Re: Fwd: more on civil war harps

[Pat Missin <pat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Winslow wrote:
>
>--- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, rainbowjimmy@xxxx wrote:
>
>>So chances are, there weren't a lot of Civil War harmonicas, they
>>were mostly played by German immigrants, and they were most likely
>>Hohner harmonicas.
>
>Again, Hohner propoganda. We don't know the extent to which either
>domestic or foreign manufacturers were actively makreting product in
>the U.S. at the time .That includes Hohner, for whom the only
>evidence is their unsupported claims.
>
>It may be true, but we can't accept that it is just because they have
>said so for nearly 100 years and others have uncritically repeated
>their claims.

Sadly, considering that the harmonica is often touted as the biggest
selling commercially-produced musical instrument of all time, there
has been a disgraceful lack of serious historical research on it. As
Winslow implies, most "histories" of the harmonica are simply parroted
versions of earlier writings (mostly the rather biased material issued
by the Hohner company), with very little attempt at verifying any of
the alleged facts. 

There are currently some people busying themselves with studies of
period documents in order to sort out some of the fact from the
fiction. However progress is rather slow, as the trail has been
allowed to grow very cold indeed. 

 -- Pat.