This timeline of music in the United States covers the period from 1850 to 1879. It encompasses the California Gold Rush, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and touches on topics related to the intersections of music and law, commerce and industry, religion, race, ethnicity, politics, gender, education, historiography and academics. Subjects include folk, popular, theatrical and classical music, as well as Anglo-American, African American, Native American, Irish American, Arab American, Catholic, Swedish American, Shaker and Chinese American music.
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The United States' multi-ethnic population is reflected through a diverse array of styles of music. It is a mixture of music influenced by the music of Europe, Indigenous peoples, West Africa, Latin America, Middle East, North Africa, amongst many other places. The country's most internationally renowned genres are traditional pop, jazz, blues, country, bluegrass, rock, rock and roll, R&B, pop, hip-hop/rap, soul, funk, religious, disco, house, techno, ragtime, doo-wop, folk, americana, boogaloo, tejano, reggaeton, surf, and salsa, amongst many others. American music is heard around the world. Since the beginning of the 20th century, some forms of American popular music have gained a near global audience.
The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of theater developed in the early 19th century. The shows were performed by mostly white actors wearing blackface makeup for the purpose of comically portraying racial stereotypes of African Americans. There were also some African-American performers and black-only minstrel groups that formed and toured. Minstrel shows stereotyped blacks as dimwitted, lazy, buffoonish, cowardly, superstitious, and happy-go-lucky. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people specifically of African descent.
Daniel Decatur Emmett was an American composer, entertainer, and founder of the first troupe of the blackface minstrel tradition, the Virginia Minstrels. He is most remembered as the composer of the song "Dixie".
The latter part of the 19th century saw the increased popularization of African American music and the growth and maturity of folk styles like the blues.
American popular music is popular music produced in the United States of America and is a part of American pop culture. Distinctive styles of American popular music emerged early in the 19th century, and in the 20th century the American music industry developed a series of new forms of music, using elements of blues and other genres. These popular styles included country, R&B, jazz and rock. The 1960s and 1970s saw a number of important changes in American popular music, including the development of a number of new styles, such as heavy metal, punk, soul, and hip hop.
'De Camptown Races' or 'Gwine to Run All Night' is a minstrel song by American Romantic composer Stephen Foster. It was published in February 1850 by F. D. Benteen and was introduced to the American mainstream by Christy's Minstrels, eventually becoming one of the most popular folk/Americana tunes of the nineteenth century. It is Roud Folk Song Index no. 11768.
"Dixie", also known as "Dixie's Land", "I Wish I Was in Dixie", and other titles, is a song about the Southern United States first made in 1859. It is one of the most distinctively Southern musical products of the 19th century. It was not a folk song at its creation, but it has since entered the American folk vernacular. The song likely rooted the word "Dixie" in the American vocabulary as a nickname for the Southern U.S.
African-American musical theater includes late 19th- and early 20th-century musical theater productions by African Americans in New York City and Chicago. Actors from troupes such as the Lafayette Players also crossed over into film. The Pekin Theatre in Chicago was a popular and influential venue.
John Hill Hewitt was an American composer, playwright, and poet. He is best known for his songs about the American South, including "A Minstrel's Return from the War", "The Soldier's Farewell", "The Stonewall Quickstep", and "Somebody's Darling". His output during the American Civil War earned him the epithets "Bard of the Stars and Bars" and "Bard of the Confederacy".
This is a timeline of music in the United States prior to 1819.
This is a timeline of music in the United States from 1950 to 1969.
This is a timeline of music in the United States from 1970 to the present.
This is a timeline of music in the United States from 1820 to 1849.
This is a timeline of music in the United States from 1880 to 1919.
This is a timeline of music in the United States from 1920 to 1949.
Slave Songs of the United States was a collection of African American music consisting of 136 songs. Published in 1867, it was the first, and most influential, collection of spirituals to be published. The collectors of the songs were Northern abolitionists William Francis Allen, Lucy McKim Garrison, and Charles Pickard Ware. The group transcribed songs sung by the Gullah Geechee people of Saint Helena Island, South Carolina. These people were newly freed slaves who were living in a refugee camp when these songs were collected. It is a "milestone not just in African American music but in modern folk history". It is also the first published collection of African-American music of any kind.
Armand Edward Blackmar, was born in Vermont in 1826, to parents Reuben Harmon and Amanda (Cushman) Blackmar. Armand, with his brother, Henry, was the founder of Blackmar Brothers, a music publishing company. Begun in 1860, this publishing company was originally based out of New Orleans, Louisiana, and later Augusta, Georgia. This would become the most successful publisher of music of the Confederacy during American Civil War, issuing about half the songs released during that era. A.E. was best known for the patriotic songs he wrote.
Hood's Minstrels were an amateur Texas-based blackface Confederate military band, of the Texas Brigade, during the American Civil War, who began performing in a log cabin theater that they built themselves in 1862; they performed in it alongside a choir and a brass band. They were the most popular group of their kind during the War. Members included Mollie and Gus Bailey.
During the American Civil War, music played a prominent role on both sides of the conflict, Union and Confederate. On the battlefield, different instruments including bugles, drums, and fifes were played to issue marching orders or sometimes simply to boost the morale of one's fellow soldiers. Singing was also employed not only as a recreational activity but as a release from the inevitable tensions that come with fighting in a war. In camp, music was a diversion away from the bloodshed, helping the soldiers deal with homesickness and boredom. Soldiers of both sides often engaged in recreation with musical instruments, and when the opposing armies were near each other, sometimes the bands from both sides of the conflict played against each other on the night before a battle.
Thomas Baker was an English composer, music arranger, conductor, violinist, and musical producer who was primarily active in New York City. He is best known for composing the music for The Black Crook; a work which is widely cited as the first precursor to the twentieth-century musical.
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has generic name (help)Laing notes that Root & Cady "published most of the bestselling popular songs associated with the American Civil War".
Horn notes that the hymnal "obliterated other Anglican opposition".