Overview

Illustrated sheet music was one of the most democratic forms of visual imagery in the U.S., owned by millions of Americans wooed by compelling lithographic covers, who displayed and performed compositions on home pianos. Advancements in printing technologies in the 19th century, together with an emergent commercial system that facilitated the publication and broad distribution of popular music, led to a surge of elaborately illustrated sheet music. This book features essays by cutting-edge scholars who analyze the remarkable images that persuaded U.S. citizens to purchase mass-produced compositions for both personal and social pleasure. With some songs selling millions of copies as printed musical scores, music publishers commissioned artists to draw every conceivable subject as promotional illustrations, including genre scenes, portraits, political and historical events, sentimental allegories, flowers, landscapes, commercial buildings, and maritime views. As ubiquitous and democratic material culture, this imagery affected ordinary people in far greater ways than unique objects, like paintings and sculpture, possibly could. The pictures, many in saturated color with bold graphics, still intrigue, amaze, and amuse viewers today with their originality, skill, and content. Rooted in visual analysis, topics in this collection include perennially significant themes: race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, politics, war, patriotism, propaganda, religion, transportation, regional centers of production, technology, Reconstruction, romance, and comedy, as well as bodies of work by specific illustrators and lithographic firms. In recognizing the role that individuals have played in preserving these remarkable objects, it also features interviews with enthusiasts who own two of the largest private collections of sheet music in the U.S.

Full Product Details

Author:   Theresa Leininger-Miller ,  Kenneth Hartvigsen
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Dimensions:   Width: 16.00cm , Height: 2.60cm , Length: 23.80cm
Weight:   0.900kg
ISBN:  

9781350450011

ISBN 10:   1350450014
Pages:   384
Publication Date:   20 February 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

1830-1900 1. “Viral Pictures and Network Artistry in U.S. Sheet Music Illustration” [1820s-70s] Erin Pauwels, Temple University 2. “The First Golden Age of Illustration in America” [1840s] Kevin Lynch, The Lynch Archive 3. “Fitz Henry Lane and Illustrations for Sheet Music” [1833-1841] Georgia Barnhill, Center for Historic American Visual Culture, American Antiquarian Society 4. “Sounding the Spa: The Illustrated Parlor Music of Tourism, 1850-1870” Alexandra Cade, University of Delaware 5. “We Three Kings: The Magi in an Illustrated Christmas Carol from 1865” Paul Kaplan, State University of New York, Purchase 6. “The Case of “Reconstruction! Grand March;” Horrifying Pictures, Racial Hybridity, and the Visual Modalities of American Song” [1868] Kenneth Hartvigsen, Brigham Young University, 7. “Depictions of African Americans and the South in the Sheet Music of Blind Tom and Blind Boone” [1860-1913] Rebecca Bush, The Columbus Museum 8. “Who Would Doubt That I’m a Man?”: The New Woman: March and Two-Step” [1895] Erin Smith, Case Western Reserve University 1900-1930 9. “Sheet Music and Blackface Minstrelsy in the U.S. Artists’ Colony in Paris, ca. 1900” Emily Burns, University of Oklahoma 10. “Class, Race, Image, and Sound in Sheet Music from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition” [1904] Karen Olson, St. Olaf College 11. “Rust Belt Alley: Cleveland as Sheet Music Nexus” [1890s-1930s] Daniel Goldmark, Case Western Reserve University 12. “The Visual Culture of Italian Immigrant Sheet Music (1907-1941)” Rosangela Briscese and Joseph Sciorra, Queens College 13. “Dance, Dining, and Urban Social Life in “Too Much Mustard” and Its Responses” [1913] Sophie Benn, Butler University 14. “Choosing Illustrations to Mediate Gender in Estelle Philleo’s Setting the West to Music” [1917-1925] Laurie Sampsel and Donald Puscher, University of Colorado at Boulder 15. “”If You Don’t Get It, Tain’t No Fault of Mine:” Illustrated Sheet music by Albert Alexander Smith in New York and Paris, 1919-1925” Theresa Leininger-Miller, University of Cincinnati 16. “Alterity and Antiquarianism in the Illustrated Sheet Music of the Shriners” [1895-1930] Jaclynne Kerner, State University of New York, New Paltz

Reviews

This ambitious, generously illustrated volume lives up to its promise to survey the scope and impact of illustrated sheet music and to ponder the relationships between music and art, lyric and picture, through new methodologies. Meticulously prepared by its art historian editors and covering eighty years of production, distribution, and reception, it breaks ground with fresh insights by seasoned and emerging researchers from art, music, history and museum backgrounds. Aimed at scholars with requisite rigor and theorization, especially in racial and ethnic representation, it is nonetheless accessibly written with each of its concise 18 chapters a perfect length for students. Contributions by prominent collectors bridge the gap between academic and self-directed experts, a welcome broadening of voice in scholarly publishing. This book joins a recent growth spurt in the field of Illustration Studies that corrects the historic neglect of the art of the illustrator. It is an indispensable reference work for beginning and advanced scholars alike of visual culture, media studies, popular culture, print history, American art, music, or the history of illustration – and it is engrossing for the casual reader as well * Jaleen Grove, Associate Professor of Illustration, Rhode Island School of Design, USA *

Author Information

Theresa Leininger-Miller is Professor of Art History at University of Cincinnati, USA. Kenneth Hartvigsen is Assistant Professor of Art History at Brigham Young University, USA.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions