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Happy Birthday to the Father of Our Country

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The wedding of the Blue and the Gray, by George M. Cohan. New York, New York, F.A. Mills, 1906
The wedding of the Blue and the Gray, by George M. Cohan. New York, New York, F.A. Mills, 1906

The holiday weekend may have been last week, but George Washington’s actual birthday is celebrated on February 22 [1].  The Music Division has in its storied coffers a number of ways to celebrate this historic date in song. You may know that George M. Cohan composed  Over There and countless other melodies for the Broadway stage. But did you know that Cohan  wrote a Broadway show about a fictional descendant of the Father of Our Country? See “The Wedding of the Blue & Gray” from the musical play George Washington, Jr., in the Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920 collection on American Memory.    Find additional titles to celebrate Washington’s Birthday in the Historic Sheet Music Collection, 1800-1922 and the Civil War Sheet Music Collection on the Performing Arts Encyclopedia.


[1] “George Washington was born in Virginia on February 11, 1731, according to the then-used Julian calendar. In 1752, however, Britain and all its colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar, which placed Washington’s birth on February 22, 1732.” Source: The National Archives.

Comments

  1. I love it! Thanks so much for reference to AM Mem—I keep forgetting to use that

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