Rick, if you're near a large Library (Toronto central?) Gale Research put out scores of fat expensive specialist biographical tomes ("left-handed Peruvian banjo players in the US in 1980"- OK, I made that one up!)and they may have done one on composers, sure to have done one on US women...(we never could afford them here![the books not the US women, oh, hell you know what I mean!]).
RtS (two sets of brackets, is there no start to my talents?)