Shows how activist performers used music to advance their anti-slavery agenda during a tumultuous political season …
Author: Marek
Cartoonist, musician, teacher.
Wake Forest University: “Confederate Broadsides” Collection
A colorful collection of Southern propaganda…
Picayune Butler’s Come to Town (Rice, 1858)
“And when he made his appearance you should have heard the reception he got. I thought the roof would fall off…”: Picayune Butler takes New York & Tokyo by storm.
Star-Spangled Banner (Key, 1814)
What’s the connection between the US National Anthem, militant slave uprisings, and the burning of the White House?
I’m Off for Nicaragua (Rice, 1858)
Phil Rice gives us this striking vision of slavery carried south in the service of the Filibuster president, General William Walker:
Rouleau: “In the Wake of Jim Crow” (2012)
How did impromptu bands of sailors in blackface become a significant channel of 19th century US cultural diplomacy?
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852-1859?)
“Euclid… is no child for effecting social revolutions, but an impassioned song may set a world in conflagration.” ~ The London Times (3 September 1852)
Abrahams: Singing the Master (1993)
This carefully researched survey reconstructs the multicontinental roots of antebellum Southern cornshucking rituals:
Emerson: “Doo-Dah!” (1997)
Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture
Hodgson: Jim Crow’s Vagaries (1830s?)
In which we discovered such international gems as “Jim Crow’s Trip to France” & sundry others…
Nelly Gray (Hanby, 1856)
Benjamin Hanby wrote Nelly Gray in 1856, in response to a fugitive slave case …
Home, Sweet Home (Bishop & Payne, 1823)
John Howard Payne’s lyrics, from the 1823 opera, “Clari, Maid of Milan”, described as “a jewel, cut and set with perfect art”:
The Hardtacks 