Aufderheide, May. Blue Ribbon Rag. J.F. Aufderheide, monographic, 1910. Notated Music. https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200029051/.
Appropriation of another culture is commonplace; it has been for millennia. But you can do that respectfully or disrespectfully. When we look back at why different people chose to pursue careers in fields that seem outside of their own culture, it can be difficult to assess their motivations. Ragtime music was itself a mixed cultural art form, focused on the western piano but with a syncopated rhythm that white society at first labeled as black. As happened with jazz and rock, the genre attracted whites who wanted to be a bit naughty, and those artists opened the style to wider audiences. When a white girl in late 19th century Indianapolis got the ragtime bug, she was able to turn it into a brief career.
May Frances Aufderheide Kaufman was born in Indianapolis on May 21, 1888. Her family was well off; they sent her on a European grand tour in her late teens which focused on the glories of art on that continent. Her mother, Lucy M. Dell, traced her family back to the American Revolution and was a member of Indianapolis high society. Aufderheide’s aunt, May Kolmer, was a well-respected Indianapolis pianist who played with the city orchestra; she taught Aufderheide classical music. Yet, for some reason, Aufderheide turned to ragtime music.
She was lucky that her family supported her not only financially but also artistically. She could take the time to explore ragtime music and then try her hand at it. Her father, violinist turned loan broker John H. Aufderheide, was impressed enough by his daughter’s ragtime creations that he formed the J. H. Aufderheide Music Publisher after her publication of Dusty Rag in 1908; the publishing company continued until 1913 and focused on Indianapolis composers. Dusty Rag had been a joint effort by Aufderheide and a few of her friends, including fellow ragtime composer Paul Pratt.
Aufderheide was part of a small yet popular clique of Indianapolis ragtime writers of the early 20th century. She was not the only woman member of this group but was certainly the most financially successful and the best-known woman rag composer of her generation. Other members of this loose group of friends ventured into Dixieland and blues, while Aufderheide tried her hand at a few waltzes and pop songs, though none were widely published.
In part the shortness of her ragtime career may have been more of a reflection of her private life than a lack of interest or popularity. She was married in 1908 to Thomas Kaufman, though she continued to put out music under her maiden name (which is why I’m using it to identify her in this article). Kaufman was an architect and worked for his family’s firm in Richmond, Indiana, so the couple moved there. In 1922, the couple adopted a daughter, Lucy, who had physical difficulties. Over the years, Kaufman’s alcoholism forced him from job to job and moved the family around. The stress of private life seems to have ended Aufderheide’s ragtime career by 1912, just four years after it started.
Her family moved to California in 1947 or 1949 and lived in a house on the grounds of the Huntington Sheraton Hotel in Pasadena. Kaufman had designed the hotel, so the family may have gotten a good deal on their home. They named it “Rose Villa,” and Aufderheide lived out the rest of her life there. Even after the death of her husband and daughter in the 1950s, Aufderheide’s own health problems prevented her from returning to music. She had severe arthritis that made it nearly impossible for her to play piano, and eventually it left her wheelchair bound. She died on September 1, 1972 at the age of 84, right before a rebirth of ragtime music in America.
Sadly, like many ragtime pieces written by white people, much of Aufderheide’s published music had racist cover art, though it is unlikely that she or her fans understood that at the time. It is likely that such images were part of the appeal of the music, because it pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable for white musicians and music lovers to enjoy while still upholding institutional racism. A lot of the cover art you may find today on Aufderheide’s pieces such as Richmond Rag (1908) or The Thriller Rag (1909) now includes an image of her, but the original cover art often but not always caricatured Blacks.
Aufderheide was no Scott Joplin, and there is no doubt that it was her whiteness and family support that helped her become arguably the most famous woman ragtime composer. Aufderheide composed only 18 works of music between 1908 and 1912, and none of them were nationwide successes, though a few became Indiana-Ohio regional hits. However, the fact that she and other women, such as Gladys Yelvington and Julia Lee Niebergall, could succeed at all in a music world then dominated by white men is still an outstanding accomplishment, and perhaps in that respect Aufderheide could still be seen as a powerful role model for musicians today from all walks of life.