Visual Materials
Entertainment
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Entertainment
Visual Materials
The Entertainment subseries comprises sheet music published in the United States between 1900 and 1998, with the bulk of the materials dated between 1900 and 1979. This subseries covers a broad range of subject areas: creators (composers, directors, lyricists, producers, and publishers)and performers, fetes (carnivals, circuses, expositions, and fairs), cartoon and comic book characters, and dances (cake walks, the Charleston, marches, polkas, quadrilles, shuffles, two-steps, and waltzes). Also found within the subseries are scores about musical instruments (brass, percussion, string, and wind), music stores, patriotism (domestic and foreign), minstrels, musical productions (theatrical and concert), and scores published outside of the United States. A broad representation of people from African, Asian, European, Hawaiian, Hispanic, and Native American backgrounds appears throughout. Notably, a sizable portion of the collection includes scores with vernacular and imagery recognized as stereotypical or offensive today; these include mention of racially prevalent stereotypes, such as Blackface. Prominent early twentieth-century performers in this subseries include George Walker and Bert Williams (Williams and Walker, Co.), two of the most renowned African American minstrels of the early 1900s; Ada Overton Walker; Eddie Leonard, one of the most prominent minstrels of his era; Sherman Houston Dudley, creator of the first Black operated vaudeville circuit; and Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones. Also included are Eva Tanguay, the first performer to achieve national mass-media celebrity; Helen Hayes, the first woman to reach EGOT status (winner of an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony); and Eddie Cantor. Other performers appearing within this subseries are Jean Constant Havez, a Hispanic American lyricist, screenwriter, and vaudevillian; Kitty Doner, one of the foremost male impersonators of the early twentieth century; Karyl Norman, one of the foremost female impersonators of the early twentieth century; and Al Jolson, the first openly Jewish American performer, best known for his starring role in the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927). Prominent performers from the 1920s moving forward include Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry (Stepin Fetchit), the first African American actor to receive a featured screen credit in a film, In Old Kentucky (1927); Julius Lorenzo Cobb Bledsoe, the first African American opera singer and the first African American to obtain regular employment on Broadway; Rudy Vallée, the first male singer to rise from local radio broadcasts to national popularity as a crooner; Fannie Brice; and Ethel Merman. Other performers include Native American jazz singer Mildred Bailey (Queen of Swing), Cab Calloway, Hoagy Carmichael, Ethel Waters, the Supremes, and many others. Prominent composers, directors, lyricists, producers, and publishers in this subseries include composer Queen Liliuokalani, the last sovereign monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom (1891-1893) and composer; Harry von Tilzer, a prominent Tin Pan Alley songwriter at the turn of the twentieth century; Florenze Ziegfeld, Jr.; W.C. Handy, one of the first song writers in the United States to publish blues music; E.T. Paull, noted composer, arranger, and sheet music publisher known for his colorfully lithographed sheet music; May Frances Aufderheide; Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle who together wrote Shuffle Along (1921), one of the first Broadway musicals written and directed by African Americans. Other notable creators mentioned are Dai-Keong Lee, an Asian American composer whose Symphony No. 2 was runner-up for the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for Music; Shepard N. Edmonds, composer, lyricist, and founder of the Attucks Music Publishing Company (1904), the first African American music publishing company in the United States. Also found within this subseries are composers and lyricists Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, George M. Cohan, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer, and theatrical producer, and the Shubert brothers, prominent producers and theatre owners. To note are scores written by Dorothy Fields, librettist and lyricist, and one of the first successful Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood female songwriters; Carrie Minetta Jacobs-Bond, the first woman to sell one million copies of a song; and Bhumibol Adulyadej, King of Thailand (1946-2016), who composed Blue Night from Michael Todd's Peep Show (1950). Throughout the subseries are scores from notable productions , including Ain't Misbehavin; Cats; the Cotton Club Parade; Grease; the Greenwich Village Follies; Hellzapoppin'; the Passing Show; Phantom of the Opera; Porgy and Bess; Ragtime; West Side Story; the Wizard of Oz; and Ziegfeld's Follies.
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Twentieth century
Visual Materials
The Twentieth century series contains approximately 21,600 scores dated between 1900 and 1998. The collection represents several styles of American music, such as blues, jazz, minstrel, pop, religious, rhythm and blues, showtunes, and soul music. These scores cover topics including entertainment, industry and professions, the military, people and culture, science and technology, sports and leisure, transportation, travel, and miscellaneous songs. A small number are published outside the United States, including works from Australia, Britain, Europe, Mexico, and Chile. While many of the scores are intact, several are fragile or loose at the seam, and in some cases, only the cover page remains. Most available cover pages are ornately designed and may contain photographic images of the creators and performers, inserted notes, or autographs. The scores feature lyrical or instrumental compositions, in the form of cake walks, the Charleston, marches, polkas, quadrilles, shuffles, two-steps, and waltzes. Multiple editions exist for some titles. Notable actors, composers, directors, lithographers, lyricists, performers, producers, and publishers are frequently involved, often serving in more than one role. Overlaps can be found between subseries. For example, certain scores suitable for the European American Creators and performers boxes are located in the People and culture boxes because of their stereotypical representations of people of color. Some of the scores that were created by people of color but performed by European Americans will be found among the boxes for creators and performers of color. The Minstrels boxes contain scores created, and, or performed by European American men. As such, minstrel scores created by people of color or European American women are located in the People and culture boxes pertaining to those two groups. Productions scores created or performed by people of color are located in the Creators and performers boxes pertaining to people of color. The productions scores created or performed by prominent European American women creators and performers are located in the creators and performers boxes pertaining to European American women. Please note that the collection may contain historical images and language that users could find harmful, offensive, or inappropriate.
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Subseries B. Minstrel (large size)
Visual Materials
This subseries contains 61 large-size items that pertain to minstrel show entertainment primarily in the United States from the 1850s to the 1920s. The majority of items consist of lithographic posters related to minstrel dance, comedic, and musical acts, often with caricatured depictions of African Americans; blackface entertainers both in costume and in formal dress; and female minstrels.
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Jay T. Last Collection of Entertainment: Performing Arts Prints and Ephemera
Visual Materials
The Jay T. Last Collection of Entertainment: Performing Arts Prints and Ephemera contains more than 2,300 printed items primarily advertising theatrical and musical entertainment and related performers in the United States from 1839 to the 1940s, with the majority of items dating from the 1870s to the 1890s. The collection consists of advertising and promotional materials, business records, and illustrations pertaining to a wide variety of performance genres that have been grouped broadly as music and theater (including theater, music, dance, burlesque, comedy, pantomime, and variety); minstrel (including minstrel shows, blackface entertainers, and female minstrels); and magic and miscellaneous (including magicians, motion pictures, and Wild West shows). Materials are arranged into two series: small-size items (11 x 14 inches or less) and large-size items (bigger than 11 x 14 inches). Small size items are described broadly at the series level; large-size items are fully inventoried and all printers, artists, and publishers are indexed by name. The collection has 450 large-size items comprised mainly of lithographic theatrical and minstrel posters that were intended to advertise specific shows or performers. Small-size items in the collection number approximately 1,850 and are comprised mainly of promotional ephemera and business documents such as trade cards, programs and playbills, souvenir booklets, tickets, die-cut cards, and printed billheads and letterheads with manuscript text. The collection provides a resource for studying the history of the American theater and the evolution of advertising strategies for the performing arts in the United States in the late 19th century. As graphic materials, the items offer evidence of developing techniques and trends in printmaking, and of the artists, engravers, lithographers, printers, and publishers involved in the creation of these prints.
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People and culture: Men A-M by title
Visual Materials
The Jay T. Last sheet music collection consists of approximately 34,950 scores dating from 1794 to 1998. It includes a wide range of American popular music styles, as well as scores published outside of the United States. The collection encompasses ballads, blues, comic songs, jazz, minstrel scores, military scores, patriotic melodies, pop, ragtime compositions, religious hymns, rhythm and blues hits, show tunes, soul music, and 1960s surf music. The scores comprise various editions of lyrical and instrumental compositions, some of which are ornately designed and, in some cases, bear the signatures of creators and performers. Many of the scores have sellers' marks printed on the covers. Some of the names found in the nineteenth-century series overlap with those in the twentieth-century series. It is also important to note that this collection contains historical images and language that some library users may find harmful, offensive, or inappropriate.
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Productions: G-Lo by title
Visual Materials
The Jay T. Last sheet music collection consists of approximately 34,950 scores dating from 1794 to 1998. It includes a wide range of American popular music styles, as well as scores published outside of the United States. The collection encompasses ballads, blues, comic songs, jazz, minstrel scores, military scores, patriotic melodies, pop, ragtime compositions, religious hymns, rhythm and blues hits, show tunes, soul music, and 1960s surf music. The scores comprise various editions of lyrical and instrumental compositions, some of which are ornately designed and, in some cases, bear the signatures of creators and performers. Many of the scores have sellers' marks printed on the covers. Some of the names found in the nineteenth-century series overlap with those in the twentieth-century series. It is also important to note that this collection contains historical images and language that some library users may find harmful, offensive, or inappropriate.
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