Re: Re: [Harp-L] Theory, etc. - history of positions

["Rick Dempster" <rick.dempster@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Surely there is some archeological authority (Smithsonian?) that has
excavated civil war battlefields. I wouldn't be at all surprised if
there were online inventories of such collections. If the harmonica was
popular with civil war soldiers, some battered remains would surely turn
up here. Also, archives of mail-order places like Sears-Roebuck would
surely have records of how many of these things were sold and when. All
it needs is for someone to put in the work....
RD

>>> David Coulson <ndavid.coulson@xxxxxxxxxxx> 24/02/2007 1:52:25 >>>
In Winslow's  response to Iceman's posting he states that the popular 

image of harmonica playing in the Civil War was the creation of  
Hollywood screen writers, and that harmonica production was too low  
until the 1870s or 1880s for the instrument to have been widespread.  
However, in the Alan Bates collection site he links to in the same  
response, it says this: "First imported in quantity in the early  
1860s, they (harmonicas) became popular with soldiers from both north 

and south.  Many harmonica remains have been found around Civil War  
camp sites."
So which is correct?

David

On Feb 23, 2007, at 8:00 AM, winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Harmonica production was too low in the 1860s for harmonicas to have
> been very widespread in the US during slavery times. Production
wasn't
> really large enough until about the 1870s or '80s, which was in fact
a
> time of great hope for black folks, with African Americans actually
> getting elected to State office, until white racists figured out
ways
> to shut them out of the entire democratic process for the better
part
> of a century.
>
> The popular image of the harmonica being played by Civil War
soldiers
> was created by Hollywood screenwriters. They remembered the very
real
> phenomenon of the harmonica being very widespread during the first
> world war of 1914-1918, when annual harmonica production (and
> exportation) was well into the multiple millions, and projected that
> back to the Civil war scenes they were writing (soldiers gone off to
> war, a past era, harmonica). Some folks I know will disagree, but
I'm
> pretty certain this is a false image. The production and
distribution
> just weren't there.

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