Laura Craytor Boulton, 1920
A.B., Denison University
University of Chicago, Sorbonne
New York
Citation awarded on Saturday, June 11, 1960
A musicologist and ethnologist, Laura Craytor Boulton’s explorations have done much to preserve the vanishing cultures of ancient peoples.
Mrs. Boulton has made 21 expeditions to Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Arctic to record native music, film the ceremonials and customs, and document the traditions of the national groups and primitive tribes inhabiting these regions. She has published 16 record albums, written for numerous popular and scientific magazines, lectured widely here and abroad, and produced 30 documentary films. She has been named recently to President Eisenhower’s Committee of the People-to-People Program.
Mrs. Boulton is widely recognized as one of the foremost authorities on African tribal music and as an American ambassador of good will to the tribal peoples of this world.
