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



I nominate Winslow.

David

On Feb 25, 2007, at 5:31 PM, Rick Dempster wrote:

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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