Martha Beck Carragan (1900-1997) was a pianist, a music teacher and analyst, and a composer primarily of teaching pieces for young students. Her maiden name was Martha Dillard Beck, and she was married once, to the physicist George Howard Carragan (1896-1982). She was an alumna of the Oberlin Conservatory and the American Conservatory of Music, and in the 1930s she worked closely with Henry Cowell on the New Music Quarterly, and with Ruth Crawford Seeger and other composers. For many years she was on the faculty of Emma Willard School, Troy, New York, and also taught privately. She founded the Friends of Chamber Music of Troy in 1948, and this organization is still active today presenting six concerts per season by internationally known chamber groups.