Re: more civil war harmonicas

[fjm <2738540@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

This post is somewhat stale but I'm stubbornly posting it anyhow. 
Imagine it back about 5 posts in the thread and arriving earlier this
morning.  I had misconfigured my address and was unable to post to the
list.

I hesitated before posting this to the list.  This is an area of great
interest to me but I'm not particularly interested in contesting any of
this.  What follows is a brief synopsis of my current understanding
regarding the harmonica and it's role in music during the Civil War. 
I't s hardly authoritative and it's certainly conjecture and as such not
at all supportable.  Normally I wouldn't  venture forth in a public with
ideas that are so nascent in their developement.  In the interest of
further discussion and the hope of ferreting out resources.  There is at
least one person on this list that knows a bunch more about this stuff
than I do.  Here's hoping I haven't offended him too much with what
follows.

You're on to something here.  The myth of the harmonica playing Civil
War soldier.  I have a recording of Joe Filisko giving a talk at the
opening of the Alan Bates harmonica exhibition and collection in
Vermillion South Dakota.  He cites harmonica production numbers which
are low pre Civil War.  The invention of a machine to punch out reed
plates lead to an immediate rise in production numbers. (post war) 
Handmade harmonicas existed but not in quanitity.  They were also
expensive.  Couple that with the thought that they were most likely
Aeolians not harmonicas and the high lonesome sound of the harmonica
around a campfire looks likely to be an invention of Hollywood.  The
definitive book on this is written by Martin Haffner.  I can't recall
the title at the moment.  Difficult to read because it's translated from
German but definitely a resource.  I'll try and give Joe's lecture a
listen and take some notes while I'm at it.  Astonishingly very little
scholarship on this fascinating subject area.  What is clear is that the
vast majority of Civil War harmonica artifacts are in fact post war.  It
makes you wonder about all of it.  fjm