Illustrated Sheet Music in the U.S., 1830-1930

Theresa Leininger-Miller, Kenneth Hartvigsen

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Hardback

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English

Bloomsbury Visual Arts
20 March 2025

Illustration; Musical scores, lyrics & libretti

Series: Bloomsbury Research in Illustration Series

Illustrated sheet music was one of the most democratic forms of visual imagery in the U.S., owned by millions of Americans

wooed by compelling lithographic covers, who displayed

and performed compositions on home pianos.

Advancements in printing technologies in the 19th century, together with an emergent commercial system that facilitated the publication and broad distribution of popular music, led to a surge of elaborately illustrated sheet music. This book features essays by cutting-edge scholars who analyze the remarkable images that persuaded U.S. citizens to purchase mass-produced compositions for both personal and social pleasure. With some songs selling millions of copies as printed musical scores, music publishers commissioned artists to draw every conceivable subject as promotional illustrations, including genre scenes, portraits, political and historical events, sentimental allegories, flowers, landscapes, commercial buildings, and maritime views.

As ubiquitous and democratic material culture, this imagery affected ordinary people in far greater ways than unique objects, like paintings and sculpture, possibly could. The pictures, many in saturated color with bold graphics, still intrigue, amaze, and amuse viewers today with their originality, skill, and content.

Rooted in visual analysis, topics in this collection include perennially significant themes: race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, politics, war, patriotism, propaganda, religion, transportation, regional centers of production, technology, Reconstruction, romance, and comedy, as well as bodies of work by specific illustrators and lithographic firms. In recognizing the role that individuals have

played in preserving these remarkable objects, it also features interviews with enthusiasts who own two of the largest private collections of sheet music in the U.S.

Edited by: Theresa Leininger-Miller, Kenneth Hartvigsen
Imprint: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 236mm, Width: 160mm, Spine: 26mm
Weight: 920g
ISBN: 9781350450011
ISBN 10: 1350450014
Series: Bloomsbury Research in Illustration Series
Pages: 384
Publication Date: 20 March 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Theresa Leininger-Miller is Professor of Art History at University of Cincinnati, USA. Kenneth Hartvigsen is Assistant Professor of Art History at Brigham Young University, USA.

Reviews for Illustrated Sheet Music in the U.S., 1830-1930

This ambitious, generously illustrated volume lives up to its promise to survey the scope and impact of illustrated sheet music and to ponder the relationships between music and art, lyric and picture, through new methodologies. Meticulously prepared by its art historian editors and covering eighty years of production, distribution, and reception, it breaks ground with fresh insights by seasoned and emerging researchers from art, music, history and museum backgrounds. Aimed at scholars with requisite rigor and theorization, especially in racial and ethnic representation, it is nonetheless accessibly written with each of its concise 18 chapters a perfect length for students. Contributions by prominent collectors bridge the gap between academic and self-directed experts, a welcome broadening of voice in scholarly publishing. This book joins a recent growth spurt in the field of Illustration Studies that corrects the historic neglect of the art of the illustrator. It is an indispensable reference work for beginning and advanced scholars alike of visual culture, media studies, popular culture, print history, American art, music, or the history of illustration – and it is engrossing for the casual reader as well * Jaleen Grove, Associate Professor of Illustration, Rhode Island School of Design, USA *