{"id":20599,"date":"2024-09-30T06:46:35","date_gmt":"2024-09-30T10:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esm4.esm.rochester.edu\/sibley\/?p=20599"},"modified":"2025-10-13T10:49:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T14:49:09","slug":"sep30-oct6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esm4.esm.rochester.edu\/sibley\/2024\/09\/sep30-oct6\/","title":{"rendered":"September 30th-October 6th: The dynamite plot"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1759848456146{background-color: #F4F4F4 !important;}”][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1759848521107{background-color: #F4F4F4 !important;}”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1759848534099{background-color: #F4F4F4 !important;}”]Published on Sep 30th, 2024<\/em><\/p>\n

Back to This Week at Eastman<\/a><\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”top” gap=”10″][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1727469023746{margin-bottom: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”]This entry for the week of September 30th<\/sup>-October 6th, 2024 marks the return of This Week at Eastman: the View from the Archive <\/em>following a one-year hiatus.\u00a0 This Week at Eastman <\/em>was initiated at the outset of the Eastman School\u2019s centennial year 2021-22 as a vehicle to promote and celebrate, on a weekly basis, noteworthy moments, people, and milestones in the school\u2019s history.\u00a0 The respite during 2023-24 was a necessary pause while personnel in the Ruth T. Watanabe Special Collections pursued other initiatives and projects.\u00a0 In the meantime, inquiries from the local Eastman community and from Eastman alumni suggested that there is still a place for this online exploration of the school\u2019s history.\u00a0 TW@E\u00a0 <\/em>therefore continues, adhering to the same weekly timetable, by which a new entry will be uploaded each Monday.\u00a0 Content is drawn from the Eastman School of Music Archives and from the RTWSC department\u2019s various archival collections.\u00a0 All essential technical and digital support is provided by Sadia Hussain, Library Technology Analyst and Software Engineer for the Sibley Music Library.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1759848346428{background-color: #f4f4f4 !important;}”][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1726852979961{padding-top: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;}”][vc_row_inner equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”top” gap=”10″][vc_column_inner width=”2\/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1664296806511{background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”20632″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” css=”.vc_custom_1727452042064{margin-top: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”20641″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” css=”.vc_custom_1727453178649{margin-top: 20px !important;margin-bottom: 20px !important;}”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1664296815206{background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”20635″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” css=”.vc_custom_1727572973494{margin-top: 20px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”20630″ img_size=”medium” add_caption=”yes” css=”.vc_custom_1727572274113{margin-top: 20px !important;margin-bottom: 20px !important;}”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”top” gap=”10″][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1727573746917{margin-bottom: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”]Publication of Professor Vincent Lenti\u2019s three-volume history of the Eastman School of Music, together with so much sustained activity throughout the 2021-22 centennial year, turned the Eastman School community\u2019s attention to the illustrious aspects of the institution\u2019s history.\u00a0 The Eastman School\u2019s record of education, achievement, and trendsetting amply speaks for itself, and we can confidently expect that the industrious work and the far-reaching vision of administrators, faculty members, and students will carry forward that legacy indefinitely.\u00a0 Along the way throughout the past century, there have been certain other moments, less salubrious in nature and not entirely musical, that are less well remembered.\u00a0 Would anyone believe that there had once been a plot to dynamite the Eastman School of Music?\u00a0 Yes, incredibly enough, the history of the Eastman School includes even that!\u00a0 Perhaps the real zinger in the story is that the two individuals held responsible were an Eastman School alumna and an enrolled Eastman student.\u00a0 The extant documentation that I cite herein consists of local press reporting, now preserved in two scrapbooks in the Sibley Music Library.<\/p>\n

Seventy-four years ago this week, no less than a plot to dynamite the Eastman School was discovered and thwarted by local law enforcement officials. The story broke in the Rochester press on October 1st<\/sup>, 1960, the day after the seizure of several hundred pounds of dynamite by the Rochester police. Announcement of the discovery and seizure was accompanied by detailed reporting on the individual responsible, a 24-year-old woman who was a violinist member of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and a public school music graduate of the Eastman School of Music. While a preliminary psychiatric investigation did not point to insanity, some of the woman\u2019s statements were conflicting; moreover, she spoke of having received letters threatening injury to herself if she did not carry out the plot against the Eastman School. (It was reported that the police found no such letters.)\u00a0 She had recruited a younger woman, who was at that time enrolled at Eastman, to assist her in the plot. The press reported that one year earlier, the two had broken into the Eastman School office of Flora Burton, Dean of Students (served in that capacity 1946-72).\u00a0 Somewhat surprisingly, how the Eastman School community reacted to the news is not mentioned in any of the press reportage, but Eastman School Director Dr. Howard Hanson, for his part, was cited to the effect that he had found the young woman a pleasant person in his admittedly brief contacts with her.<\/p>\n

As the ensuing weeks passed, the Rochester press reported on the investigation and continuing developments.\u00a0 The stories were printed in both the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle <\/em>\u00a0and the Rochester Times-Union; <\/em>uploaded here are all of the articles that are preserved at the Sibley Music Library.\u00a0 The SML sequence comes to an end with the report that the two young women had pleaded guilty to the charges; thereafter, the SML did not retain any further reporting of the story. Further research elsewhere would complete the documentary record, but perhaps it\u2019s as well to stop at this point.\u00a0 Altogether, this story is as unfortunate as it is sensational, suggesting that not all was well in the lives of two young people who had made such decisions as they did.\u00a0 The escapade even found its way into official documentation of the United States Government.\u00a0 In that the foiled plot had been reported in broadcast news, it was given permanent record in a Senate subcommittee report which carried the following summary:\u00a0 \u201cPolice in Rochester, N.Y. have arrested two young women musicians on charges of plotting to blow up the famed Eastman School of Music \u2026.Police said the seized 125 sticks of dynamite from the girls\u2019 apartment.\u201d[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Ultimately, though, we can draw the favorable conclusion all was well that ended well.\u00a0 Nobody was harmed; no damage was done to property; and time passed.\u00a0 The younger of the two women made a successful career for herself, completing her studies and earning a masters degree and then joining the Boston Symphony Orchestra, becoming only the third woman member of that orchestra.\u00a0 She retired from the BSO after 38 years\u2019 service and has recently published her memoirs.\u00a0 The other young woman, the instigator of the plot, was clearly a poised individual and a talented performer. A public school major (which today would be in the Department of Music Teaching and Learning) with the violin as her principal instrument, she had played second violin in the Eastman School Symphony Orchestra I under conductor Dr. Paul White, and then, following her graduation from Eastman, was appointed to the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor Theodore Bloomfield as a member of the second violin section.\u00a0 One hopes that she, too, was able to move on and to achieve peace and success.\u00a0 The story of the foiled dynamite plot is now largely forgotten, a footnote incident in the otherwise highly illustrious history of the Eastman School of Music.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”top” css=”.vc_custom_1727574679799{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 10px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;padding-top: -10px !important;}”][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1726853225194{margin-top: 20px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”20671″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”right” onclick=”img_link_large” css=”.vc_custom_1727574542302{margin-right: -15px !important;padding-top: 20px !important;padding-right: -10px !important;}”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1727574707810{margin-top: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 10px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”20672″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”img_link_large” css=”.vc_custom_1727574568647{margin-left: -15px !important;padding-top: 20px !important;padding-left: -10px !important;}”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”top” gap=”10″][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1727469910028{background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”20653″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” onclick=”img_link_large” css=”.vc_custom_1727467377161{margin-bottom: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”20660″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” onclick=”img_link_large” css=”.vc_custom_1727467846833{padding-top: 20px !important;}”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1664294037966{background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”20689″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” onclick=”img_link_large” css=”.vc_custom_1727573926082{margin-bottom: 20px !important;padding-top: 10px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”20674″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” onclick=”img_link_large” css=”.vc_custom_1727469501181{padding-top: 20px !important;}”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1727469228198{background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”20658″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” onclick=”img_link_large” css=”.vc_custom_1727467755038{padding-top: 20px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”20659″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” onclick=”img_link_large” css=”.vc_custom_1727467811742{padding-top: 20px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”20662″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” onclick=”img_link_large” css=”.vc_custom_1727467970944{padding-top: 20px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”20663″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” onclick=”img_link_large” css=”.vc_custom_1727468040097{padding-top: 20px !important;}”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”top” gap=”10″ css=”.vc_custom_1727470319329{margin-top: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;padding-top: -10px !important;}”][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1726853225194{margin-top: 20px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”20664″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” onclick=”img_link_large” css=”.vc_custom_1727468072555{padding-top: 20px !important;}”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1726853234227{margin-top: 20px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”20665″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” onclick=”img_link_large” css=”.vc_custom_1727468109506{padding-top: 20px !important;}”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”top” gap=”5″ css=”.vc_custom_1664300118267{margin-bottom: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_column_inner][vc_separator][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1727701469293{margin-bottom: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”]Sources: <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWoman violinist seized in plot to dynamite Eastman School\u201d in Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, <\/em>October 1, 1960.\u00a0 Preserved in Rochester Scrapbook Sept-Nov 1960, pages 46-47.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlot at Eastman probed by FBI\u201d in Rochester Times-Union, <\/em>October 1, 1960.\u00a0 Ibid., page 47. \u00a0Accompanied by photo with caption \u201cHot cargo\u201d (Ibid., page 48) and by photo with caption \u201cMore evidence\u201d (page 49).\u00a0 in<\/p>\n

\u201c4 charges lodged against 2 women in school dynamiting plot\u201d in Rochester D&C, <\/em>October 2, 1960.\u00a0 Ibid., pages 50-51.<\/p>\n

\u201cMusic school plotters sent to hospital\u201d in Rochester Times-Union, <\/em>October 12, 1960.\u00a0 Ibid., page 79.<\/p>\n

\u201c2 held in plot to dynamite music school ruled sane\u201d by Miles Cunningham in Rochester Times-Union, <\/em>November 3, 1960.\u00a0 Ibid., page 140.<\/p>\n

\u201c2 held in school bomb plot called sane\u201d in Rochester D&C,\u00a0 <\/em>November 4, 1960.\u00a0 Ibid., page 142.<\/p>\n

\u201cJudged sane, 2 women moved to jail\u201d in Rochester D&C, <\/em>November 5, 1960.\u00a0 Rochester Scrapbook November-December 1960, page 3.<\/p>\n

\u201c2 young women indicted in plot to blast school\u201d in Rochester D&C, <\/em>December 3, 1960.\u00a0 Ibid., page 110.<\/p>\n

\u201c2 women pleased innocent to dynamiting plot\u201d in Rochester D&C, <\/em>December 6, 1960.\u00a0 Ibid., page 110.<\/p>\n

\u201cEastman bomb plotters plead guilty\u201d in Rochester Times-Union, <\/em>December 14, 1960.\u00a0 Ibid., page 135.<\/p>\n

\u201c2 Eastman bomb plotters plead guilty\u201d in Rochester D&C, <\/em>December 15, 1960.\u00a0 Ibid., page 135.<\/p>\n

\n

[1]<\/a> Cited in the Final Report of the Committee on Commerce, United States Senate, prepared by its subcommittee of the subcommittee on communications pursuant to S. Res. 305, 86th Congress, in its Part IV, The 15-minute Radio and Television Network Newscasts for the period September 26 through November, 1960. Accessed online on September 28, 2023.<\/a>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_empty_space][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1631195300893{margin-top: 40px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”3″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1759848437918-4db464cb-3340-1″ taxonomies=”18″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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