The School of Graduate Studies announces that Kristin Griffeath has won the 2012 UMKC Outstanding Thesis Award for her work: “War sirens: how the sheet music industry sold World War I”.   The award is given annually for the School of Graduate Studies.

Kristen’s study was done in partial fulfillment of the Master of Music in Musicology degree.  Her award was based on the approach to her research as well as the novel findings.  Griffeath studied how the sheet music industry contributed to the US Committee on Public Information in an informal manner.  This committee was responsible for producing posters, speeches and films that in essence produced a national culture of war.   The sheet music industry complemented this culture often using images of women to gain appeal to the public.  Lyrics, sheet music covers, and musical cues provided prototypical cues for women during the war (for example, angelic nurses to flirtatious tomboy recruits).   When consumers purchased such sheet music, they were bringing home a type of war propaganda so that more Americans would invest both materially and emotionally in the war effort. 

Kristen’s thesis was directed by Dr. Sarah Tyrrell along with committee members Drs. S. Andre Grande and William Everett,  Griffeath also received her Doctor of Musical Arts in Performance from UMKC’s Conservatory.  She utilized resources both at the UMKC Miller Nichols Library and the National World War I museum.