Allen Britton

Who was Allen Britton?

Allen Perdue Britton was an American music educator.

Through his many passions in life he contributed to elevating the field of music education to the same stature as the field of musicology. He developed the doctoral program in music education at the University of Michigan, where he directed 51 dissertations. He contributed heavily to the history of music pedagogy in early America, especially singing schools. To combine his two interests of music education and history he joined with Marguerite V. Hood, Warren S. Freeman, and Theodore F. Normann and created the Journal of Research in Music Education.

Less than a decade after developing the journal for Music Educators National Conference, he became its president from 1960 to 1962. It was during this time that Russia had launched Sputnik and the United States tried to counteract that advancement by going "Back to the Basics." This meant that there was little monetary support for music. As the president of the Music Educators National Conference, he took it upon himself to harness the full potential of this organization's political power.