"There'll Be a Hot Time in the U.S.A.": Illustrated American Sheet Music, 1917-1924
June 21 through January 25, 2009
A new exhibition in the Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives takes a look at popular American music in the early twentieth century through illustrated sheet music covers from its collection. In addition, an audio component to the show allows visitors to hear some of the songs as they sounded when they were first recorded.
Before recorded music was widely available, people made their own in living rooms and parlors. Sheet music publishing was big business. People who enjoyed a public performance could purchase the sheets to bring a song home to their own piano. As consumers shopped for the latest tunes, eye-catching covers grabbed their attention. The prolific illustrators who designed the color covers were not celebrated artists, but many did sign their work for all to see. Among them are Albert W. Barbelle, Frederick S. Manning, and William and Fredrick Starmer.
As with many other types of popular culture, sheet music reflects the dynamic society that created it. The music sheets seen here were all published between 1917 and 1924, from the U.S. entry into World War I until five years after the official end of the war. Through these covers, we can see changing ideas of the time, from cultural perceptions of gender roles, feelings about war, and attitudes toward Prohibition to the enduring popularity of love songs and dance tunes. In addition, we see the vaudeville celebrities who introduced the songs—some whose faces are still familiar and some now forgotten?that publishers used to sell sheet music.
This selection is drawn from a gift that the Van Gorden-Williams Library and Archives received in 2004. The donors' mother, Frances Schmidt Pemberton, collected them as a young woman working at a vaudeville theater in Rochester, New York, from about 1918 until 1925 and all of the sheet music that will be on display were the gift of Estelle F. Gese, Gale S. Pemberton, and Anne D. Pemberton, in memory of Frances Schmidt Pemberton.
What Did These Songs Sound Like?
MP3 players will be available to borrow at the reference desk in the library. Each mp3 player is preloaded with recordings of some of the songs featured in this exhibition. While looking at the sheet music, you'll be able to hear what the song sounded like when the sheet music was published.
For a sneak preview of two songs featured in the exhibition, listen to the two songs below. Click on the image below to open the mp3 clip.
Please wait.