Agnes Eunice Crawford Schuldt was born in Pontiac, Michigan, July 5, 1902, the daughter of William Alfred and Sue Archer Crawford. At the age of five or six the she moved with her family to Syracuse, New York where she began her piano studies at age 8. She graduated from Syracuse University with a B.Mus. in 1924. She then studied piano performance in New York City with Ernest Hutcheson for a year before returning to Syracuse for her master's degree which she received in 1927. After her graduation she accepted a position at the University of Idaho where she remained for three years; following her first year she spent the summer in Paris studying with Nadia Boulanger. She then taught at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, from 1930 to 1932. On July 2, 1932 she married University of Idaho English professor Lester Schuldt at Maplewood, New Jersey. They returned to Moscow and she began giving private piano lessons since University policy would not allow two salaries to go to the same family. Following her husband's death in 1939 she left for a year of study with Harold Bauer in New York, then taught at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Virginia for a year before joining the Red Cross. During World War II she was recreation director with the Red Cross, first at a station hospital in Camp Livingston, Louisiana, then North Africa in and finally Europe (Italy and France) where her job was to find occupation for soldiers whose injuries might keep them in hospital for extended periods. She organized hillbilly quartets, leather-tooling classes, and taught square knotting of belts. When the war ended, she became the Red Cross representative at the Veteran's Psychiatric Hospital at Canandaigua, New York. While at the hospital she received a telegram saying a position in the University of Idaho's music faculty had opened and she returned to the University of Idaho in 1946 where she taught piano and music history until her retirement in 1967. She took a sabbatical in England in the spring of 1958 where she studied early 17th century music at Oxford University. After her retirement she was a visiting professor at the University of Illinois Chicago Circle for four years. While there she developed interdisciplinary courses combining history, music, art, and science, and also published related articles.
For many years she served as the faculty advisor to the college chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota International Fraternity for Women in Music. She was a member of the American Musicological Society, the American Association of University Professors, International Music Society, International Society for the Study of Time, and the academic honor societies of Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Alpha Iota, and Phi Kappa Lambda. She was also a member of the Moscow Fine Arts Club, Pleiades, Ballet Folk of Moscow Guild, and from 1980 to 1983 served on the Idaho Commission on the Arts.
In addition to her music she was an avid gardener; in June 1987 she was named a Moscow Centennial Gardner. In 1974 she received the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts. In 1986 she established a perpetual endowment fund to be used to support the University of Idaho School of Music library in recognition of which the library was named for her.
She died in Moscow on February 26, 1996.
The Records of Agnes C. Schuldt span the years 1903 to 1996, with the bulk of the material covering the years 1927 to 1995.
Included in the records are papers related to her teaching, personal papers including her work with the Red Cross during World War II, correspondence, and photographs.
The papers of Agnes C. Schuldt were in no discernible order when received. Therefore a series order was imposed during processing.
The first series contains material related to her professional life as a teacher of piano and music history. Included are typescript and offprint copies of articles which she wrote. Also included are notes for lectures which she gave, notes and outlines for courses which she taught both and the University of Idaho and the University of Illinois Chicago Circle where she taught following her retirement. There are also articles about her, certificates she was awarded, articles about her colleagues in the music department, programs for recitals which she gave, and information on university programs she was involved with.
Series two contains personal papers. Included are address books, information on her several endowments to the university, poetry written by her father and sister, reports of her work with the Red Cross during World War II, income tax returns from 1985-1993, and property tax receipts. There is also a large collection of correspondence. This is arranged alphabetically by correspondent, except in cases where only one or two letters were extant, or the last name of the writer was not known. Many of the letters were from her sister Elizabeth who was a potter living in Maine. The largest group of letters is from Dean Donner, whom she met when he was an English faculty member at the University of Idaho in the late 1920's. He left the U of I, but remained close friends with Agnes and Lester, and wrote her often over the years. At the time of her retirement from the U of I he was Dean of Letters and Sciences at the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle, and she taught there for several years. The Donner letters span the years 1961 to 1993. There are also some letters from Agnes to her sister, mostly during the time she was with the Red Cross. There is one trip diary written during her voyage to Europe in 1958. The final items in this series are a 1903 book of Madge Bigham
The final series consists of photographs. Some of these were in envelopes identified with a name, or location, but most were undated and unidentified. Included are five tintypes in frames, and two photograph albums which were left intact. Individual photographs were grouped in general headings and include American Red Cross, Elizabeth Crawford, William and Sue Crawford, the Donner family, photographs of family and friends, photographs of her houses and the garden at the house she occupied from 1951 until her death, personal events such as her wedding and birthdays, photographs of Agnes from 1903 to 1995, photographs of her husband Lester, the Sewell family who lived near Elizabeth, and slides of art work. The travel photographs consist of photographs of France which may or may not be commercial, and postcards, many of which she wrote to Earl and Ada David in Moscow.
Among the items removed from the collection were articles cut from magazines such as the New Yorker, which dealt with aspects of music and dance, theater programs, paid checks and bank statements, greeting cards without notes, maps, owners manuals and warranty cards, orders and invoices for plants and gardening supplies, and unused post cards. This reduced the records by 1 cubic foot.
The papers of Agnes Crawford Schuldt were donated to the University of Idaho Library by her estate, via Malcolm and Carol Renfrew, between March and April 1996.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.