The Classic Pop Music

     The Gilded Age was a wonderful age for music.  With the emergence of leisure time many of the middle class and working class had much more time on their hands and were looking for ways of entertainment.  This new demand for performers caused the entertainment industry to be born.  In the early days of the Gilded Age the most popular acts were the traveling minstrel shows which soon evolved into Vaudeville theatre.  To accompany this new form of theatre many new styles of music had to be developed.

Scott Joplin

     Music of the time was much less modest and melodic than anything which had come before it.  The most notable innovation in music at the end of the 19th century was the development of a new genre of African influenced rhythmic music called ragtime emerging out of New Orleans.  Ragtime is the most well known of any styles of music from the Gilded Age.  Scott Joplin is one of the most famous Ragtime composers gaining much of his following from his piece called "The Maple Leaf Rag".  Before this time most popular music was strictly classical in style and composition following rules derived from the romantic age of Bach and Mozart.  Charles Ives was one of these composers to step out of the Classical comfort zone as he implement very strange and innovative chords in his compositions.  In the time of Vaudeville and Ragtime many songs start to have signs of structure know today as; verse chorus verse chorus verse chorus.  In this structure a song would have clear sections where the music changed or the lyrics repeated.  This form of song writing has directly influenced popular music today. 

Example of Vaudeville Theatre

     Popular music of the Gilded Age was also know for its common themes in lyrics of the night life and descriptions of city life and fantastical new ways to spend one's time.  In this time the lyrics of many songs performed in Vaudeville contained many more suggestive themes never before seen in lyrics predating this time.  Ragtime was well known for being criticized as vulgar by many classical composers of the day.  The Gilded Age was the time for major shifts in popular music.  Ragtime began to change peoples view of the piano to that of a rhythmic instrument and not the beautiful melody producing machine it was before. 

     Other than in Vaudeville most music was still enjoyed instrumentally.  This is show by the mass of sheet music found in saloons and taverns where a pianist usually entertained the patrons of the establishment.  Often these musicians were not classically trained and could play only few songs.  The working class could not often listen to the most well trained of musicians and compositions.  at this time there is evidence which shows a large increase of music for the lower level citizens in cities which caused most popular music to be governed by the working and middle classes. 

     There is no question Vaudeville outmatched the music business in the Gilded Age.  This was the case until the late 1890s when and entrepreneur from San Francisco decided to use the Phonograph to record and playback music that the music industry would be able to overtake the Theatre in popularity.  Before the Phonograph the only way a person living in the Gilded Age could listen to music was to know a professional musician  or to buy the sheet music and play it himself.  As I studied Popular songs and music technology of the Gilded Age I found America's first platinum hit.  "After the Ball" by Charles K. Harris sold over two million pieces of sheet music by the end of the 19th century.  This song was made famous after it was given to a vaudeville performer to perform in a show.  The song was described an individual recounting to a young girl how they lost there love after a ball.  "After the Ball" demonstrates the theme of entertainment in the lyrics and fame of Ragtime music in this time period. 

Eli.com

History Matters

This Fabulous Century: 1910-1920

The Gershwins

Music and Cultural Expression in the Gilded Age

Scott Joplin Bio

Cambridge Journal

The Gilded Age: Perspectives on the Origins of Modern America

The Immigrant Nation Connected

     After the past couple weeks learning about immigration to America and thinking of how my ancestors and where they came from, It has become easier than ever before for me to see America as a nation of immigrants. Although I recognize the United States of America was founded and built by immigrants, I believe now that a majority of americans see people who have descended from immigrants from the past to be 'true' Americans and anyone coming to America today as aliens to be shunned and disliked. The culture of the U.S. was shaped by the massive melting pot of cultures during mass waves of immigration before and after world wars. Most people who could uproot their families and move away from a home they knew to a strange new land had to be under great economic or government stress. This shows that America was definitely built from the ground up by the poor clawing their way up the ladder of success. By this point in time my ancestors have worked to give my family a great head start to have the most well-off life of any in the family before. I believe I have little connection to my immigrant ancestors because my parents have not had any interest in researching my ancestors so the any information i have gotten has come from my uncle in New Orleans.

 

Darren P. Barrilleaux   

Face to Face with Faces of America

     For last few days I have been watching a series called Faces of America learning about the immigrant background of some famous people in American culture.  I found the main gist of these episodes to be attempting to demonstrate how America's past as a nation of immigrants is intricately woven through everyone living here today. Among the people interviewed the most notable to me was Yo-Yo Ma and Stephen Colbert. In the interview both shared a little of what they knew about their background and how they came to be here in the U.S.A. I was surprised to find Yo-Yo Ma was only able to stay in America because by chance his father was offered a job as a music teacher just before they were to leave to return to China.

John D. Rockefeller the Self-Made Man

     John D. Rockefeller is know around the country as one of the richest or THE richest men in history.  John D. Rockefeller was born a son of a salesman in 1839.  His dad was a traveling medicine salesman who would be away for long periods of time then show up with the money he had amassed on his travels.  In his childhood his family moved around because of his fathers line of work. later they settled in Cleveland which is where John attended high school and got his first job as an assistant bookkeeper. He was taught many life lessons by his mother many of which he took to heart. Rockefeller learned at a young age to always help others when you could, to be honest with everyone, and to save your money whenever possible.  By the age of twelve he had accumulated fifty dollars (about $15,000 by todays standards) from working for neighbors. After being encouragment  by his mother, Rockefeller loaned his money to a local farmer with seven percent interest which could be payed over the course of one year.  Recounting this investment Rockefeller was quoted as saying "The impression was gaining ground with me that it was a good thing to let the money be my servant and not make myself a slave to the money..."  Kerosene was soon developed after partnering with another christian from his church to get into the business of crude oil.  One of the drawbacks he saw to the oil market was the fluctuating prices due to events such as masses flocking to oil deposits to get into the developing trade and the Civil War.
     After learning about his background and some of his earlier experiences, I found that John D. Rockefeller was almost a perfect generic role model for anyone in life.  He grew up with his mom and took to heart the lessons in life that she taught him then applied himself and through some luck and some willpower he amassed one of the largest fortunes in history.  Rockefeller was know for making large donations to various churches and charities. However these large donations could not come close to dent his funds.  I believe the largest contribution to John D Rockefeller's success was his ability to learn from people who were teaching him.

Time Magazine

PBS.org
The Freeman

The Custer Controversy

  -Jordan Barrilleaux           

                I have known about a battle at Little Bighorn for a long time.  I never really remembered ever formally learning about it in a class setting, but somehow the knowledge that there was a famous battle near the Little Bighorn River in Montana had been placed in my head somewhere along the line.  As I began researching the topic I found much discrepancy among historian’s description of the battle.  I wanted to know why the Battle of Little Bighorn was so controversial. 

                When I searched ‘Little Bighorn controversy’ the first hit was an article in the New York Times.  At Little Bighorn battle site there is a monument to the soldiers and Indians who lost their lives that day.  There is controversy over the monument because the site of the battle and the monument park is on the Crow Indian reservation land.  The main point of this modern disagreement involving the Battle of Little Bighorn is land.  Since the 1980’s private supporters of the monument have raised money to buy land around the park so it could expand and improve the quality of the facility and park as a whole.  The Crow Indians were against this transfer of their land because the Crow were originally forced out of their land by the Sioux camped at the Little Bighorn River.  The Tribe also cites a law passed in the 1920’s limiting non tribal members to only owning land up to 2,000 acres.  The supporters of the park try to explain that with the enhancement of the park there will be tourists who will be great business for the Crow Indian tribe.  This article also explained that in 1991 congress passed a law to remove George Armstrong Custer’s name from the monument changing it from Custer Battlefield Monument to the Little Bighorn Battlefield Monument.  As of now there is still a stand still over the Crow allowing the donation of the privately owned land to the Little Bighorn monument site. 

                It was definitely interesting to see there is still controversy involving the battle site today, but my question remained unanswered.  Next I came across an article from the magazine called “The Wild West”.  This commentary was trying to convince people that there had been a big cover-up of what really happened at the Battle of Little Bighorn.  At first I did not want to give it any credit thinking it was some conspiracy theorist babbling on about crazy delusions that the government is corrupt and just loves keeping things secret from the people.  After reading into in a little I found the article to be very thorough in analysis containing full names of sources and descriptions of experiments validating assumptions of what happened at the scene of the battle.  Mainly the article criticized the critiques of General; some say Lieutenant Colonel, Custer.  The author described instances where there were inconsistencies with what the critiques said and what actually could have happened.  Some such instances were; not all the 7^th Calvary was wiped out on Last Stand Hill, Custer did not disobey orders and advance to quickly but was left alone by the other commanders who were behind schedule, Custer used proper military maneuvers when engaging the hostile Sioux Indians, and that Custer was left alone after commanders Reno and Benteen made early retreats from their positions. 

I began to notice a pattern.  None of the articles or descriptions I read could discuss the battle without covering some flaw or misconception about George A. Custer.  This was the real controversy.  I could not understand which was famous because of the other.  Is Custer a household name because of his terrible defeat at Little Bighorn or is the battle famous because of the controversy over how Custer handled this encounter. 

After realizing this I focused my research more toward Custer and the mystery surrounding him.  In the same article discussing the cover-up I learned, from the perspective of the author, Custer had an extremely successful career in the Civil war demonstrating well thought out attacks and mastery of tactic of surprise.  This author was obviously on the side of Custer.  Custer later was court marshaled for absence from command without leave and ordering the execution of deserters.  After regaining his command Custer was asked to give a speech in Washington.  Custer brought up topics like the great corruption in the west and how the government was not upholding treaties with the Indian tribes.  

Sources:

 PBS