Songbooks of the Early Nineteenth Century

Contents: About the Collection | Technical and Preservation | Metadata Citations | Rights

About the Collection

This collection contains scans of songbook covers from 1909-1927. They have been sourced from the personal collection of Josie Shephard (learn more in Creator and Support); the books were gathered over several years from various thrift stores and vintage markets and stores. This collection was designed to showcase popular song titles from the early 1900s. 

The songbooks featured on this site were physical copies of songs popular in the United States during their printing. Many songs contain themes of love, a familiar song topic; some in the collection focused on other topics, such as World War One and break-ups. Some of the collection’s songbooks are considered humorous due to their joking lyrics and unserious topics. Some of the songs in the collection come from stage shows that were popular at the time, while others come from radio and dance clubs.  Many of the songs fall into the primary genre of popular music while touching on other genres, such as Jazz and Ragtime. 

These books were designed to be purchased by consumers to be used and played at home. This collection does not showcase the songs themselves but is meant to display the artistic covers of the books. Songbooks from these years were often printed multiple times with different covers; this collection seeks to preserve one version of some of the covers. This collection also aims to provide information about popular composers, lyricists, and publishers of these songbooks and enter their names into the public record.  

This project was created in the fall of 2024 for Z652: Digital Libraries with Instructor Jon Walsh and Associate Instructor Gyuri Kang. 

Technical and Preservation

The songbooks featured in this collection are all single-image scans in JPG format (noted as JPEG). Scans of the books were done at a high resolution to show more details in the images. The materials scanned are in delicate condition due to their age and wear. Some books feature various-sized tears, folds, and breaks in their covers. Scans of the materials were done with the delicacy of the materials in mind, and light exposure was kept to a minimum to keep the colors of the covers intact for as long as possible. I hope that the digital versions of these materials will allow for their use long after the physical material has deteriorated to the point of no use.

Metadata Citations

The metadata fields for this collection are listed below with their respective controlled vocabularies; browseable fields have been linked. For more information about the metadata, please see the Metadata Application Profile.

• Format: IANA Media Types
• Title
• Publisher: Library of Congress Name Authority File
• Lyricist: Library of Congress Name Authority File
• Composer: Library of Congress Name Authority File
• Genre: Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms
• Date: W3C Date and Time Formats
• Subject: Library of Congress Subject Heading
• Rights: U.S Copyright Office
• Type: DCMI Type Vocabulary

Rights

All the songbooks used in this collection are in the Public Domain, as they were all copyrighted before 1929. The statement of rights has been provided by Rights Statements. I understand these images are for use; if questions arise, please email jshephar@iu.edu.