Collection Overview
- 1.5 linear feet of music (approximately 400 items)
Resources
In 1987, the Warren D. Allen Music Library acquired a large collection of Confederate sheet music imprints. The collection includes nearly 400 items which comprise approximately 40% of all sheet music titles known to have been published in the Confederacy. Most of the items were acquired as a lot from the antiquarian catalog of Goodspeed’s Book Shop.
The collection includes music by many composers of the era, including John H. Hewitt, Theodore von La Hache, and H. L. Schreiner. Representative publishers of the period include Blackmar & Bros. of Augusta and New Orleans, and J. C. Schreiner & Son of Macon and Savannah. The largest portion consists of sentimental ballads and patriotic songs; however, marches, polkas, waltzes and quicksteps are also well represented. Also of interest to the historian are the many covers which are relevant for both their iconographic and sociological value.
Individual titles do not appear in our online catalog. FSU alumnus John G. Rivest’s thesis “A Descriptive Bibliography of Confederate Sheet-Music Imprints Held by The Florida State University” (ML125.C6 R58 1990) describes the contents of the collection in detail. In addition, Frank W. Hoogerwerf’s Confederate Sheet Music Imprints (ML125.C6 H66 1984) is a thorough catalog of all existing confederate era sheet music imprints.
The collection also contains twenty items of Confederate-related sheet music. Most do not have Rivest numbers, but about half of them have Hoogerwerf numbers.
The collection is available for research by appointment in the music library, although nearly all the materials in the collection have been digitized and are available in the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact our Head Librarian, Laura Gayle Green.