It wasn’t easy to become a member of the premium-level all-girl 1920s orchestra ‘The Ingenues’. As you’ll see, you not only had to be a woman who’d mastered one of many instruments that, for various reasons, were not necessarily associated with female players (saxes, trombones, tubas etc.) but you had to also be proficient on banjo and accordion. The moments when the women suddenly drop their usual axes and become an all-accordian/all-banjo band were probably as big a crowd pleaser in their heyday as they are now. ‘The Ingenues’ was not a small-time one-off act. Read this remarkably thorough and interesting Wikipedia entry to learn more about this important and mostly forgotten organization.