SINGING MODERNITY WITHOUT NOTES: ALIENATION IN MID-NINETEENTH- CENTURY U.S. BROADSIDES

Joshua Arin Harton: Singing Modernity Without Notes:Alienation in Mid-Nineteenth-Century U.S. Broadsides(Under the direction of David Garcia)Mid-nineteenth-century broadsides in the United States have largely been treated byscholars as visual documents rather than musical ones. Where much of the literary, historical, andmaterial traces they contain can still be seen, their aural contents have become elusive—shiftingattention away from the musicality these broadsides represent. Labeled “trivial” works by somemusicologists and often misleadingly tied to sheet music, broadsides in this period reference atransatlantic oral practice that was centuries old. Considering five examples printed in New Yorkaround 1860, drawn from over 4,000 held in the Library of Congress’ America Singing:Nineteenth-Century Song Sheets collection, I unpack musical expressions of modernity.Significantly, while others have located similar expressions in the sheet music publishing andrecording industries of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, a theme of alienationruns throughout this even earlier musical mass market. Drawing from the work of Jean-JacquesRousseau, Karl Marx, Marshall Berman, Rahel Jaeggi, and Ross Cole, I demonstrate theusefulness of musically addressing these noteless, yet still singing, broadsides through the lens ofmodernity and alienation. Incorporating historically varied perspectives on modernity andalienation, this thesis contributes to research in popular music and to nineteenth-century studiesmore broadly. It bridges music and literature, expanding the tools available for hearing historicalbroadsides in their modern contexts despite limited information (notes) on how they were sung.