“They found a secret door to take them into that world where the tears are wiped away…”
Category: Sources
Library of Congress: “Daguerreotypes” Collection (1839-1864)
A captivating look at the people, clothing, & styles of the antebellum & Civil War eras…
Attali: “Noise: The Political Economy of Music” (1977)
“Music is prophecy.”
Gac: “Singing for Freedom” (2007)
“The Hutchinson Family Singers and the Nineteenth Century Culture of Antebellum Reform”
Hutchinson: “Republican Songster” (1860)
Shows how activist performers used music to advance their anti-slavery agenda during a tumultuous political season …
Wake Forest University: “Confederate Broadsides” Collection
A colorful collection of Southern propaganda…
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?
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…
Lhamon: Raising Cain (2000)
Lhamon reconstructs the hidden history of public dance, musical fusion, Jim Crow, and racial identity (& transgression) in antebellum U.S. cities, then traces it forward into the 20th century:
Converse: New and Complete Method for the Banjo, With or Without a Master (A.K.A. “Green”) (1865)
This instructive tutor by the “Father of the Banjo” bears a distinctively Irish flavor …
The Hardtacks 