Slave Songs of the United States was a collection of
African American music consisting of 136 songs. Published in 1867, it was the first, and most influential,[1][2] collection of
spirituals to be published. The collectors of the songs were Northern
abolitionistsWilliam Francis Allen,
Lucy McKim Garrison, and
Charles Pickard Ware.[3] The group transcribed songs sung by the Gullah Geechee people of Saint Helena Island, South Carolina.[4] These people were newly freed slaves who were living in a refugee camp when these songs were collected.[5] It is a "milestone not just in African American music but in modern folk history".[6][7][8][9] It is also the first published collection of African-American music of any kind.[10]
The making of the book is described by Samuel Charters, with an emphasis on the role of Lucy McKim Garrison.[11] A segment of History Detectives explored the book's history and significance.[12]
Notable Songs
Several notable and popular songs in the book include:
The book provides instructions for singing, which is accompanied by a discussion of the history of each song, with potential variations, interpretations of key references, and other related details. In the Dover edition, Harold Courlander contributes a new preface that evaluates the book's significance in both American musical and cultural history.
Black, Robert (1968). "Reviewed Work: Slave Songs of the United States by Irving Schlein". Journal of the International Folk Music Council. 20: 82–83 – via JSTOR.
Koskoff, Ellen, ed. (2000). Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume 3: The United States and Canada. Garland Publishing.
ISBN0-8240-4944-6.
National Conference on Music of the Civil War Era (2004). Mark A. Snell; Bruce C. Kelley (eds.). Bugle Resounding: Music and Musicians of the Civil War Era. University of Missouri Press.
ISBN0-8262-1538-6.
Southern, Eileen (1997). Music of Black Americans. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
ISBN0-393-03843-2.
^Maultsby, Portia K.; Mellonee V. Burnin; Susan Oehler. "Overview". The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. pp. 572–591.
^Ramsey, Jr., Guthrie P. (Spring 1996). "Cosmopolitan or Provincial?: Ideology in Early Black Music Historiography, 1867-1940". Black Music Research Journal. 16 (1). Black Music Research Journal, Vol. 16, No. 1: 11–42.
doi:
10.2307/779375.
JSTOR779375.
^Charters, Samuel. 2015. Songs of Sorrow: Lucy McKim Garrison and "Slave Songs of the United States". Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
ISBN978-1-62846-206-7