Chapter 3: American Popular Music in the Nineteenth Century Pt.2
In the 19th century, sheet music served as the primary way Americans experienced and engaged with popular music. Affordable to produce and widely available, sheet music enabled families to bring music into their homes, especially as pianos became common household instruments. Making music at home, particularly in the parlor, became a defining feature of middle-class life and a popular form of entertainment, especially for women, who were encouraged to participate in music as a socially accepted form of leisure and personal expression.
Parlor songs addressed a wide range of themes:
Courtship and emotional longing
Separation and loss
Patriotism and national pride
Social reform causes, such as temperance and abolition
These songs not only entertained, but also helped individuals process personal and political experiences within a rapidly changing society.
Throughout the 19th century, American popular music began grappling with many of the same issues that would continue to shape its evolution well into the 20th and 21st centuries. These included questions of authorship, representation, gender roles, and the increasing commercialization of music. By the end of the century, major technological innovations were beginning to revolutionize how music was created, shared, and experienced. These technologies signaled the beginning of a cultural shift from participatory music-making to the consumption of prerecorded and mechanically reproduced music, a development that would profoundly shape American musical culture in the decades to come.