For as long as socially and politically aware citizens have gathered to voice dissent, music has served a paramount role; the women’s suffrage movement proves no exception. From local community suffrage meetings, to large-scale city-wide marches, to prison cells — suffragists consistently unified, rallied, and asserted their unbreakable spirit in song. Women’s Suffrage in Sheet …
February is Black History Month! The Music Division has all the resources you need to explore and appreciate African-American contributions to the performing arts year-round, not only in February.
On February 12, 2019, our nation observes the 210th birthday of Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States. Let’s see the variety of ways President Lincoln appears in the Music Division’s collections!
The following is a guest post from Music Reference Specialist James Wintle. There is many an old familiar song running through the collective memory of the Western world that will occasionally cause one to sit back with a puzzled look and wonder: “Do I actually understand what I’m saying right now?” Foremost among these is …
The following post is by retired music cataloger Sharon McKinley. I’ve enjoyed perusing the Library’s World War I sheet music over the past few years as we’ve commemorated the centennial of The Great War. We are now coming to the end of the fighting. Although the Treaty of Paris wasn’t signed until June 28,1919, an …
The following is a guest post by retired cataloger Sharon McKinley. The great city of New Orleans turns 300 this year, and they’re celebrating in a big way. To help commemorate this exciting milestone, we proudly present a few of our musical gems published in one of my favorite cities. New Orleans is best known …
Over the past several months, I’ve been sifting through the thousands of pieces that are part of the silent film music accompaniment anthologies in the Music Division’s collection. These volumes, with titles such as the Capitol Photoplay Series, The Synchronizer Suite, or Sam Fox Photoplay Edition: A Looseleaf Collection of High Class Dramatic and Descriptive …
“Yes, yes, let’s talk about the weather.” – Chorus, Act I, No. 9, The Pirates of Penzance, or, the Slave of Duty It has been an unusually rainy summer here in the Mid-Atlantic (and spring, for that matter)! Let’s get through this deluge with a variety of music about rain from the Music Division’s collections. …
It’s International Jazz Day! When our friends from the Prints & Photographs Division let us know that they’d be featuring favorite jazz-related items today on their blog, Picture This, I couldn’t let the day go by without a related post. Of course, the Music Division is home to outstanding jazz collections that document the life …
