Sheet Music Collection

The Sheet Music Collection, an outgrowth of the Harris Collection, contains approximately 500,000 pieces of sheet music, largely American imprint vocal music dating from the late 18th century to the present day; the bulk of the titles date between 1800 and 1950.

Owing to its size, the Collection is divided into a number of sections. The largest is the section of vocal music, some 150,000 pieces, with an additional 35,000 pieces representing songs from the musical theatre, films, radio, and television shows. Afro-Americana accounts for perhaps 10,000 titles, of which perhaps 2,500 (mainly from the 19th century) are fully cataloged. There are another 2,000 pieces of cataloged music relating to World Wars I and II, and perhaps 1,500 cataloged musical settings of American poetry; there are another 1,500 uncataloged pieces belonging to these categories. Sheet music from the Confederacy is keyed to the citations in the Crandall bibliography; pre-1800 music is keyed to Sonneck-Upton, and music from 1801-1825 is filed by Wolfe number. Approximately one-third of the titles cited by Wolfe are in the Collection. There are also smaller (less than 2,500 pieces each) sections of: color lithographs; works by Boston lithographers; Endicott lithographs; Union imprint Civil War music; Latin American music; Yiddish-American music; Harrigan and Hart music; silent film music; dance folios; theatre music (non-vocal); music dealers' stamps; Canadian music.

Note: Only approximately 5,000 titles have Josiah records. These include Afro-Americana, music relating to World Wars I and II, and musical settings of American poetry.

Format(s): Sheet Music
Library: John Hay

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Access to the collection:

Online Catalog (BruKnow):
Records for most or all of this collection are not available on BruKnow

Other Online Access:
Exhibit: Dreams of the Past: 19th Century Color Lithographic Sheet Music Covers
Exhibit: Yiddish Sheet Music
Digital Collection: American Memory at the Library of Congress: Afro-American Sheet Music
Collection Web Site: Sheet Music Collection

Related Collections:
Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays Collection