1962, Dan Emmett

 

 

Nathan, Hans. Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962.

_____. Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy. Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1977.

Nathan's study of a representative figure in early American minstrelsy was distinguished by a rare level of scholarship that relied heavily on primary documents - the programs, sheet music, songsters, etc. To see these materials meant that he spent a great deal of time sorting through Harvard's Theatre Collection. His sense of responsibility to the primary materials is palpable throughout his academic career. A second edition of the book (with a new preface) was pubished in 1977. Nathan wrote a brief letter to the editor of Notes, the in-house publication for the Music Library Association, stating that he would personally mail an errata sheet to anyone who contacted him. If it were not convenient to enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope, he would pay the cost. (Nathan, "Errata Sheet for Dan Emmett," Notes, 34.3, (1978): 759.)   

 

Critical Reception:

Hitchcock, J. Wiley. “Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Minstrelsy (Book Review)” The Musical Quarterly, 49.3 (1963): 391-393.

Epstein, Dena J. “Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Minstrelsy (Book Review)” Notes, 20.1 (1963): 53-54. 

Cutts, John P. “Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Minstrelsy (Book Review)” Books Abroad, 37.41 (1963):457-458

Bluestein, Gene. “Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Minstrelsy (Book Review)” Ethnomusicology, 9.1 (1965): 69-70. 

Harwell, Richard. “Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Minstrelsy (Book Review)”The Journal of Southern History, 29:3 (1964?):392.

Niblock, James. “Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Minstrelsy (Book Review)” American Music Teacher, (1964): 20-21.

Hine, Robert V. “Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Minstrelsy (Book Review)”Educational Theatre Journal, 15.4 (1963):376-376.

 

Context:

Hans Nathan's book about Dan Emmett had been a long time in the making.  Elements of his study were appearing in journals of musicology for 15 years between 1949 and 1963. These articles did not rely upon earlier research in minstrelsy; there wasn't much to survey.  After Edward LeRoy Rice published his encyclopedic Monarchs of Minstrelsy (1911) there had been only two subsequent studies in minstrelsy studies: Rourke's Troupers of the Gold Coast (1928) and  Wittke's Tambo and Bones (1930).

Nathan, Hans. "Emmett's Walk-Arounds: Popular Theater in New York." Civil War History 4.3 (1958): 213-24. 

_____. "Early Banjo Tunes and American Syncopation." Musical Quarterly 42.4 (1956): 455-72.

_____. ”The First Negro Minstrel Band and Its Origin.” Southern Folklore Quarterly 16 (1952): ?

Nathan, Hans, & Daniel Decatur Emmett. "Dixie." The Musical Quarterly 35.1 (1949): 60-84.

Nathan, Hans, & Frances Fink. "Autograph Letters of Musicians at Harvard." Notes 5.4 (1948): 461-87.

Nathan, Hans. "Charles Mathews, Comedian, and the American Negro." Southern Folklore Quarterly 10 (1946): 191-197.

_____. "The Tyrolese Family Rainer, and the Vogue of Singing Mountain-Troupes in Europe and America." Musical Quarterly 32.1 (1946): 63-79.

_____. "Negro Impersonation in Eighteenth Century England." Notes 2.4 (1945): 245-54.

_____. "Two Inflation Songs of the Civil War." Musical Quarterly 29.2 (1943): 242-53.