Sources for the Study of 19th and 20th Century Blackface Minstrelsy
- Songsters
- Minstrel Plays or Skits
- Sheet Music
- Searching for Blackface Minstrelsy in Josiah
- Related Internet Resources
- Essential References
Songsters
Little books of lyrics to popular songs, most dating from the
late 18th century to the late 19th century. Many are associated with particular
performers or composers, such as Dan
Bryant or Harrigan
and Hart. In Josiah, they
may be found by searching for the subject "Songsters."
It is also possible to find them by publisher or by the name of a performer.
Use the limit function to select for date or other criteria. In addition, it
is useful to search the titles in the chapter references or bibliography in
Robert Toll's book Blacking
Up. Most of the songsters are available on microfilm, and thus photocopies
can be made at need.
See Also:
» Songsters
Minstrel Plays or Skits
These include actual skits performed by professional minstrel
troupes (primarily in the 19th century) and those intended for amateur performers
(primarily in the 20th century). Search Josiah
by publisher (author search), by playwright, or using the references in Blacking
Up. Many of the plays are too fragile to photocopy, although some exist
on microfilm or microfiche and can be copied from these sources.
See Also:
» Plays
Sheet Music
Music with notation for single songs. Most of the titles associated
with minstrelsy from 1826 to the late 19th century are in Josiah.
Often the music has very interesting and illuminating illustrated covers and includes
portraits of performers. Sheet music can be found in Josiah
by title, by performer, by composer, and by a wide variety of subjects. "African-Americans--Songs
and Music" will retrieve a great many pieces. In addition, there are many uncataloged
pieces filed by title. References in Blacking
Up are useful, as are songs cited in the Sam Dennison's Scandalize
My Name. Photocopies of sheet music can easily be made. In addition, there
are digitized copies of over 1,300 pieces of African-American related sheet music
on the web. See: Brown
University African-American Sheet Music 1850-1920.
See Also:
» Music
Searching for Blackface Msintrelsy in Josiah
| Publishers (also use as limit): | Musicians & playwrights (19th cent.): |
| Dick
& Fitzgerald, pub. De Witt, Robert M., pub. New York Popular Publishing Co. Brady, Frederic A., pub. Turner & Fisher, pub. Winch, A. pub. |
Leavitt,
Andrew J. Griffin, George W. H. Dumont, Frank Cutler, Frank Buckley, James Buckley, Frederick Buckley's........ White, Charles |
| Playwright (20th century): | Kaser, Arthur Leroy (use him for 20th century minstrelsy) |
| Subject headings for 19th century minstrelsy: | African-Americans
Songs and Music African-American Plays (careful of the date) Minstrel Shows (limit by date) Minstrels (limit by date) |
- African-American
Sheet Music Digitizing Project
Brown University Library
Brown University Library Resources: Resource Guides to Subject Areas:
- Resource Guide: Africana Studies
- Resource Guide: American Civilization
- Resource Guide: Music Orwig Music Library
- Resource Guide: Race and Ethnicity
- Resource Guide: Theatre, Speech and Dance
Brown University Library Resources: Subject Collections
- American Culture and Society
Holdings in Special Collections - Race and Gender Studies
Holdings in Special Collections
Other Internet Resources
- All Media Guide
- America Singing:
Nineteenth-Century Song Sheets
Library of Congress: American Memory - An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera
Library of Congress American Memory - Archives of African American Music and Culture
Indiana University Library - Banjo Tablatures and Bluegrass Information
- California
Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties
Library of Congress American Memory - Center for Black Music Research
- Center for Popular Music Research
Special Collection Databases
Middle Tennessee State University - Dreams of the Past: 19th Century Color Lithographic Sheet Music.
Brown University - Hispano Music
and Culture of the Northern Rio Grande
Library of Congress American Memory - Historic American
Sheet Music.
Duke University
Library of Congress American Memory - The Lester S. Levy Collection
of Sheet Music.
Johns Hopkins University - Music for
the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885
Library of Congress American Memory - 19th Century
California Sheet Music.
University of California, Berkeley - The Red Hot Jazz Archive: A History of Jazz Before 1930
- Sheet Music Consortium (OAI)
UCLA - Sheet Music Index
Duke University Libraries - Song Sheets in Special Collections
Rutgers University Library. - Southern Mosaic:
The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip
Library of Congress American Memory - Tom Morgan's Jazz and Blues
- Uncle Tom's Cabin
and American Culture
University of Virginia - "We'll
Sing to Abe our Song": Sheet Music about Lincoln, Emancipation, and the Civil
War
Library of Congress American Memory - William P.
Gottlieb Photographs from the Golden Age of Jazz
Library of Congress American Memory
Essential References
Afro-American Poetry and Drama, 1760-1975. A guide to information sources.
Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1979.
American music before 1865 in print and on records : a biblio-discography /
pref. by H. Wiley Hitchcock
Brooklyn : Institute for Studies in American Music, Dept. of Music, School of
Performing Arts, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, [c1976]
American
playwrights, 1880-1945 : a research and production sourcebook / edited by William
W. Demastes
Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, c1995
Bordman, Gerald Martin
The Oxford companion to American theatre / Gerald Bordman
3rd ed
New York : Oxford University Press, 2004
Cambridge
guide to American theatre / edited by Don B. Wilmeth and Tice L. Miller
[England] ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 1996
The Cambridge history of American theatre / edited by Don B. Wilmeth, Christopher
Bigsby. 3 vols.
Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998-2000
Damon, S. Foster
The negro in early American songsters
[n.p.] 1934
Note: dated, but useful.
De Charms, Desiree
Songs in collections; an index [by] Desiree de Charms & Paul F. Breed
[Detroit] Information Service [c1966]
Dennison, Sam.
Scandalize my
name: Black imagery in American popular music
New York : Garland Publishing, 1982
Devine, George J.
American songsters 1806-1815
(M.A. Thesis)
Providence: Brown University, 1940
Dichter, Harry
Early American sheet music : its lure and its lore, 1768-1889 / by Harry Dichter
and Elliott Shapiro ; including a directory of early American music publishers
; illustrated
New York : R.R. Bowker Co., 1941
Epstein, Dena J.
Sinful
tunes and spirituals : Black folk music to the Civil War
Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [c1977]
Fuld, James J.
American popular music : (reference book) 1875-1950.
Philadelphia : Musical Americana, c1955, (1956)
Gillespie, John
A bibliography of nineteenth-century American piano music, with location sources
and composer biography-index / John Gillespie and Anna Gillespie
Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1984
Goodfellow, William D.
SongCite : an index to popular songs.
New York : Garland, 1995
Goodfellow, William D.
SongCite : an index to popular songs. Supplement 1
New York : Garland Pub., 1999
Harwell, Richard Barksdale
Confederate music
Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press [1950]
Hatch, James Vernon, 1928-
Black playwrights, 1823-1977
: an annotated bibliography of plays/ compiled and edited by James V. Hatch
and Omanii Abdullah.
New York : Bowker, 1977.
Havlice, Patricia Pate
Popular song
index
Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press, 1975
Havlice, Patricia Pate
Popular song index : first supplement
Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press, 1978
Havlice, Patricia Pate
Popular song index. Second supplement
Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press, 1984
Havlice, Patricia Pate
Popular song index. Third supplement
Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press, 1989
Heard, Priscilla S.
American music, 1698-1800 : an annotated bibliography.
Waco, Tex. : Baylor University Press, Markham Press Fund, c1975
Hixon, Donald L.
Music in early America: a bibliography of music in Evans.
Metuchen, N.J., Scarecrow Press, 1970
Hoogerwerf, Frank W.
Confederate sheet-music imprints
Brooklyn, N.Y. : Institute for Studies in American Music, Conservatory of Music,
Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, c1984
Hovland, Michael A.
Musical settings of American poetry : a bibliography
Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1986
Keller, Kate Van Winkle
The
national tune index [microform] / compiled by Kate Van Winkle Keller and Carolyn
Rabson
Microfiche ed
New York : University Music Editions, c1980
Klamkin, Marian
Old sheet music : a pictorial history. Photos. by Charles Klamkin
New York : Hawthorn Books, [c1975]
Krummel, Donald William
Bibliographical handbook of American music.
Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c1987
Krummel, Donald William
Guide for dating early published music: a manual of bibliographical practice.
Hackensack, N. J. J. Boonin, 1974
Larson, Carl F. W., 1939-
American regional theatre history to 1900 : a bibliography / compiled by Carl
F. W. Larson
Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press, 1979
Lax, Roger
The great song thesaurus / Roger Lax, Frederick Smith
2nd ed., updated and expanded
New York : Oxford University Press, 1989
Levy, Lester S.
Grace notes in
American history; popular sheet music from 1820-1900
Norman, University of Oklahoma Press [1967]
Levy, Lester S.
Picture the
songs : lithographs from the sheet music of nineteenth-century America.
Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, c1976
Library Company of Philadelphia
American song sheets, slip ballads, and poetical broadsides, 1850-1870; a catalogue
of the collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia by Edwin Wolf 2nd.
New York, Kraus Reprint Corp., 1963
Lissauer, Robert
Lissauer's encyclopedia of popular music in America : 1888 to the present
New York : Paragon House, 1991
Lowens, Irving.
A bibliography of songsters printed in America before 1821
Worcester: American Antiquarian Society, 1976
Martin, Edwin, 1943-
Mud show : American tent circus life / photographs by Edwin Martin ; essay by
Don B. Wilmeth
Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, c1988
Metcalf, Frank J.
American psalmody; or, Titles of books containing tunes printed in America from
1721 to 1820. Compiled by Frank J. Metcalf. New introd. by Harry Eskew
New York, Da Capo Press, 1968
Miles, William.
Songs, odes, glees and ballads. A bibliography of American presidential campaign songsters
New York: Greenwood Press, 1990
Moody, Richard, 1911- ed.
Dramas from the American
theatre, 1762-1909.
Cleveland, World Pub. Co. [1966]
Music printing and publishing / edited by D.W. Krummel and Stanley Sadie
New York : W.W. Norton, 1990
The New
Grove dictionary of American music / edited by H. Wiley Hitchcock and Stanley
Sadie ; editorial coordinator Susan Feder
London : Macmillan Press Ltd. ; New York : Grove's Dictionaries of Music Inc.,
distributor, 1986
The New York Public Library
performing arts desk reference
New York : Macmillan, c1994
Odell, George Clinton Densmore, 1866-1949.
Annals of the New York
stage.
New York, Columbia University Press, 1927-49.
Peters, Harry Twyford
America on stone;
the other printmakers to the American people; a chronicle of American lithography
other than that of Currier & Ives, from its beginning, shortly before 1820,
to the years when the commercial single-stone hand-colored lithograph disappear
ed from the American scene.
[Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, Doran and Company, inc., c1931]
Peterson, Bernard L.
The African
American theatre directory, 1816-1960 : a comprehensive guide to early Black
theatre organizations, companies, theatres, and performing groups.
Foreword by Errol Hil l.
Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1997.
Peterson, Bernard L., jr.
A Century of
Musicals in Black and White. An Encyclopedia of Musical Stage Works By, About,
or Involving African Americans .
Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993.
Peterson, Bernard L., jr.
Early Black American
Playwrights and Dramatic Writers. A Biographical Directory and Catalog of Plays,
Films, and Broadcasting Scripts .
New York: Greenwood Press, 1990.
Popular
music, 1900-1919 : an annotated guide to American popular songs, including introductory
essay, lyricists and composers index, important performances index, chronological
index, and list of publishers./ Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, editor
Detroit, Mich. : Gale Research Inc., c1988
Popular music, 1920-1979 : a revised cumulation / Nat Shapiro and Bruce
Pollock, editors
Detroit, Mich. : Gale Research Co., 1985
Popular
music, 1980-1989 : an annotated guide to American popular songs, including
introductory essay, lyricists and composers index, important performances index,
chronological index, awards index, and list of publishers / Bruce Pollock, editor<
/a>
Revised cumulation
Detroit, Mich. : Gale Research Inc., c1995
Rabson, Carolyn
The national tune index user's guide : 18th-century secular music / Carolyn
Rabson, Kate Van Winkle Keller ; [foreword by Irving Lowens ; introduction by
Arthur F. Schrader]
New York: University Music Editions, 1980
Resources
of American music history : a directory of source materials from Colonial times
to World War II; D. W. Krummel ... [et al.]
Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c1981
Riis, Thomas Laurence.
More than just minstrel
shows : the rise of Black musical theatre at the turn of the century
New York : Institute for Studies in American Music, Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn
College of the City University of New York, c1992.
Riis, Thomas Laurence.
Just before jazz : Black
musical theater in New York, 1890-1915
Washington : Smithsonian Institution Press, c1989.
Sampson, Henry T., 1934-
Blacks in blackface :
a source book on early Black musical shows
Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press, 1980.
Sampson, Henry T., 1934-
The ghost walks : a chronological
history of Blacks in show business, 1865-1910
Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press, 1988.
Sears, Minnie Earl
Song index; an index to more than 12,000 songs in 177 song collections comprising
262 volumes, edited by Minnie Earl Sears, assisted by Phyllis Crawford
New York, The H.W. Wilson Company, 1926
Sears, Minnie Earl
Song index. Supplement; an index to more than 7000 songs in 104 song collections,
comprising 124 volumes, edited by Minnie Earl Sears, assisted by Phyliss Crawford.
Preface by Isadore Gilbert Mudge
New York, The H. W. Wilson company, 1934
Shapiro, Nat
Popular music (Detroit, Mich.)
Detroit, Mich. : Gale Research Co., c1974-
Note: An annotated index of American popular songs. Edited by Nat Shapiro, v.
1-6 (covering 1920-1969); Bruce Pollock, v. 7- (covering 1970- ). A revised
cumulation, 1980-1989, supersedes v. 9 (1980)-14 (1989)
Sonneck, Oscar George Theodore
A bibliography of early secular American music (18th century). Rev. and enl.
by William Treat Upton. With a pref. to the Da Capo ed. by Irving Lowens.
New York, Da Capo Press, 1964
Southern, Eileen
Biographical dictionary of Afro-American and African musicians.
Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1982
Southern, Eileen
The music of black Americans : a history.
3rd ed
New York : W.W. Norton, c1997
Tatham, David
The lure of the
striped pig; the illustration of popular music in America, 1820-1870
Barre, Mass., Imprint Society, 1973
Toll, Robert C
Blacking up : the minstrel show in nineteenth century America / Robert C. Toll
New York : Oxford University Press, 1974
Wilmeth, Don B
American and English popular entertainment : a guide to information sources
/ Don B. Wilmeth ; foreword by Brooks McNamara
Wilmeth, Don B
The American stage to World War I : a guide to information sources / Don B.
Wilmeth
Detroit : Gale Research Co., [c1978]
Wilmeth, Don B
Variety entertainment and outdoor amusements : a reference guide / Don B. Wilmeth
Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1982
Wolfe, Richard J.
Secular music in America, 1801-1825 : a bibliography / introd. by Carleton Sprague
Smith
New York : The New York Public Library, 1964
Woll, Allen L.
Dictionary of the Black
theatre : Broadway, off-Broadway, and selected Harlem theatre
Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1983.
Images:
Buckley's Ethiopian melodies : published under the authority of James Buckley and Sons, proprietors and managers of Buckley's New Orleans Serenaders, containing the genuine Buckley's songs, as sung at their Opera House, 539 Broadway, New York. New York : P.J. Cozans, [c1853] Harris Index no. 3206. Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays
Christy's plantation melodies, no. 3. Published under the authority of Edwin P. Christy. Philadelphia ; New York, [etc.] : Fisher & Brother, c1853. Harris Index no. 3220. Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays