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This chapter examines Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler's life against the backdrop of contemporary U.S. attitudes toward marriage, motherhood, and careers for women. Unlike most women musicians of her generation, who gave up their professions when they married or had children, Bloomfield-Zeisler resumed concertizing mere months after the births of each of her three sons. The chapter emphasizes Bloomfield-Zeisler's need to prove that she could “do it all,” and proceeds with a discussion of the image of women artists in literature during the period, with particular attention to Bert Leston Taylor's 1906 novel The Charlatans. The chapter also considers the increasingly vulnerable plight of German musicians in the United States during World War I; the effect of the war on Fannie and her husband, Sigmund Zeisler; the ways in which the Zeislers chose to manifest their patriotism; Bloomfield-Zeisler's last years, which were marked by a number of philanthropic involvements; and her death on August 20, 1927.

This chapter takes a look at Sigmund Zeisler, a prominent Chicago attorney and one of the defenders of the anarchists in the Haymarket trial of 1886. Zeisler and Fanny Bloomfield advanced the friendship that had begun in Bielitz and were married in Chicago on October 18, 1885. Zeisler expressed the expectation that Fannie would give up performing when she married or had a child. By adapting to the reality of her wife's ambition and its impact on the potential success of their marriage, Zeisler was articulating a more unconventional and nuanced sensibility. This chapter provides a background on Zeisler's education, his ideas on marriage, and his influence on Fannie, as well as the roots of the Haymarket Riot.

This chapter examines the state of classical music in the United States in the late nineteenth century as well as Fannie Bloomfield's first attempts to establish a career as a pianist during that time. It first describes the European ensembles that toured the United States beginning in midcentury, such as the Germania Musical Society, and the European virtuosos who barnstormed the country. It then considers Theodore Thomas's role in promoting an interest in classical music, and especially how he helped further Bloomfield's career. It also discusses the impediments to women's success as virtuosos, including the assumption that women were incapable of interpreting the likes of composers considered to be “virile,” such as Ludwig van Beethoven and Edvard Grieg. The chapter concludes with an assessment of Bloomfield's audition with Thomas; her initial failure to present a New York debut; her career-altering contract with the Wm. Knabe & Co.; her subsequent debut performances in Chicago and New York; and her marriage to Sigmund Zeisler in 1885.

This chapter examines the experience of U.S. music students in late nineteenth-century Vienna as well as the musical scene at that time. In the 1870s and 1880s, Viennese audiences attended the premieres of works by Johannes Brahms, Anton Bruckner, Richard Wagner, and Giuseppe Verdi. They also flocked to piano recitals by Rafael Joseffy, Anton Rubinstein, Hans von Bülow, and Franz Liszt. The chapter considers Fanny Blumenfeld's living conditions, her struggles with health problems, and her studies with Theodor Leschetizky, which culminated in successful performances before Viennese critics that provided her with the European stamp of approval that was almost always necessary for success in the United States. It also recounts her first meeting with her future husband, Sigmund Zeisler.