When 25-year-old harpist Steffy Goldner left her native Vienna in 1921, little did she know that a year later she would become the first woman to join the New York Philharmonic. On her arrival she performed in the Century Theater orchestra, and her talents did not go unnoticed for long. Soon she was invited to join the Philharmonic, a position she kept for 10 years before moving to Minneapolis to support the budding career of her husband, Eugene Ormandy. 

The job at the Philharmonic allowed her to travel—first domestically, then on the Philharmonic’s first European tour in 1930 with Arturo Toscanini. These post cards, sent to her mother from hotels around the U.S., demonstrate what life was like on the road for a Philharmonic musician in the 1920s. Her mother dutifully pasted them into a scrapbook, bringing them to the U.S. when she immigrated in 1938. 

This post card sent from the Wardman Park Hotel in Washington DC, reads: 

We arrived yesterday and have had five concerts already. There is one more this evening, and the last concert is tomorrow. President Coolidge has invited us to dinner. –Many greetings and kisses from your Jeno [Eugene Ormandy]. Washington, March 18, 1924 

– New York Philharmonic Archives

Relationship:  Im/migrant Im/migrant