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Inquiring Minds: Performing the History of Musical Theater

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Ben West. Photo by Kris Rogers.

Teachers and filmmakers have long relied on primary sources to make history come alive. Ben West, director, performer and musical theater historian, is also drawn to them—but with a novel purpose. He is using unpublished manuscripts, papers of Broadway authors, copyright records and more to tell the story of the American musical—through a musical.

His production, “Show Time! The First 100 Years of the American Musical,” blends live music, performance and narrative to explore the way musicals evolved from the mid-1800s through 1999 alongside social and artistic changes. To develop the show, West visited more than 20 archives in states across the country, including the Library of Congress, whose collections he began consulting in 2009.

West’s directing credits include “Unsung Carolyn Leigh” for Lincoln Center’s American Songbook; “Gatsby: The Songs in Concert”; “Make Mine Manhattan”; and “The Fig Leaves Are Falling.” On Broadway, he was assistant director and dramaturg for “Old Acquaintance”; assistant producer for “August: Osage County” and “The Homecoming”; and production assistant for “Talk Radio.” Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts recognized West in 2017 with its Martin E. Segal Award for emerging artists.

“Show Time!” will premiere at the Theatre at Saint Peter’s in New York on September 13. Two companion pieces will follow in 2019 and 2020: “45 Minutes from Coontown,” a celebration of black musical theater, and “68 Ways to Go,” about women writers of musical theater.

Here West answers a few questions about his research at the Library.

Why do you want to tell the story of the American musical?

I am madly in love with the musical theater—the excitement, the energy, the brashness, the ferocity, the intellectualism, the humanity, the endless possibilities. The American musical is, at its best, an unstoppable force of audacious entertainment, to borrow a line from “Show Time!” And yet its story is largely unsung. As one who is deeply passionate about this indelible form and the kinetic relationship between past, present and future, I find the relative silence deafening, especially when you consider that its story is also our story. We are speaking here about a uniquely American art form whose works—together with their respective authors—capture the consciousness of a nation, revealing who we are as a people, and embody the social, political and cultural climate of any given time. Its history is our history. Its future is likewise ours. Its story needs to be told. “Show Time!” indeed sets out to do just that and, with any luck, will itself prove to be an unstoppable force of audacious entertainment.

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Teal Wicks performs in “Unsung Carolyn Leigh,” which incorporates original material West discovered among unpublished copyright deposits. Photo by Kevin Yatarola.

Why was it important to research primary sources?

If one is setting out to tell the definitive story of the American musical, it is my belief that reference books, published production materials and critical commentary alone do not provide a strong enough foundation upon which to construct a comprehensive, authoritative tale. Reference books and biographies are often incomplete, and too many, I have unfortunately found, are littered with inaccuracies. Published production materials are marvelous, but what of the unpublished works, which comprise the vast majority of the musical theater canon? As for critical commentary, it can be immensely valuable, but isolating or addressing trends in the broader context is often and understandably difficult when one is in the midst of them. And, in some instances, outside factors may negatively color the critical reception of a particular production whose fundamental material is nonetheless first rate. No, if one is setting out to tell the definitive story of the American musical, one must ultimately immerse himself in the essays, correspondence and manuscripts of the form’s creators themselves, for it is in the musings and markings of our intrepid artists that the real story is revealed.

Which Library of Congress collections have you used?

Simply put: several. With regard to the Manuscript Division, the Library’s copyright deposits of unpublished dramatic works have been my primary target, leading me to several librettos, including Clare Kummer’s “Noah’s Ark” (1905) and Arnold B. Horwitt’s “O Happy Me!” (1955). In Recorded Sound, I have recently been investigating early 20th-century black spirituals, and previously accessed the NBC Collection for its exhilarating radio broadcast of Harold Rome’s hit 1943 army revue, “Stars and Gripes.” But it is the absurdly majestic Music Division that has been my most frequent destination, housing the personal papers of—among many others—Irving Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, Vernon Duke, George and Ira Gershwin, Morton Gould, Jerome Kern and Arthur Schwartz, all of which I have investigated, all of which are a feast. Elsewhere in the Music Division, the vast and vibrant Warner Chappell Collection has proven essential, as have the similarly vast and vibrant published sheet music collections, covering stage, screen and popular song.

Which holdings have you found especially compelling or surprising?

Truth be told, there is hardly a collection that I do not find compelling. That said, the most surprising—shocking, startling, unexpected—of the Library’s holdings is undoubtedly its copyright deposits of unpublished musical works. The vitality, import and singularity of this remarkable resource cannot be overstated, especially considering it actively preserves the overwhelming majority of unpublished lyrics and music submitted for U.S. copyright before 1978. For the Bernsteins and Gershwins of the world, this is likely of little consequence. Most of their output is safely tucked away in their personal papers. But for the many older or lesser-known artists who do not have dedicated collections, these copyright deposits are invaluable. I have quite literally burst into ecstatic fits of giddiness upon finding forgotten scores for which I had been feverishly burning: Henry Creamer and Turner Layton’s “Ebony Nights” (1921); Louis Douglass and James P. Johnson’s “The Policy Kings” (1938); Ogden Nash and Vernon Duke’s “He and She” (1949); Charles Gaynor’s “Show Girl” (1961). Beyond the musical material related to specific shows, the copyright deposits have also proven a tremendous tool for exploring the outermost appendages of an artist’s body of work, with Henry Creamer, Sammy Fain, James F. Hanley, Arnold B. Horwitt, James P. Johnson, Carolyn Leigh and Harold Rome being just a few of the individual subjects into whose deposits I have delved. And it is true that my copyright journey has been primarily in search of items that, generally speaking, are obscure. But, when addressing the evolution of the American musical, these items are also significant, central and revealing.

Have you produced original material you discovered at the Library?

In 1969, Hugh Wheeler (“Sweeney Todd”), Carolyn Leigh (“Little Me”), and Lee Pockriss (“Catch a Falling Star”) wrote an unproduced musical adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” While Leigh’s collection at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts includes several drafts of the libretto, only two songs are represented. (They wrote more than 20.) Upon learning that several of the charts had been submitted for copyright, however, I was able to locate the deposits at the Library of Congress with the help of Music Division reference specialist Cait Miller. While the world will likely never see the full treatment of this particular “Gatsby” musical due to rights issues affecting the underlying source material, its sensational score—set apart from the libretto and the story—is eminently performable. As such, I decided to adapt 16 of the songs, including a handful given to me by Lee and Sonja Pockriss, into a “Gatsby” song cycle. (Fran Minarik created the fresh and fabulous musical and vocal arrangements from the original lead sheets.) “Gatsby: The Songs in Concert” was first performed in a world premiere concert in 2011, and then again in 2014 alongside individual items from the unproduced musicals “Caesar’s Wife,” “Juliet,” and “Smile” as part of “Unsung Carolyn Leigh,” an evening I had the pleasure of creating for Lincoln Center’s American Songbook.

How has it been for you to work at the Library and with Library staff?

Conducting research at the Library is always a joy, and the positive experience is only amplified by the supportive staff. Patrick Kerwin in the Manuscript Division, Chamisa Redmond Nash in Photo Duplication, Eric Frazier in Rare Books, and Harrison Behl in Recorded Sound are just a few of the extraordinary individuals who have helped me immeasurably along the way. The extent of my research here would also not have been possible without the kindness, generosity and knowledge of the entire team in the Music Division, with a special mention of Mark Horowitz, who has inspired, challenged, engaged, shocked, excited and befriended me over and throughout the past eight years. To quote one of the Library’s famed artists in residence, “Who could ask for anything more?”

Veterans on the Homefront: War Creates an Artist

This is a guest post by Megan Harris, a librarian with the Veterans History Project. It is one of four profiles that make up “Veterans on the Homefront,” published in the November–December 2017 issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine . This profile recounts the way in which Tracy Sugarman was affected by his time in uniform.

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A detail from a Sugarman watercolor showing sailors aboard a ship in Normandy in September 1944.

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Tracy Sugarman at his desk.

As a young Navy officer arriving in Normandy on D-Day, Tracy Sugarman brought with him a few secret weapons: a sketchpad, pen and watercolor paints. Throughout his service overseas, Sugarman—a trained artist and aspiring illustrator—had been busy documenting what he saw in the form of quick but evocative sketches, which he then sent home to his new bride, June. By the time he reached France, drawing became not only a form of communication with his wife, but also a way to cope with the horrors of war.

Art, he said in his 2003 Veterans History Project oral history interview, was “a way to come to terms with getting through a bad time. If I could put it on paper, I could deal with it.”

After the war, art became his livelihood as well as a means of activism. While he created commercial works for publications such as Ladies’ Home Journal and the Saturday Evening Post, he also served as a reportorial artist on the front lines of another war: the civil rights movement.

During the summer of 1964, he joined activists organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to register African-Americans to vote in rural Mississippi. His time in the South yielded 100 drawings depicting “what was really happening” in the South, later used in news reports around the country.

Though he had once dreamed of becoming the next Norman Rockwell, art came to occupy a much more transcendent role in Sugarman’s life: As he explained in a 2009 lecture at the Library of Congress, “I first learned in Normandy that my art could be much more than a way to make a living. It could guide me to the truth, if I trusted it.”

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Pedestrians near a jetty in the harbor at Fowey, England, in April 1944.

Sugarman’s Veterans History Project collection includes his oral history interview and more than 250 letters to his wife. Lyrical and passionate, the letters illustrate his experiences in war as well as the pain of being separated from June.

In 2000, he published “My War: A Love Story in Letters and Drawings,” with selections from his original wartime drawings, which reside in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. In 2012, he published “Stranger at the Gates: A Summer in Mississippi,” which tells the story of his experiences during the summer of 1964.

Sugarman passed away in 2013.

This Day in History: Celebrating Dizzy Gillespie Through Photographs and More

“Be-bop is a way of phrasing and accenting. The accent is on the up beat. Instead of OO-bah, it’s oo-BAH. Different chords, too. And lots of flatted 5ths and 9ths. There’s lots more to it. But just now I can’t think of what.”

—Dizzy Gillespie, Sept. 10, 1947, Down Beat

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Dizzy Gillespie, 1947. Photograph by William P. Gottlieb.

Dizzy Gillespie—trumpeter, composer, bandleader—made an enormous mark on jazz and modern music, playing up until the day he died on Jan. 6, 1993—25 years ago this coming Saturday. Among his contributions, Gillespie was a pioneer of Be-bop, a form of modern jazz he created with pianist Thelonious Monk, drummer Kenny Clarke, guitarist Charlie Christian and alto saxophonist Charlie “Yardbird” Parker.

In the 1940s, Dizzy and his collaborators often gathered at Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem for after-hours jam sessions. The Three Deuces, the Troubador and the Famous Door were other popular clubs in the area, alternately called “Swing Lane” or “Be-Bop Alley,” or simply “The Street.”

The scene is well documented in the Library’s William P. Gottlieb Collection, made up of more than 1,600 photographs of celebrated jazz artists, including Gillespie. The Library acquired the collection in 1995; it entered the public domain in 2010 under the terms of the purchase agreement with Gottlieb.

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Famed jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald performs while Dizzy Gillespie gazes up at her in this 1947 Gottlieb photo.

Born in Brooklyn in 1917, Gottlieb became interested in jazz as a student at Lehigh University, writing jazz reviews for campus publications. In 1938, he secured a position at the Washington Post, where he soon began to write a weekly jazz column. When the Post decided it could no longer pay a photographer to accompany Gottlieb to local nightclubs and theaters, he bought a press camera and mastered it, becoming known in Washington as “Mr. Jazz” by age 22. Besides his Post job, he hosted two local radio shows about jazz.

After serving in World War II, Gottlieb moved to New York to work for the jazz magazine Down Beat. There he continued to write reviews and take stunning photographs that seemed to capture the essence of his subjects. In 1948, Gottlieb gave up late nights in smoky clubs for a second career as a writer of children’s books and filmstrips. He died in 2006 at age 89.

As for Gillespie, he continued to thrill audiences throughout his career with a combination of talent and irrepressible showmanship. His contributions included championing Afro-Cuban jazz and influencing such musical icons as Miles Davis. He also toured far-flung locales, making his bent trumpet, moon cheeks and compositions such as “Night in Tunisia,” “Manteca,” and “Birks Works” recognizable to jazz fans around the world.

Learn More

Listen to a 1997 recording of William Gottlieb at the Library commenting on his 1947 photo of Dizzy Gillespie with Ella Fitzgerald:


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Read the transcript of a 1984 interview of Gillespie conducted by Larry Appelbaum, the Music Division’s jazz specialist.
And check out a selection of Gottlieb photographs on the Library’s Flickr site.

  This post draws on the Library’s “ Today in History ” feature for January 6.

Hearing Abraham Lincoln’s Voice

This is a guest post by Michelle Krowl, a historian in the Manuscript Division.

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Artist Jean Louis Gerome Ferris’s interpretation of Abraham Lincoln speaking at a flag-raising ceremony.

Imagine you can hear Abraham Lincoln speaking the words from his famous Second Inaugural Address: “With malice toward none; with charity for all.” What voice did you supply for Lincoln? Was it a resonant baritone, or a high-pitched tenor?

While many people expect that Lincoln must have had a deep, stentorian tone, Lincoln’s true voice was high pitched and reedy. It was this voice that Daniel Day-Lewis used to portray Abraham Lincoln in the 2012 film “Lincoln,” and which provides a close approximation of the real Abraham Lincoln’s voice.

A number of Lincoln’s contemporaries left accounts of his voice and speaking style. Journalist Horace White described Lincoln as having “a thin tenor, or rather falsetto, voice, almost as high-pitched as a boatswain’s whistle.” Others described it as “shrill” and “sharp,” which the New York Herald noted in February 1860 had “a frequent tendency to dwindle into a shrill and unpleasant sound.” For most listeners, however, the power of Lincoln’s words soon outweighed any discordant note in his delivery.

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Excerpt from “The Presidential Campaign,” published on Feb. 28, 1860, in the New York Herald.

Despite its high pitch, Lincoln’s voice carried, an important quality for speakers at large gatherings in the preamplification age. Observers noted that Lincoln’s voice had “much carrying power, that could be heard a long distance in spite of the bustle and tumult of a crowd.” The “rich baritone” of Lincoln’s rival Stephen A. Douglas may have been more pleasing to listeners during the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas Debates, but Lincoln’s tenor “had better wearing qualities” and could be heard by those at the far edge of the crowd.

Lincoln also spoke slowly, allowing his words to be considered and understood. While this pace may have accorded with Lincoln’s own speaking style, he clearly recognized the value of a slow cadence in a public address. Unable to attend a rally in Springfield, Illinois, in 1863, he sent a letter to be read aloud on his behalf, a draft of which is in the Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. “You are one of the best public readers. I have but one suggestion,” Lincoln advised his political associate James C. Conkling: “Read it very slowly.”

Lincoln’s speaking voice carried the accents and phrases of a youth spent in Kentucky and southern Indiana. The most oft-quoted example is that of Lincoln’s tendency to pronounce “chairman” as “cheerman.” Among the research files of Indiana senator and Lincoln biographer Albert J. Beveridge at the Library of Congress is a list of southern Indiana dialect words prepared in 1924 by a correspondent who, like Lincoln, grew up that part of the state in a family who had lived there for generations. In southern Indiana, “window” became “winder,” according to Charles Remy; “learned” was pronounced “larnt”; and the word “reckon” substituted for “assume.”

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A section from “Words of Southern Indiana Dialect” provided by Charles Remy to Sen. Albert Beveridge in October 1924.

Lincoln’s misspellings in handwritten documents also suggest his phonetic pronunciations of some words. Interestingly, Lincoln frequently misspelled “inaugural” as “inaugeral.” He even misspelled the word in his inscription to his secretary John Hay, to whom Lincoln presented the handwritten manuscript copy of his Second Inaugural Address.

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Abraham Lincoln’s inscription to John Hay in presenting the manuscript of his
Second Inaugural Address, in which Lincoln spelled “inaugural” as “inaugeral.”

In addition to clues to Lincoln’s voice suggested by regional dialects and recorded by contemporary accounts, Abraham Lincoln himself provided actors in the future with a valuable gift for recreating his famous Second Inaugural Address. Lincoln physically cut and pasted the printed proof of his address into a script that served as his reading copy on March 4, 1865.

Anyone who wonders where Lincoln might have paused for emphasis need only consult this document for direction. Journalist Noah Brooks recorded that the audience applause after “both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish” led to a considerable pause before Lincoln intoned, “And the war came.” But Lincoln had already planned for the pause. Four little but powerful words were snipped from the paragraph and pasted on their own line below: “And the war came.”

And thanks to contemporary observers and Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance in “Lincoln,” we have a better appreciation of what Abraham Lincoln sounded like when the war came.

EverydayLOC: New Year’s Resolutions

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A hand-colored Currier & Ives lithograph, circa. 1876.

Happy New Year! There is something sort of refreshing to me about saying those words. I have always fully embraced the notion that a new calendar year, psychologically speaking, offers a particular moment to reset, recommit and reprioritize. Whether you call them New Year’s Resolutions or, as one of my dear friends refers to them, New Year’s Notions, it is a worthwhile activity to make a list of things you would like to do, be or see in the 12 months ahead.

Last month, I shared a list of ideas for engaging with the Library during the holiday season. For January, I dug into some suggested Library resources that might align with topics or themes you are considering to enrich your 2018.

Once again, we invite you to share comments or stories if you use any of these ideas, and we welcome your own suggestions!

Research your family genealogy: I am lucky enough to have a great aunt and an uncle who have zealously documented my family history. Whether you are starting from scratch, or want to build on existing information, the Library of Congress has one of the world’s premier collections of U.S. and foreign genealogical and local historical publications. Get started here.

Refresh your citizenship muscles: The Library’s Congress.gov web site is the official resource for federal congressional information. On this site, you can track legislation, follow legislative activity of your U.S. senator or representative and watch videos of committee hearings. To get started, try these video tutorials on the different stages of the legislative process.

Read a classic: A resolution to “read more” or “read some of the classics I have never read” is one we heartily endorse at the Library of Congress. Here are some ideas from the Library’s “Books That Shaped America” project and exhibition. A confession: I grew up in Oklahoma, and I only read “The Grapes of Wrath” when we did this list several years ago. It is never too late! Next for me from the list is “How the Other Half Lives” by Jacob Riis, inspired by this wonderful Library exhibition from a year ago.

Gain perspective on weight loss: So, it wouldn’t be a New Year’s resolution list without addressing the issue of weight loss, an annual and often depressing part of the “new year, new me” discussion. But have you ever considered the history? The Library’s Science, Business and Technology Division is where books on weight loss live (A Letter on Corpulence from the 1860s, for example—yes! This is a thing!), and the division has two blogs about it that might give you some perspective, or at least a laugh or two, here and here.

Watch the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song: This is one of our favorite events each year, highlighting the life’s work of a popular song legend. Learn more about this year’s honoree, Tony Bennett, here, and tune in on January 12 to your local PBS station at 8 ET in most areas (check local listings) to view the Gershwin Prize concert celebrating Bennett.

Register for a reader card: For those of you in the D.C. area, make 2018 the year you register as a reader at the Library of Congress. Many people don’t know that anyone 16 and older can get a reader registration card and do research at the Library. Be in the know and do your next project in the stunning Main Reading Room. I guarantee it will inspire your thinking.

Read more with the kids: Encouraging children to read is a special passion of ours. Check out all the classic children’s books (more than 50 of them) on read.gov. From the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” to “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” these scans of original editions are a charming way to read online.

Master world geography: For 15 years, the Library’s Geography and Map Division hosted “Places in the News,” an online resource offering maps and historic background on, well, places in the news. Although the site wrapped up at the end of 2016, it is still a really neat entry point for exploring world geography.

Subscribe to the LCM: The Library of Congress’ bimonthly magazine, LCM, is a wonderful resource for learning more about the Library’s collections and programs. Some upcoming issues we have planned for you cover topics like building African-American history, hidden figures in women’s history and Broadway culture. Subscribe here, and review previous issues on topics including comic books, design and photography here.

Veterans on the Homefront: A Wasp Born to Fly

This is a guest post by Megan Harris, a librarian with the Veterans History Project. It is one of four profiles that make up “Veterans on the Homefront,” published in the November–December 2017 issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine. This profile recounts the way in which Violet Clara Thurn Cowden was affected by her time in uniform.

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Violet Cowden aboard her plane.

As a farm girl growing up in South Dakota, Violet Cowden watched hawks soaring high in the sky and yearned to do the same. By the time World War II was declared, she had already obtained her private pilot’s license, so the decision to join the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program was easy.

As she said in her 2003 Veterans History Project oral history interview, “I thought, ‘Well, what better way to serve my country than to fly and do the thing that I love most, and I didn’t have to pay for the gas.’”

Established in 1943, the WASP program employed female pilots to fly domestically in order to liberate men for service overseas, and Cowden was determined to take part. Both underweight and under height, she gorged on bananas and put a wrap in her hair in order to pass the physical examination.

Her determination paid off. Cowden beat the odds to be accepted into the program: Out of 25,000 applicants, only about a thousand received their wings. Serving as a pursuit pilot, Cowden was tasked with retrieving planes from the factory and flying them to the point of debarkation. She loved the visceral experience of flying the P-51, the fastest plane made at the time: She said it felt like an extension of her body, as if she had been given actual wings.

The WASP program was disbanded late in the war, as male pilots began to trickle home from combat tours and the need for pilots was no longer so dire. Considered civil servants rather than veterans, Cowden and her fellow WASPs found themselves without veterans benefits and passed over for jobs in commercial cockpits in favor of their male counterparts. It would take decades of persistent advocacy on their part before their military service was recognized as such: They were designated as veterans in 1977.

In reflecting on her time as a WASP, Cowden said, “I certainly didn’t think I was a pioneer. I was doing a job.” The Women Airforce Service Pilots received the Congressional Gold Medal from President Obama in 2010. Violet Cowden passed away in 2011 at the age of 94.

Inquiring Minds: Raising a Curtain on Amy Beach, Musical Pioneer

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Amy Beach

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Amy Beach (1867–1944), whose musical accomplishments changed the way Americans understood the possibilities for women in music.

Born in New Hampshire to a prominent New England family, Beach was a child prodigy: by age four, she was composing simple waltzes; at seven, she began giving public recitals, playing works by Beethoven, Chopin and Handel; in 1885, she appeared as a piano soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

As a composer, her breakthrough came in 1896, when the Boston Symphony premiered her “Gaelic” symphony to almost unanimous praise—all the more remarkable because she was largely self-taught as a composer. In all, she composed more than 150 works; beyond the “Gaelic” symphony, she wrote “Mass in E Flat Major” (1892), a violin sonata, a piano concerto and quintet, choral and chamber music pieces and the opera “Cahildo” (1932).

Despite her success, Beach is not well known today outside scholarly and musical circles in the way many of her male counterparts are. Indeed, the New York Times reported in the fall that no major American orchestras had plans to perform her works for the 150th anniversary.

Caitlin Miller of the Music Division is doing her part to change this situation. Last month, she gave a lecture at the Library about Beach, including an up-close look at some of Beach’s work held at the Library. Miller’s lecture was followed by a performance of Beach’s work in the Coolidge Auditorium. Here Miller answers a few questions about this important composer and the special items in the collections related to her.

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Caitlin Miller, a reference specialist in the Music Division, has highlighted the work of composer Amy Beach this year. Here she holds a copy of an 1893 newsletter that includes one of Beach’s songs. Photo by Shawn Miller.

When and why did the Library begin collecting Beach’s works?

The Library first collected Beach’s published music through the copyright deposit program, starting with her first published song, “The Rainy Day,” from 1883 when she was 16. Beach’s main publisher was Arthur P. Schmidt, a German émigré who settled in Boston and started a company that published works of many distinguished American composers; in fact, the A.P. Schmidt Company became one of the largest music publishing and importing firms in the United States. The Library of Congress acquired the Arthur P. Schmidt Company Archives during the latter half of the 20th century, a collection that includes music manuscripts, correspondence and selected business and financial records from the company. As a result, we have substantial correspondence from Beach as well as music manuscripts for her works, a portion of which are in the composer’s hand.

Also, in the early decades of the 20th century, the Music Division’s first chief, Oscar Sonneck, reached out to Beach after discovering that we did not hold a copy of her piano concerto in our collections. We hold a typewritten letter dated January 7, 1911, from Sonneck to Beach where he states, “It seems a pity that our catalogue should contain so many scores of pianoforte concertos by European composers and not yours, which easily holds its own against so many works that have been published in Europe of late years.” Sonneck’s letter demonstrates the respect that the musical world held for Beach and her work.

We hold her response to Sonneck as well, handwritten on stationery outlined in black (she was mourning the death of her husband who had passed only about half a year prior to her writing the letter). Beach begins a conversation about the whereabouts of her manuscript for the piano concerto that eventually led to the Library acquiring a copyist’s manuscript of the score; however, this letter also voices her willingness to donate other music manuscripts to the Library’s music collections. Beach writes, “I take great pleasure in sending to you by express the original manuscript of the entire “Service in A” . . . for voices and organ, for deposit in the Library of Congress. I shall be glad to know that the score of one of my most important works rests in so honorable a place.” This score was the first of several music manuscripts that Beach happily gifted to the Library of Congress for safekeeping, including titles such as “Jeptha’s Daughter,” “Sea-fairies,” “Sylvania (A Wedding Cantata),” “Help Us, O God!” and others.

What inspires your interest in Beach?

Since I began studying music history, I have been drawn to studying and sharing stories about women in music. Beach was the first American composer to publish a symphony, and her “Gaelic Symphony” was premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra—that fact alone is remarkable to anyone interested in women’s historical milestones. But upon reading Adrienne Fried Block’s fabulous biography of the composer, I was fascinated to learn that Beach’s education in music theory and composition was significantly limited compared to that of her male contemporaries. Beach was largely encouraged to study the old masterworks independently and teach herself—no residences in Europe to receive formal composition classes (she traveled to Europe later in her career, but not to receive formal training). To understand her achievements, one must explore her upbringing, her education, her marriage, her philosophies and the politics at play in the Boston musical community and in the world.

In honor of Beach’s 150th birthday, I wanted to organize a talk and display that would highlight her tremendous career, demand the attention of general music enthusiasts and encourage some thoughtful reflection on Beach and her works—and maybe even lure some researchers in the Performing Arts Reading Room!

Do you have a favorite item that you included in the display?

I tried to represent as many aspects of Beach’s career and compositional output as I could last month. I included her first published songs (“The Rainy Day” and “With Violets”) as well as her most popular songs (“The Year’s at the Spring” and “Ah, Love, but a day!”), the manuscript copy of her “Gaelic Symphony” from the Schmidt Archive, the Boston Symphony Orchestra program featuring the symphony’s premiere, scores for choral works in Beach’s hand, articles that she authored about music education, articles that sought her opinion on trends in music and more.

Of course, I’m always excited by the quirky and unexpected, so my favorite item that I included in the display would have to be a song of Beach’s that was published in a newsletter called “Our Dumb Animals,” printed in 1893 by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Beach’s song “Golden Gates” is printed on page 95 along with text celebrating “our good friend Mrs. Dr. Beach” for having composed “the first Mass ever written by a woman.” The text also explains why Beach’s song is printed in the newsletter: “Some time since she saw in ‘Our Dumb Animals’ a beautiful little poem, which so struck her that she has set it to music, and by her kind permission we have the pleasure of presenting it as above to our readers.” I love this item for a few reasons—first of all, it’s a fascinating newsletter in and of itself, but it also sheds light on Beach’s inspiration for this particular song and communicates a general interest in animal rights.

What would you suggest to researchers thinking about using the Library’s collections on Beach?

There is so much Beach material to discover in the Music Division’s collections! Between our published scores, the music manuscripts that Beach gifted to the division, correspondence we received and preserved in the division’s old correspondence files, music manuscripts and correspondence in the A.P. Schmidt Archive as well as correspondence found in other special collections, including the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation Collection and the Edward and Marian MacDowell Collection. In addition to our material, any Beach researchers should also know that the University of New Hampshire holds the Amy Cheney Beach (Mrs. H.H.A. Beach) Papers 1835–1956 and the University of Missouri-Kansas City holds an Amy Cheney Beach Collection as well.

My strongest suggestion, of course, would be to visit the Performing Arts Reading Room to view some of our material in person and talk to me or another of our reference librarians about the collections. And don’t hesitate to email us your questions via Ask A Librarian!

Update on the Twitter Archive at the Library of Congress

In 2010, the Library of Congress announced an exciting and groundbreaking acquisition—a gift from Twitter of the entire archive of public tweet text beginning with the first tweets of 2006 through 2010, and continuing with all public tweet text going forward. The Library took this step for the same reason it collects other materials – to acquire and preserve a record of knowledge and creativity for Congress and the American people. The initiative was bold and celebrated among research communities.

In the years since, the social media landscape has changed significantly, with new platforms, an explosion in use, terms of service and functionality shifting frequently and lessons learned about privacy and other concerns.

The Library now has a secure collection of tweet text, documenting the first 12 years (2006-2017) of this dynamic communications channel—its emergence, its applications and its evolution.

Today, we announce a change in collections practice for Twitter. Effective Jan. 1, 2018, the Library will acquire tweets on a selective basis—similar to our collections of web sites.

The Library regularly reviews its collections practices to account for environmental shifts, diversity of collections and topics, cost effectiveness, use of collections and other factors. This change results from such a review.

More information is available in the attached white paper.

Some important details:

The Library will continue to preserve and secure its collection of tweet text.
The Twitter collection will remain embargoed until access issues can be resolved in a cost-effective and sustainable manner.
The Library will work with Twitter to acquire tweets on a selective basis.

Attached is a white paper summarizing today’s announcement, as well as the original gift agreement with Twitter for reference.

Blog post: “Library Acquires Entire Twitter Archive,” April 14, 2010

Blog post: “The Library and Twitter: An FAQ,” April 28, 2010

Blog post: “Update on the Twitter Archive at the Library of Congress,” Jan. 4, 2013

Featured Item: Let’s Go Sledding!

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An 1887 advertisement for Star Toboggans, showing people sledding at night.

To celebrate the season, we’re highlighting a historical advertisement for Star Toboggans on our home page this month. The colorful sledding scene is part of the Library’s Popular Graphic Arts Collection, which contains more than 15,000 historical prints published between 1700 and 1900.

The prints depict images from everyday life, historical events, celebrities, popular destinations and more. Some, like the Star Toboggans piece, advertise products—in this case bobsleds.

American printmakers created most of the prints in the collection—the well-known printmaker Currier & Ives is well represented, for example. But publishers from many other countries are included as well.

The Library acquired the Star Toboggan ad in 1887, when the Phoenix Lithographic Company of Chicago deposited the art with a registration submitted to the U.S. Copyright Office. Many of the prints in the collection were acquired in this way.

For more scenes of the season, check out our Winter Wonderland Pinterest board!

World War I: Injured Veterans and the Disability Rights Movement

This is a guest post by Ryan Reft, a historian in the Manuscript Division.

Fans of the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire” may remember that World War I veterans grappling with disability occupied a critical place in the show’s story. Fictional vet Jimmy Darmandy (Michael Pitt) struggled as much with PTSD as he did with a limp derived from shrapnel embedded in his leg by a German grenade. Richard Harrow (Jack Huston), on the other hand, endured facial disfigurement so severe he wore a mask to conceal his injuries, though his wounds went far beyond the physical.

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The American Red Cross founded the Institute for Crippled and Disabled Men in New York City in 1917 to train amputees and individuals with damaged limbs. Soon, injured veterans became a main constituency. Here men with partial arm amputations are taught welding.

Artifacts on display in the Library of Congress exhibit Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I demonstrate the human cost of the war, the government’s response and the ways in which injured veterans helped push forward—even if in a somewhat limited fashion—the disability rights movement.

During the war, 224,000 soldiers suffered injuries that sidelined them from the front. Roughly 4,400 returned home missing part or all of a limb. Of course, disability was not limited to missing limbs; as the “Boardwalk Empire” characters demonstrate, a soldier could come home with all limbs and digits intact yet struggle with mental wounds. Nearly 100,000 soldiers were removed from fighting for psychological injuries; 40,000 of them were discharged. By 1921, approximately 9,000 veterans had undergone treatment for psychological disability in veterans’ hospitals. As the decade progressed, greater numbers of veterans received treatment for “war neurosis.” Ultimately, whether mental or physical, 200,000 veterans would return home with a permanent disability.

“[A] man could not go through that conflict and come back and take his place as a normal human being,” veteran and former infantry officer Robert S. Marx noted in late 1919. Marx played a critical role in establishing the organization Disabled Veterans of the World War (DAV) in 1920. He knew well the sting of disability: Just hours before the war’s ceasefire, he suffered a severe injury after being wounded by a German artillery shell.

With the larger American Legion, founded in 1919, the DAV worked to raise public awareness about disabled veterans, while pressuring the government to adopt programs to address their rehabilitation and reintegration into American society. Though far smaller than the American Legion, which claimed 850,000 members within its first year of its existence, DAV membership rolls topped 25,000 by 1922 and had 1,200 local chapters and state offices nationwide. Overlap between the DAV and the Legion was unmistakable; roughly 90 percent of DAV members were also legionnaires. In fact, Marx helped to found the Legion’s National Rehabilitation Committee.

Together, the two organizations placed veterans’ disability at the forefront of the push for veterans’ rights and benefits, including for “shell shock” or what today would be classified as PTSD. Due to the organizations’ efforts, in 1921 the U.S. government established the United States Veterans Bureau, a precursor to today’s U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

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Not everyone depended on the state for assistance. Paul Rugh (left) returned home struggling with a severe form of PTSD that prevented him from working. Rather than live out his days in a veterans’ hospital, his brother Edward (right), a fellow veteran, cared for him until Paul’s death.

The Red Cross and the government also acted independently to address disability. In 1917, the Red Cross opened the first institution dedicated to training amputees and individuals with damaged limbs: The Institute for Crippled and Disabled Men in New York City. Though not initially established for veterans, the institute soon found itself inundated with World War I soldiers. In addition to rehabilitating injured soldiers, the institute produced and distributed 50 pamphlets, broadsides and books focusing on rehabilitation in the first year after armistice. During 1918, the institute distributed 6 million copies of “Your Duty to the War Cripple” to New Yorkers.

The government established the Federal Board for Vocational Education in 1917; it produced the first studies on veterans’ disability. The following year, the Smith-Sears Vocational Rehabilitation Act passed, providing for rehabilitation and vocational training for disabled veterans.

Despite these efforts, the treatment of disabled veterans varied widely, and attempts to streamline it largely failed. Veterans lodged numerous complaints related to poor dining, housing and rehabilitation facilities. Counselors, meant to help steer veterans toward rehabilitation and vocational training, were seen by many veterans as distant and uncommunicative. Black veterans endured racial discrimination, greatly diminished facilities and systematic neglect.

Of the roughly 330,000 veterans eligible for rehabilitation, nearly half received some amount of training. It came with a steep price tag, however; in 1927 alone, the cost of rehabilitation exceeded $400 million. The following year, the vocational education board expended half a billion dollars in compensation for veterans.

Though not exactly a success story, the government’s role in rehabilitation did expand the development and institutionalization of the veterans’ welfare and demonstrated a commitment to restoring veterans to societal productivity.

World War I Centennial, 2017–18 . With the most comprehensive collection of multiformat World War I holdings in the nation, the Library is a unique resource for primary source materials, education plans, public programs and on-site visitor experiences about the Great War including exhibits, symposia and book talks.