Image from Library of Congress

Click the slideshow to see more images

A crowd of angry protestors and other disgruntled bystanders, who were primarily male, began to harass the women in the parade to stop the event from going any further. In a play of desperate hope, a representative from the National American Woman Suffrage Association asked Alma and the band to lead the parade. Alma later recounted that “One of the suffrage officers came rushing back to us and told us to march on ahead and lead; that it would be necessary for the band to open the way proved true.” As Alma brought the band to the front, they did as they had practiced hundreds of times before -- they started to play and march forward under the leadership and musical time keeping of Alma. As the band played, reports said that the crowd began to part, allowing the parade to continue as planned. Even though the Maryville band made it through the parade without any further incidents, a U.S. Senate Committee was called to investigate the violence that the marching women had faced. Afterwards, the band members were able to play tourist around D.C. and even attended Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration the very next day.

Resources

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