Introduction

Biography

Cogswell di­splayed mu­sic­al tal­ent ear­ly, and taught sing­ing schools while still in his teens.

In his ear­ly 20’s he lived in Brook­lyn, Penn­syl­van­ia, or­gan­iz­ing the Brook­lyn Band there. The band be­came well known from its per­form­anc­es at the Phi­la­del­phia Cen­ten­ni­al Ex­po­si­tion in 1876.

Cogswell next moved to Scran­ton, Penn­sy­lvan­ia, and be­came di­rect­or of the Ci­ty Guard Mi­li­ta­ry Band. He al­so gave pri­vate les­sons and served as a choir di­rect­or.

Upon leav­ing Scran­ton, he spent a year stu­dy­ing un­der lead­ing teach­ers in Bos­ton and New York.

Then came brief teach­ing stints in Tunk­han­nock, Penn­syl­van­ia and Bing­ham­ton, New York, then to El­mi­ra, New York, where he in­struct­ed the ci­ty band and was choir mas­ter at Tri­ni­ty Epis­co­pal Church.

From El­mi­ra, Cogs­well went to Mans­field, Penn­syl­van­ia, to di­rect the Mu­sic Con­ser­va­tory as­so­ci­at­ed with the lo­cal nor­mal school (lat­er the Mans­field State Teach­ers Col­lege).

The ci­ty of Sy­ra­cuse, New York, at­tract­ed by his ef­forts in de­vel­op­ing pub­lic school mu­sic, hired him to di­rect mu­sic in its schools. While there, he re­ceived his de­gree from Sy­ra­cuse Uni­ver­si­ty.

In 1906, Cog­swell re­turned to Penn­syl­van­ia to di­rect the mu­sic de­part­ment of the In­di­ana Nor­mal School. He al­so wrote the al­ma ma­ter for In­di­ana Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­sylv­ania.

He spent his sum­mers teach­ing mu­sic at Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty and the Chau­tau­qua Sum­mer School of Mu­sic.

Cogswell’s fi­nal move was to Wash­ing­ton, DC. In ad­di­tion to di­rect­ing mu­sic in the pub­lic schools, he led the Home De­fense League Re­gi­ment­al Band, con­duct­ed the Wash­ing­ton Ora­to­ria and Wash­ing­ton Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra, and was pre­si­dent of the mu­sic sec­tion of the Na­tion­al Edu­ca­tion­al As­so­cia­tion.

Works

• The In­sti­tute, Num­ber 1: Songs for Teach­ers’ In­sti­tutes and the School Room, with Phil­ip Ca­dy Hay­den, 1902