The Metcalf sisters, unlike other fairgoers, approached the Bagobo people "as fellow musicians, artists deserving of sympathy, unfortunate, left behind in quarantine, and eventually given musical instruments that were inferior or broken." At the St. Louis Exposition, Elizabeth and Sarah Metcalf spoke with Igorot and Bagobo participants, specifically 38 Bagobo men, women and children at the Exposition. Given Elizabeth Metcalf's musical background, she was very interested in Bagobo gong music and became impressed by how they could play broken or inferior gongs well. On the voyage from the Philippines to the United States, an outbreak of smallpox among the Bagobo lead to the death of an American interpreter and friend, so they were forced into quarantine upon their arrival in St. Louis.
