Jean Jenkins (ethnomusicologist)


Jean Jenkins was an American-born ethnomusicologist who spent most of her career based in the UK and travelled all over the world to collect sound recordings, slides and musical instruments.

Biography

Jean Jenkins was born in Arkansas and studied anthropology and musicology in Missouri during the 1940s. In 1949 she arrived in Britain with her first husband, and continued her studies at the University of London, at the School of Oriental and African Studies.
Jenkins travelled widely throughout Africa and Central Asia between the 1950s and 1980s creating exceptional recordings, and taking detailed notes. She was a key figure in laying the ground for the contemporary world music scene, and as well as insight into traditional music from around the world, her archives reveal a larger than life woman, who fled McCarthy, was friends with Haile Selassie and who was meticulous, packing silk handkerchiefs and girdles whenever she travelled.
In 1954 she joined the staff of the Horniman Museum in South London. During her time at the museum she built up the musical instrument collections from developing countries, conducted important fieldwork in Ethiopia and created a centre for ethnomusicology. Meanwhile she married her second husband and obtained a British passport in order to avoid being deported to the US for her trade union work. The marriage was dissolved in 1961.
A strong-willed and energetic woman, during the 1960s and 1970s Jean Jenkins travelled extensively throughout Southern Europe, Asia and Africa. Among many other places, she visited Uganda, Malaysia, Indonesia Afghanistan Algeria and Morocco, and Turkey and Syria. During these extended trips she collected a wealth of information in the form of sound recordings, slides and photographs, and also kept regular diaries. In addition, she collected a vast range of musical instruments.
After curating the 1976 exhibition "Music and Musical Instruments for the World of Islam" at the Horniman Museum, thereby introducing the collections to a much wider audience, in 1978 she left the museum and continued to work independently in Edinburgh, France and Germany. In 1983 she curated the important exhibition "Man and Music" at the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh. She died in London on 12 September 1990.

Collections at the National Museums of Scotland

In 1980 the National Museum of Scotland acquired Jean Jenkins's own collection of musical instruments and in 1990 the Museum was bequeathed her entire archive of field recordings, indexes, diaries and 13,000 slides and photographs. Together, they form a unique record of musical traditions which, in some places, have disappeared.

Publications