The Green collection consists of three linear feet of material arranged mainly alphabetically by type of material or topic. The materials focus on her years as a teacher both in Michigan and Iowa. Green devoted her life and career to the teaching of proper methods for teaching stringed instruments to students at all levels of instruction from elementary to college. She was also a prolific writer of articles about violin instruction, some of which generated a significant amount of comment. Of particular note in this respect is her January 1941 article in The School Musician. This article concerned her belief that band groups and classes were being favored by parents and band directors at the expense of orchestral groups and classes. The article and responses she received are included in the collection.
Other strengths of the collection include numerous articles that she wrote or which were written about her. There are samples of her course syllabi as well as other materials relating to how she conducted her classes. The largest part of the collection includes her correspondence with friends, family, fellow educators, and her students. The materials in the collection cover the length of her career as a teacher and instructor at the University of Michigan as well as the lectures and clinics she conducted during her retirement years. The collection contains very little about her youth, but there are a few newspaper articles about her father, Albert W. Green who was a violin maker and instructor. In addition there is an audio recording of a lecture she gave September 20, 1978 at the University of Connecticut. The photos are mainly of Elizabeth Green herself. The ads and reviews mainly pertain to her 1961 book The Modern Conductor, but there are also ads from some of her other works. There is a complete copy of her 1966-1967 manuscript Teaching Theory Creatively.
Elizabeth Green was born in 1906 in Mobile, Alabama. She attended Wheaton College, graduating in 1928 with a degree in music. Her specialty in the years ahead would be stringed instruments, especially the violin. After college she then became a high school orchestra teacher in Waterloo, Iowa, a position she held until hired by the University of Michigan in 1942. While in Iowa, Green also served as concertmaster of the Waterloo Symphony Orchestra from 1935 to 1941. In 1939 she received a master's degree in Music from Northwestern University. After coming to Ann Arbor, Green was also named to the staff of the Ann Arbor public schools as a teacher of stringed instruments and orchestra director, positions she held until 1962. In 1948, she was promoted to assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Music. In 1963 she became a full professor. She retired from teaching in 1975.
Elizabeth Green wrote extensively on the topic of violin instruction. She wrote for such periodicals as the School Musician in the 1930s, The Etude in the 1940s and 1950s, The Instrumentalist in the 1950s, The Music Journal in the 1950s and early 1960s, and The Music Educator's Journal throughout the 1940s and 1950s. In 1961, her third book, entitled the Modern Conductor, was published by Prentice-Hall Press. She continued writing numerous books including a collaboration with the famed Russian violin teacher Nicolai Malko. During the period of the 1960s, Green began a longtime friendship with Ivan Galamian (she was a student of his during the summers from 1947 to 1952) and his wife Bertha. Some of Green's other works written while she taught at the University of Michigan included The Conductor and his Score (1975) and Teaching String Instruments (1966). She also published several pieces of music including Hohmann for the String Class (1949) and 12 Modern Etudes for the Advanced Violinist (1964).
Though she retired from teaching in 1975, Green maintained an active lifestyle. In 1971 and 1983 she served as a judge at the Nicolai Malko conducting competition. In the 1980s she gave lectures and conducting clinics. She also continued writing; her book The Dynamic Orchestra was published in 1986. In 1993, she neared completion of a biography of her friend and fellow music teacher Ivan Galamian. Written when she was 85 years of age, Miraculous Teacher: Ivan Galamian and the Meadowmount Experience, was to be her last work. She passed away on September 24, 1995.
