The Music Special Collections Department at the Free Library of Philadelphia holds three collections of music materials: the Edwin A. Fleisher Orchestral Music Collection, the Sheet Music Collection, and the Drinker Choral Collection established by Henry and Sophie Drinker.

A selection of Sophie Drinker’s books and papers are on display outside the Fleisher Collection through March 2025. Read on to learn more about Sophie Drinker and her writing.

The Drinker Choral Collection was donated to the Free Library by Henry and Sophie Drinker in 1959. The Drinkers were a prominent Philadelphia family who loved performing and listening to music, especially choral music. Their home was a lively site of music-making. They hosted singing parties and invited professional musicians to perform for them. Henry Sandwith Drinker (1880–1965) was a lawyer who wrote English translations of German choral music, such as J. S. Bach’s cantatas and lieder, or folk-inspired songs, by Johannes Brahms. 

Sophie Hutchinson Drinker (1888–1967) shared her husband’s passion for music. She was both an amateur historian and an amateur musician. As a young woman, she chose not to attend college. Her wealth and social class allowed her to research and write about many topics. She may have been an "outsider" from the academic world of the time, but as the wife of a distinguished Philadelphia lawyer, she had plenty of support to pursue her interests. Although her work brought new attention to the topic of women in music, some of her attitudes on gender were rather conventional for her time. She felt that women should focus on child-rearing and family life, and did not challenge these stereotypical roles.

In 1930, she joined a women’s choir, The Montgomery Singers. She was disappointed by the music available for women to sing. Almost none of the music she found was composed by women. Drinker was surrounded by women who enjoyed expressing themselves through music and she knew many talented female performers, but she was still bothered by one question — why were there so few women composers?

Drinker's research into this question resulted in her first book, Music and Women: The Story of Women in Their Relation to Music. She studied the musical traditions of cultures from all over the world, from North America to Oceania. The book includes folk songs sung by women and explores women’s role in the music of the Catholic Church. While Music and Women was published in 1948, many of Drinker's conclusions are still relevant today. She identifies patriarchal systems that excluded women from the ranks of famous composers. In her book, Sophie argues that women are equally capable of musical genius when they can develop their talents. She writes, "We may be sure that the comparative silence of modern women in musical expression is not the result of inherent incapacity or of spiritual inferiority to men."

Sophie Drinker relied on a community of artists and experts in her work. One close collaborator was another pioneering woman of musicology, Kathi Meyer-Baer. She was the first woman to earn a PhD in Musicology. However, as a Jewish woman in Germany in the 1930s, she was unable to find a teaching position in her home country. Before the outbreak of World War II, Kathi Meyer-Baer and her husband fled to the United States. Henry and Sophie Drinker wrote letters of recommendation to help Meyer-Baer and her husband emigrate. Ultimately, the women split over their different visions for Music and Women. Kathi Meyer-Baer continued her research into rare medieval church music. She published several books and articles, but never found a permanent academic home in the United States. 

Sophie Drinker had an expansive musical community. Her women’s choir performed many songs together, including some of Brahms’ choral works for women. This led Drinker to write her second book, Brahms and His Women’s Choruses. Later in life, she became interested in early American history. She also self-published a book about Hannah Callowhill Penn, the second wife of William Penn. 

Most of Sophie Drinker’s writings and papers are held at Smith College and the University of Pennsylvania, but some items remain at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Selected books, papers, and other ephemera are on display outside the Fleisher Collection at Parkway Central Library through March 2025. Stop by to learn more about Sophie Drinker and her writing, and listen here for a playlist of music inspired by her works.