Research Guides: HIST 712: US Civil War Era Research (Spring 2025): Songs & Music

Using Indexes & Monographs

If you are looking for examples of historic music of a specific style or genre, a good place to start is Secondary Sources that may list specific songs, artists, or sheet music of interest.

To find these in the Main Catalog and in Worldcat, conduct a subject search for (music AND songs) AND indexes then add an additional keyword for genre or topic. LIMIT to books and ebooks.

You can also limit to a specific century. Example:

(music OR songs) AND indexes AND 19th
Works in the results include
Song finder : a title index to 32,000 popular songs in collections, 1854-1992

Similarly, a search in worldcat for (music OR songs) AND indexes and "Civil war" brings up:

Confederate sheet music
Music for the nation American sheet music, 1820-1885
Secessia's song books : the history of Confederate songsters

General works and monographs can also be found using Music and Songs as subjects. This works may also point you to primary source texts.

Example: (Music OR songs) AND "United States" AND "19th century"
Includes lists of songs and musical scores from the 19th century

The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Music by Jim Samson (Editor)
Call Number: Online

ISBN: 0521590175

Publication Date: 2001-12-03

This comprehensive overview of music in the nineteenth century draws on the most recent scholarship in the field. It avoids mere repertory surveys, focusing instead on issues which illuminate the subject in novel and interesting ways. The book is divided into two parts (1800-1850 and 1850-1900), each of which approaches the major repertory of the period by way of essays investigating the intellectual and socio-political history of the time. The music itself is discussed in five central chapters within each part, amplified by essays on topics such as popular culture, nationalism, genius, and the emergent concept of an avant-garde. The book concludes with an examination of musical styles and languages around the turn of the century. The addition of a detailed chronology and extensive glossaries makes this the most informed reference book on nineteenth-century music currently available.
Music in the Nineteenth Century by Richard Taruskin
Call Number: Online

ISBN: 0195384830

Publication Date: 2009-07-27

The universally acclaimed and award-winning Oxford History of Western Music is the eminent musicologist Richard Taruskin's provocative, erudite telling of the story of Western music from its earliest days to the present. Each book in this superlative five-volume set illuminates-through a representative sampling of masterworks-the themes, styles, and currents that give shape and direction to a significant period in the history of Western music. In Music in the Nineteenth Century , Richard Taruskin offers a panoramic tour of this magnificent century in the history music. Major themes addressed in this book include the romantic transformation of opera, Franz Schubert and the German lied, the rise of virtuosos such as Paganini and Liszt, the twin giants of nineteenth-century opera, Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi, the lyric dramas of Bizet and Puccini, and the revival of the symphony by Brahms. Laced with brilliant observations, memorable musical analysis, and a panoramic sense of the interactions between history, culture, politics, art, literature, religion, and music, this book will be essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand this rich and diverse period.

African American Music Reference
Music Online: African American Music Reference includes full text from major reference works; personal narratives from oral histories and interviews; manuscripts, song sheets, lyrics, discography data, and other text sources. The largest online collection of musical scores and reference works available anywhere.
Oxford Music Online (includes Grove Music Online)
All aspects of music. Grove Music Online and full text of several reference sources. Coverage: Current. Concurrent users: 5

Using the Catalog and WorldCat

Search song* OR music in the main catalog as a subject, and keywords to narrow the search further. You may narrow the publication date, but don't do this unless there are too many results; you will accidentally exclude republished collections of songs, music, and scores. You might want to limit the "material type" to scores.

Example: (song* OR music) AND "Civil war"
Results include songbooks, sheet music, scores, and recordings.
Example: song* OR music limited to 1865-1885
Results include almost 200 song books, scores, collections of music, etc.

WorldCat
Materials held by thousands of libraries in the US and abroad. Books, websites, computer programs, films, slides, journals, magazines, papers, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, newspapers, sound recordings, videotapes, etc. Coverage: Before 1000BC-present.

This approach works in Worldcat too. Go to the advanced search tab and select "musical scores" and "sound recordings."

A subject search for (song* AND music) AND "civil war" limited to scores brings up over 5,000 results and 1250 recordings.

You can also limit to publication date to narrow the focus, but you will accidentally excuse republished or compiled works published later.

Databases

See our full list of Music Databases
Includes recordings and indexes. Music Online, for example, has over 7 million records.
See full list of Streaming Audio Databases
The American Music database in particular includes: songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests and more.

19th Century Collections Online
Politics, society, literature, diplomacy, theater, music, high & popular culture, etc. Books, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, and statistics. Coverage: 1800-1899.
American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series I
Fully searchable facsimile images that capture daily life in America. Wide variety of items, including clipper ship sailing cards, early trade cards, theater and music programs, stock certificates, advertisements, menus, and social invitations. Coverage: 1760-1900.
American Music (includes African American Music content)
A history database through music; formerly American Song. Streaming audio with songs by and about all Americans (immigrants, children, enslaved persons, etc.), and about all aspects of the American experience (civil rights, political campaigns, the Revolutionary War, etc.). Coverage: Precolonial period-present.
Music Online
This is a cross searchable database that links access to the following music streaming databases: American Music, Classical Music Library, Contemporary World Music, Jazz Music Library, Listening, Music and Dance Online, Music Periodicals of the 19th Century, Popular Music Library, Reference, and Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries. This database provides unlimited simultaneous access to over 7,000,000 tracks of music.

Online Collections (Examples)

Library of Congress Audio Recordings
Library of Congress Music Division
Scores, recording, sheet music, Covers a wide range of periods and materials
Library of Congress, sheet music 1820-1860
Consists of over 15,000 pieces of sheet music registered for copyright during the years 1820 to 1860. This collection complements an earlier American Memory project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 as well as the Band Music from the Civil War Era and Sheet Music from the Civil War Era. Included are popular songs, operatic arias, piano music, sacred and secular vocal music, solo instrumental music, method books and instructional materials, and some music for band and orchestra. This collection of American and European composers provides an interesting chronicle of the developments in the music publishing business in the nineteenth-century United States. Other notable elements include the burgeoning popularity of the polka, as well as the songs of Stephen Collins Foster (1826-64), who composed such as favorites as Susanna, The Old Folks at Home, and Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair. Songs in this collection also reflect the growing fame of performers such as the singing Hutchinson family and the first American tour (arranged by P. T. Barnum) of soprano Jenny Lind, the Swedish nightingale. This collection reflects the development of popular song in America.
Sibley Music Library at the Eastman School of Music
Scores and books from Eastman’s collection
The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music (JHU)
This music was generously donated to The Johns Hopkins University by Lester S. Levy over a period of years starting in 1976 and is now housed in the Special Collections Division of the Milton S. Eisenhower Library. The collection spans the years 1780 to 1980, but its strength is its thorough documentation of nineteenth-century America through popular music.