Broadway: The American Musical

Harrigan and Hart in the 1870s and 1880s

Beginning in the 1870s, Ned Harrigan and Tony Hart presented a wildly popular series of musical plays dealing in comic fashion with the lives of New York's ethnic groups. The Irish, the Germans, and the African-Americans each had their own chowder-and-marching societies (the "Guards"), and the humor of the plays came in setting these groups and individuals in comic opposition.

The Regular Army O!
Music adapted & arranged by David Braham; words by Edward Harrigan.
New York: William A. Pond & Co., 1874.
Cover illustration from a cast photograph.
Sheet Music Collection

The Skidmore Guard.
Music arranged by David Braham; words by Edward Harrigan
New York: William A. Pond & Co., 1875.
Unusual, non-caricatured depiction of African-American group.
Sheet Music Collection

The Mulligan Guard.
Music arranged by David Braham.
New York: William A. Pond, 1873.
Sheet Music Collection

The New Mulligan Guard Ball Songster
New York : New York Popular Pub. Co., [1883?].
Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays

Squatter Sovereignty. Program
[Buffalo, N.Y. : Courier Lith. Co., c1882]
Something is always falling through the roof
in a Harrigan and Hart play.
The Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays

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