Helene Stratman-Thomas

Helene Stratman-Thomas (13 May 1896, Dodgeville, Wisconsin — 11 January 1973, Madison, WI) was an American folklorist and phonographer who worked at UW-Madison in various roles between 1930 and 1961, including the Pro Arte Quartet's business manager, and best known as the head of the Wisconsin Folk Music Project in the 1940s. She was an avid genealogist and the Daughters of the American Revolution member. Helene grew up in a predominantly Cornish town, exposed to various folk genres since early childhood, from German songs to English "game sounds" and Welsh hymns. Stratman-Thomas earned her degree in business management from the University Of Wisconsin, spending the next eight years employed by the Minneapolis investment firm before she returned to UW-Madison and acquired a Bachelor's and Master's degree in music. She joined the University's faculty in 1930 as a music theory lecturer and women's choir conductor. In 1940, professor Leland A. Coon (1892—1980) invited Helene to join a government-funded "Wisconsin Folk Music Project," established in partnership with The Library Of Congress three years earlier to capture and preserve the state's diverse music traditions. Stratman-Thomas embarked on her first journey to collect folk records in the summer of 1940, followed by another trip in 1941 and 1946, after the Second World War. Stratman-Thomas recounted her travels in the Wisconsin Public Radio series and subsequently toured across Wisconsin with a cycle of lectures.