People and culture

The People and culture subseries consists of sheet music published between 1817 and 1899, covering diverse topics such as African Americans, children, couples, groups, immigrants, death and mourning, holidays, marriage, men, Native Americans, organizations, religion, and women. Please note that this subseries contains language and stereotypical imagery that some library users may find harmful or offensive.

The section about African Americans contains comic songs, "Coon" songs, minstrel scores, plantation melodies, and ragtime tunes, depicting aspects of African American life in the 19th century, including plantation life, contraband life, and the Jim Crow era. This section includes scores by African American composers and performers such as Blind Tom, James Allen Bland, Brewer and Suttle's Ragtime Four, Bob Cole, Gussie Lord Davis, Peter Devonear, Billy Johnson, Irving Jones, Sam Lucas, and Bert A. Williams. Additionally, it includes scores by European American composers and performers including E. P. Christy, Press Eldridge, George "Honey Boy" Evans, Charles Kunkel, the Virginia Serenaders, Lew Dockstader, Lotta Crabtree, Flo Irwin, May Irwin, and John Philip Sousa. Notably, "A Trip To Coontown" by Bert A. Williams, Bob Cole, and Billy Johnson, the first musical in New York written, produced, and performed by African Americans, is part of this collection.

Additional scores to note focus on the experiences of immigrants to the United States (such as the Chinese, English, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Jewish, and Scottish) and Native American characters and tribes including Chief Keokuk of the Sauk Nation, the mythical figure Minnehaha, "Old Bets," Chief Osceola of the Seminole, Chief Ossahinta of the Onondaga, Chief Paxinosa of the Shawnee, Pocahontas, as well as the Dakota, Narragansett, Nez Perce, and the Sioux nations. To note is the rare score "Wakona Waltz" published in 1837 by Fred Munson, Jr. There are also scores dedicated to significant fraternal orders and nonprofit organizations including the Freemasons, the Knights Templar, and the American Red Cross.