Includes instructors by Howe (a.k.a. Chaff) (1851),Converse (1867), Buckley (1868), & many more…
Chaff: The Ethiopian Glee Book (1848-9)
Collects four-part settings of popular songs from the antebellum minstrel stage…
Rice: Correct Method for the Banjo… (1858)
with or without a master. / CONTAINING THE MOST POPULAR, Banjo Solos, Duets, Trios and Songs, / performed by the Buckley’s, Christy’s, Bryant’s, Campbell’s, White’s / And other Celebrated Bands of Minstrels of which the Author was a member.
Mary Blane (1840s)
The lost-love minstrel tune “Mary Blane” was one of the most popular songs of the early minstrel era (see Mahar’s list):
Library of America: The Civil War Told by Those Who Lived It
Library of America: The Civil War Told by Those Who Lived It “Hundreds of selections from scores of eyewitnesses, both North and South, in the heat of battle and at the home front, from November 1860 to June 1865.”
Abraham’s Daughter (Winner, 1861)
“One Country and one Flag, I say, whoe’er the war may slaughter…”
Cockrell: Demons of Disorder (1997)
by Dale Cockrell … A riveting analysis of unconventional texts from the first two decades of minstrelsy.
Lott: Love & Theft (1993)
“For over two centuries, America has celebrated the very black culture it attempts to control and repress, and nowhere is this phenomenon more apparent than in the strange practice of blackface performance. Born of extreme racial and class conflicts, the blackface minstrel show sometimes served to usefully intensify these conflicts. Based on the appropriation of…
Mahar: Behind the Burnt Cork Mask (1999)
Mahar’s survey of early minstrel materials delineates the complex cultural turbulence of the antebellum era:
Billings: Hardtack and Coffee (1887)
INCLUDING CHAPTERS ON: ENLISTING, LIFE IN TENTS AND LOG HUTS, JONAHS AND BEATS, OFFENCES AND PUNISHMENTS, RAW RECRUITS, FORAGING, CORPS AND CORPS BADGES, THE WAGON TRAINS, THE ARMY MULE, THE ENGINEER CORPS, THE SIGNAL CORPS, ETC. …
Battle Cry of Freedom: “If we’d had your songs…”
Account given by anonymous captured Confederate officer…
Gum Tree Canoe (1847?)
A peculiar plantation fantasy of love & liberation…
The Hardtacks 