Dominic Vautier 1/7/2011
My gal is a highborn lady, She’s black but none too shady[1]
Victorian
men had an interesting view of women. They believed, or were somehow led
to believe that women were morally superior and therefore women
had an obligation to act as a spiritually elevating influence. By a
similar logic, men also had too much respect for the “fair” sex to
allow them to get involved in the vulgar details of everyday life,
things like finance, business or politics. [2]
In short:
Beautiful
dreamer, wake unto me.
Starlight and dew drops are waiting for thee
[3]
However, as the 20th century approached, popular music started singing a different tune. It began to move contrary to everyday thinking and considered women from a more refreshing perspective. The Victorian beliefs combined with a European worldview consisted of three k’s, Kuche, Kirche, und Kinder.[4] This idea was being slowly and relentlessly replaced in America by a different perception of females in society.
The music of the day reflected that perception, and in some cases, only music addressed the issues that society at large continued to ignore. In material that began to appear after 1892, women started to do outrageous things, they flirted on streetcars, they rode bikes, they flew in airplanes, they danced all night, they gallivanted around in automobiles, and worst of all, they were observed smoking in public. Popular music of this era reflected these idea that women and men were equally able to have wild and reckless adventures.
Come
Josephine, in my flying machine
Going up, she goes! Up she goes!
Balance yourself like a bird on a beam,
In the air she goes, there she goes[5]
This paints a different picture than the standard music before 1892, which portrayed women as objects of either worship or scorn, or more likely they were just ignored. Women had been represented either as the misbehaving female who wandered from the path of moral correctness and consequently incurred the punishment of a stern and unyielding social order, or in the role of the stereotype, as the virtuous heroine who followed the prescripts of society and reaped an appropriate reward.
We find that the songs of the1870’s and 1880’s were quite conservative in their attitude toward women. In this earlier time the tendency was to avoid emerging issues facing a society in silent yet deep underground turmoil. Large numbers of immigrants were being added to the country, social standards were being recast, and the frontier was creating an equality. Women, either by choice or by need, were entering the work force for the first time. So songs of the 1890’s and 1900’s celebrated figures who were able to step out of their standard stereotype. The songs told of outgoing and adventuresome women who were not afraid to make their own way and take advantage of all the exciting opportunities that were becoming available.
Throughout
history women traditionally have had fewer rights than men, but since America
started out as a frontier country the social order was upset. In
Some
claimed that the whole experiment in woman’s suffrage would end in
ruination, Naïve and uneducated women would vote for charlatans,
carpetbaggers, and unscrupulous tricksters; that women did not have the
intellectual capacity, emotional stability, or even the desire to
understand and appreciate the workings of government; and that the whole
electoral process would be undermined by such gross foolishness. Of
course, none of this happened. Contrary to what the some predicted,
there was no great earth-shattering revolution in
The
panic on 1893 resulted in loss of jobs, homes and savings for many
families. It also drove large numbers of women into the workforce for
the first time. One result of all this was that women had disposable
income, income that they were more or less free to spend as they
pleased. This heralded a different kind of consumerism. A whole spectrum
of new products became available, and at the heart of this market was
the woman shopper. Apparel, kitchen appliances, washing machines,
improved sewing machines, canning equipment, player pianos, facial cream
and cosmetics, beauty aids, garter belts, silk stockings, and of gadgets
were appearing in dry good stores and catalogs. These items were
expressly targeted for emerging woman
consumer. They promised her more free time, relaxation, reading, and
recreation, and I may add, the enjoyment of music. Advertisements began to cater to
this consumer segment. The marketing giants of J.C. Penney, F. W.
Woolworth’s and most of all, Sears & Roebuck with their catalogue,
played heavily into this theme--the woman consumer.
As could only be expected, the songwriters of Tin Pan Alley picked up on this movement. Songs such as That’s Where My Money Goes, Wait Till the Sun Shines Nellie, Where Did You Get That Hat, The Bird on Nellie’s Hat, Come Take a Trip in My Airship, Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bow-Wow, My Money Never Gives Out, Get Your Money’s Worth, In My Merry Oldsmobile refer directly to the emerging woman consumer.
The idea of a “liberated" woman is nothing new. This was introduced in several songs as early as 1896. None states it better than That Up-to-date Girl of Mine, a song that gained some popularity in Vaudeville but naturally never left Vaudeville.
You
talk about your maidens with hearts of gold,
Your bleached blondes and dashing brunettes:
But I’ve got a sweetheart that knocks ‘em all cold,
An up-to-date girl you may bet.
She wears flashy bloomers and carries a cane,
She’s a girl you don’t meet every day.
She has plenty of dough and wherever we go,
She will say, “now dear boy let me pay.”
Chorus:
She bets on the horses At all the race courses, Her equal you never could find.
This song remained around for some time. It could almost be labeled prophetic, considering what was to happen over the next 10 years.
Consider the story of Louis and “Flossie.” Louis’ wife was one of the 1880 baby boomers, apparently mature, self-confident, and fun-loving much in the Gibson Girl spirit. [7] “Flossie” had her heart set on a trip to St. Louis to see the world fair but Louis was opposed to the idea probably because they didn’t have the money or something. So “Flossie” took off on her own and went to St. Louis. An the song Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis told it all
Now
Louis came home to the flat,
He hung up his coat and his hat,
He looked all around but no wifey he found,
So he said where can “flossie” be at.
A note on the table he spied.
He read it just once then he cried.
It said “Louis dear it’s too slow for me here,
So I think I will go for a ride.”
chorus:
Meet me in st. Louis, Louis,
Meet me at the fair.
Don’t tell me the lights are shining
Anywhere but there.
We will dance the “Hootchy-kootchy”
I will be your tootsie wootsie,
If you meet me at St. Louis Louis,
Meet me at the fair. [8]
Popular music may have influenced clothing styles. Women consider clothing an expression of themselves, and this is seen in their recreational habits. Music and dance started to become an integral part of that expression, especially in those two key decades surrounding the turn of the last century, a time which experienced a dramatic increase in both dancing and singing and where clothing style experimentation was moving at a high pace. It is hard to separate the clothes women wore from the music they sang and the dances they enjoyed, for dancing had, by 1905, become part and parcel of American life.
The period from 1860 to 1910 witnesses a surprising evolution in women’s clothing. We can identify at least four different clothing style changes that occurred just before and leading up to 1910.
The
crinoline period (1850-1870), was marked by the bell-shaped hoop skirt,
which made a woman’s torso appear as if it were emerging from a
flower. This imparted to the wearer a feeling of growth, maturity,
becoming, or emerging. It also accentuated a woman’s lower body and
gave it more importance. The
more exaggerated the dress blossom, the more important she felt. It was
a symbol of her reproductive capabilities.
At first the dress was made to blossom by using many layers of petticoats. A woman sometimes had to ware as many as 12 petticoats to achieve an appropriate flowering effect. [9]
Crinoline dresses were just plain dangerous. Beyond the fact that a slipping petticoat could cause injury from a fall, many women died or were seriously burned when they got too close to hearths and open fireplaces common in homes then. When dresses caught fire there was no easy or immediately available way to extricate a helpless victim from her many layers of burning petticoats. So she died.
Later in the period, stiff hoops were used to accomplish the same blossom effect, and these were much lighter and less restrictive. Some said that the hoop skirt was useful during Civil War times because women could smuggle ammunition and contraband across the border with impunity. No decent man would dare search under a woman’s skirt.
The
crinoline period soon went out of fashion and was replaced by the
bustle (1870-1889). Bustles looked ungainly and awkward, and actually
just ugly, but served a vital purpose, functioning as a necessary
transitional device between the more ostentatious crinoline dress and
the less extravagant wasp-waist style that was to soon follow. 
The
bustle was scandalous as well as revolutionary. It forced a woman’s
dress to the rear to pretentiously reveal the outline of her waist,
stomach, hips, . and thighs. It also accentuated her rear end and gave a
streamlined and flowing look to her appearance.
Originally the bustle consisted of horse hair and then later of softer goose down. It actually was quite comfortable to sit on, although a lady would usually lift her bustle when she sat down or only sit on the edge of a chair.
The bustle was a curious style, and I can see why it didn’t last very long. Style changes in those times could be expected to last much longer, maybe 40 years, but not the bustle. It lasted less than 20 years, and it was completely out of style by 1892. There were still some bustles advertised in catalogs as late as then, but they were no longer being sold in stores.
Although we consider the bustle funny-looking and awkward in today’s world of toothpick figures and long lanky legs, where the emphasis is more on the upper part of a woman’s figure and the hips, nevertheless, this fashion was quite appealing to men and considered quite sexy as well.
The crinoline dress had provided women with a radius of protection, as it were, an imaginary line of defense beyond which a man could not venture without violating the accepted norms of decency. Bustles, on the other hand, removed that barrier, giving men closer access to a woman’s face, hands, and torso. Not only did it remove this imaginary defense line, it prepared society for better things, such as close dances and more physical interactions that would arrive by the end of the century.
By 1892 there was an altogether different look, the hourglass or wasp waist. It was quite different in a number of ways. Bodice sleeves became fuller and puffier, and the dress hemline came up a few inches. The intent however, was still the same--to emphasize a woman’s sexy shape.
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for women’s clothing,
a serious
depression following the panic of 1893, interrupted normal clothing
evolution. Hard times drove many women into the work force for the first
time. But entry of women into the workplace created another situation:
a
demand for more practical clothing.[10]
This may be the reason
why hemlines came up and why working women stopped wearing tight-fitting
corsets. Instead they started wearing a new and quite useful device,
imported from
Corsets of the day encased a woman from armpit to thigh in tight-fitting fabric reinforced with ribs made of steel or whale bone. This device forced a woman’s torso into as much of an hour-glass shape as human flesh could tolerate, and at the same time proceeded to rearrange and compress her internal organs. An inability to breathe normally was a common consequence of this fashionable shape, and frequent fainting was simply dismissed as the “curse of the corset”. Women who worked all day in fabric shops, at switchboards, in music departments, and at dry goods’ counters could not be allowed the luxury of fainting every once in awhile. We often hear stories of women swooning upon the least provocation. This may have had more to do with the breathing restrictions imposed by a corset than with the tender sensibilities of affected females.
Evolving recreational habits for women also dictated clothing changes. Well-to-do ladies were able to avail themselves of tennis and croquet, and there was suitable attire for just such occasions. However for the vast majority of women, recreation was more restricted. There was, of course, abundant recreation offered by the amusement parks, nickelodeons, dance halls, and riverboats, plus strolling, canoeing, and touring. But dancing became a primary source of recreation, and the more demanding dance steps consequently required a more agile dancer and therefore a more relaxed kind of clothing.
The 1890’s saw the beginning of other substantial changes in women’s clothing. Before the turn of the next century, fashionable women wore their hemlines down to their shoes. By 1908 hemlines had came up to just above the ankle. This may not seem like a big deal, but breaking the ankle barrier was much more important than it might seem, for not too longer after this hemlines went all the way up to just below the knee and then even above the knee.
For
many years higher hemlines had represented the lower end of the social
spectrum. In
The new century saw another shift in clothing style called the Gibson Girl look, which became quite the American and European fashion. By 1899 the country was out of depression and abundant employment could be had. Anyone willing to work got a job. Good times were here once again. Money was available and it was freely spent.
That’s
where my money goes, to dress my baby,
I buy her everything to keep her in style.
She’s worth her weight in gold, my lovely lady.
Say boys, that’s where my money goes.[11]
This
new look, also called the “s-curve” or the “Gibson bend,”
started with the bodice being pouched forward, the so-called
“pigeon-breast” or “kangaroo pouch.” The bosomy effect was
combined with a tight waistline that forced the hips slightly back,
highlighting the rear end. This combination created the Gibson
“s-curve.” No statistics are available on increases in back trouble
among women during this period, but the exaggerated s- curve had to
cause back problems. But then this was not the
first time in history that human comfort and spinal health were
sacrificed on the altar of fashion.
Men’s styles were less susceptible to change, and about the only things were the introduction of boat hats, derbies, and slightly different collar styles. Beards were gone by 1890, mainly through the highly circulated and influential cartoon work of Charles Dana Gibson and others who portrayed ideal men as either clean-shaven or sporting a clean mustache.
Newly urbanized young people forced these rapid style changes, partially because young people entering this environment brought their own ideas of dress and behavior, and also, perhaps, because these people did not feel they were obliged to blindly follow the prescriptions of their elders.
I think this all suggests that major cultural patterns can often be best traced and studied by women’s clothing styles. Fashion is after all, the closest thing to the people of any period, and the ways of social change are supported by these clothing styles. By a similar argument, popular music closely reflected clothing changes. Take the huge hats then in use by women, The Bird on Nellie’s Hat, Tip Your Hat to Nellie, and Where did You get That Hat are a few examples.
With the four major style changes occurring from 1860 to 1900, women had successfully moved away from a dress style that absolutely prevented fast or close dancing, as well as intimate social interaction such as kissing and petting. The clothing styles they preferred were well adapted to new trends. Women had been able to emerge from a restrictive Victorian framework and devise clothing suitable for recreational and social activities that itself became in fashion at the turn of that century. But of all these changes, none was more profound and far-reaching than the re-introduction of bloomers.
Early in 1851 Elizabeth Smith Miller came to visit her cousin Elizabeth Stanton in Seneca Falls, a small town just south of Syracuse, New York. She brought along an unusual costume that she had seen during her travels in Switzerland. It consisted of a skirt that came down only to the knees, but under the skirt was a pair of long ballooning pantaloons that gathered tightly at the ankles. The outfit was immensely practical, and Elizabeth Stanton immediately made one for herself.
These two ladies frequently took walks into town, and on one such occasion their peculiar dress style came to the attention of the local postmaster, Dexter Bloomer, and his lovely wife Amelia. Amelia, who was certainly no stranger to the difficulties of woman, was founder of a small newsletter called The Lily, which was intended to promote women’s rights. She had started the paper in 1849 in protest after the Tennessee Legislature ruled that women could not own property since they had no souls [12].
To obtain a greater appreciation of the situation, consider women’s clothing of the day. They wore a tremendous amount of clothes, which could explain why they were tired all the time. The typical outfit sometimes included a vast array of skirts and petticoats, and under all that, a final support petticoat stiffened with circles of straw, bamboo or steel hoops. There was also a pair of long drawers, edged with lace. And that was only below the waist.
Dresses did not come into use until after the turn of the century, so women wore a tight-fitting bodice above the waist, and under that came one or more embroidered camisoles. Yet underneath all this was the infamous corset, sometimes called the “iron lady,” “iron maiden,” or “straight jacket,” lined with steel or whalebone stays, guaranteed to squeeze all life and spontaneity out of the unfortunate wearer. Underwear was warn under the corset (a soft cotton garment resembling a slip), and finally came a pair of drawers. The weight of all the clothing had to be enormous, some say as much as 20 pounds [13]. . That’s close to the weight of today’s fully equipped military soldier in combat.
This
vast assortment of clothing was worn to church and social gatherings,
oftentimes on hot days, and it became the primary instrument of feminine
Victorian repression.
However, it wasn’t just the shoe-length dress or “street sweeper,” that wore a woman down. It was the garment itself which was guaranteed to pick up all sorts of material on the ground, like mud, dog dirt, and more often than not, excrement from larger animals, and which frequently had to be washed. Also whatever a woman was carrying, she had only one hand to do it with because the other hand was needed to successfully navigate the dress around obstacles. Other items needed to be carried such as purses, hand bags, parasols, babies, baby buggies, handkerchiefs, and baskets of dry goods and groceries as well. One of the most difficult things to do was to go up a flight of stairs at night. In order to see the steps a woman had to carry a candle or oil lamp with one hand and hold up her dress with the other, which doesn’t leave very many hands for things like babies, laundry, little toddlers, clothes, food, books, fresh linens, dry goods, etc. A woman was forced to drape her skirt over the arm carrying the candle, thus freeing her other arm for things she had to carry, an awkward and even dangerous situation at best. But the bloomer outfit made such activities easy. Not only that but the bloomer was practical, much lighter, easier to keep clean, and actually allowed a woman’s lower body to breath a bit.
Young and beautiful Amelia Bloomer was quick to see the value of
this garment, and within days had made one for herself. She then
tried to popularize the fashion through her newsletter, The Lily. But
people in her hometown of Seneca Falls, and elsewhere as well, did not at all share her enthusiasm. They
taunted her and threw rocks and eggs at her and her friends every time
they came into town. After all, it may be somewhat tolerable to wear such
atrocious and sinful clothing in the privacy of one’s own home, far away from the public eye, but never
outdoors, and
absolutely never in the presence of men. Men wore pants. Women did not.
God did not intend women to wear pants. This was
clearly stated in the bible.[14]
Amelia and her good friends Susan Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton very much wanted to continue wearing bloomers, but since it created such an uproar, they decided the suffrage issue was far more important. They really needed to focus on the one issue instead of being distracted by other less important ones. So these three women sadly and reluctantly hung up their bloomers and packed away their knee high skirts.[15] This was 1854 and it would take another 40 years before America was finally ready to allow women to wear something more practical. The movement for bloomers came back in the strangest of ways. It came by way of a popular song.
In 1892 Daisy Bell followed After the Ball, and both songs were huge successes.[16] After the Ball made some social commentary, Daisy Bell was much more effective because it was a song that actually did something for the individual woman. It generated a freedom of movement that she never had before.
Daisy Bell was about a bicycle built for two newlyweds, and the song remained immensely popular throughout the entire decade of the 90’s, selling several million copies, and lots and lots of bicycles along with them. The technology of bicycle design and manufacture had reached a point of successful marketability. Invention of balloon tires and chain action had generated a machine that was essentially the same as what we have today. The bicycle of the 1890’s was a vast improvement over former awkward and clumsy Three-wheelers and big-wheelers, and a far cry from the even more ridiculous wooden-wheeled straddlers of the 1850’s, which could hardly be classified as bicycles anyway.
Soon
after the time of Daisy Bell's publication, bicycle sales were going
nowhere but up. With the rubber balloon tire, and all the other
ingenious mechanical improvements, such as a smaller spindle size and a
better chain drive, the bike of the middle 1890’s was fit for anybody
to ride even the ladies. The “safety” or “wheel”, as it was
then called, was so popular in both
Outside the racetracks, bicycles seemed to spin everywhere, as the public went wild for the wheel. The number of Chicago cycling clubs, for instance, swelled from 50 in 1892 to 500 in 1895. By 1897 an estimated one in seven city residents owned a bike.[18] By 1899, an estimated ten million cyclists were on the road.[10] Squadrons of men and women used the wondrous machine. Bicycle paths were laid out all over Central Park. By 1900 America was firmly in the grip of this bicycle fad.
It also seems that bicycles were turning out to be a great sexual equalizer. Young women especially took to the new cycle for here was a rare chance to be equal to men - and then some. “The ladies have obtained complete mastery over the wheel,” observed the Country Club of Evanston’s 1895 yearbook, “and it is oftentimes a matter of grave doubt whether a lady or a gentleman will first reach the destination.” [20].
Bicycles
may certainly have played a roll in the cultural change that was
occurring over this same period, especially in the perception of a young
woman’s roll in society. Young ladies packed lunches, cast off their
petticoats (synonymous with bra-burning), donned the scandalous riding
bloomers, and went off for a “spin” in the country, unescorted no
less.[21] Sometimes, to the horror and astonishment of parents,
they would be gone all day. Preachers bellowed, and schoolmarms wailed
at the shame, scandal, and turpitude of this invention from the
devil’s very workshop. They claimed the contraption fostered an
out-and-out disregard for any standard of decency and was a clear
affront to the dignity of women. Politicians and churchmen alike used
the social uproar to handily condemn the outrageous conduct of these
obstreperous young “Jezebels.” But this time the young ladies would
not be stoned or egged or tomatoed into submission. They would not again
be forced from the streets in disgrace, or driven back into second-class
citizenship. After 40 years, their time had come. They would proudly
wear the riding bloomer as a true sign of their position in society.
The 1890s woman on a bike, Marks writes, decided “where she wishes to go and what she plans to do once she gets there regardless of a male companion or lack of one [No] other individual sport seemed to further a woman’s movement more radically.[22].
But
reactionary forces began to mobilize and tried to stem the tide. The
Philadelphia Taggerts Times thundered that cycling led young and
innocent girls to ruin and disgrace. [23]
Soon after this
proclamation, a Chicago schoolteacher was almost fired for wearing her
riding bloomers into the classroom. Many feared that biking would permit
too much independence, that it would make women hard and assertive, that
young women would no longer obey their parents or husbands, that they
could tire easily and not be able to do their expected chores, and that
exposure to direct sunlight would ruin their skin and sensitive
complexions. It was even asserted that the harsh wind would cause
permanent wrinkles or
destroy a woman’s hair, and more
seriously, that riding itself could injure her internal organs so she
would no longer be able to give birth, nurse babies, or fulfill other
marriage obligations. Finally, such independence was likely to lead to
sexual recklessness and depravity, smoking, drinking, fraternizing, and
other wickedness. They only could pity the foolish young women who cavorted around in
public on bicycles with equally foolish young men. God would certainly
punish the evil daughters of Eve who dared transgress moral standards
and customs that the forefathers had so wisely established years ago and
that had worked so well for all these many years.
Tin Pan Alley was not at all one to miss such a great opportunity, since fads had always been a good source of material. The bloomer girls were by no means exempt. Lew Dockstader composed a lyric to the melody of Just About to Fall describing the exploits of one such bloomer girl who got her bloomers stuck in the chain.
Did
you ever see a maiden when she’s riding on her wheel?
How she wears
her baggy bloomers that her limbs she may conceal?
As she rolls alonq the
hiqhway at a brisk and lively pace,
Suddenly a look of horror spreads
itself across her face.
Let us pause a minute, stranger — kindly look
the other way.
Sympathy give to that maiden, for I think I hear her say,
“My suspenders they have busted — If I only had a shawl—”
With
both hands she grabs her bloomers for
They’re just about to fall. [24]
But the forces of opposition were silenced by something much stronger--capitalism itself. Women cyclists began to be accepted and even admired. The quick turnaround in American attitudes was the result of an intensive effort on the part of the bicycle industry. Money was to be made on this biking phenomenon, so the bicycle industry, which had accumulated a huge war chest, was not about to sit by and let conservative elements of society destroy their burgeoning market. Bicycle companies banded together to wage an extensive marketing campaign to change public opinion. Advertisements abounded featuring happy, healthy, fair-skinned Gibson Girls astride one of their sponsors’ bicycles, often attired in the scandalous riding bloomers.
Sadly, however, the demise of the bicycle fad came all too soon thanks to Henry Ford’s Tin Lizzy. By 1905 bicycle production had suddenly dropped to 250,000, down from a high of one million per year in the previous decade and only a dozen or so bicycle companies were able to survive. [25] But the bicycle had served its purpose well. American women would never be the same again. They had tasted the fleshpots of Egypt. [26] Bicycles which had given freedom and mobility to them had merely been replaced by something bigger and better, the automobile.
The whole experience of working outside the home was a novelty. Young men and women were thrown together in a number of new ways. They mingled freely on streetcars, in shops, department stores, restaurants, parks, and factories, all without adult supervision. Young people often flirted, went oft together, made secret dates, and ate lunch together. On the shop floor, one manager observed, the young men would whoop, cat call, and make other ungentlemanly noises at their female coworkers. [27] Women exchanged advice with each other, offered hints to new employees, and in general learned quickly how to comport themselves in a workplace environment. Young women working in department stores learned how to dress to attract customers, became familiar with products, and in most cases worked harder than men to impress their bosses. One particular attraction for young women, and in fact a rather enviable position, was working in the music section of a department store. Almost every department store or dry goods store of any size had an area set aside for the sale of sheet music, and it was a big attraction for customers. A sheet music sales girl was expected to play piano well, demonstrate new and favorite songs, and be fairly knowledgeable about popular music. Girls who could play piano well were in high demand, and the pay was better. Sounds of piano music filling the store was a big attraction for customers as well.
And what’s more, when the day was over, lots of adventures were waiting for the working girl. Excitement was everywhere: dance halls, amusement parks, pleasure steamers, and nickel movie houses, all of which offered these young people some respite after a long day of tedious work at switchboards, sewing machines, and fabric looms. [28]
A social song is one that in my judgment makes a statement about social mores. Social songs were not very common before 1892. But along with the huge commercial market created during the early popular music era came a type of song that had not been there before--the social song.
Several things may have triggered the advent of social music. Just from an economic standpoint was, increased disposable income, especially among women, and this money had to be spent somewhere. A working class emerged that contained a higher percentage of women and tended to be more entertainment oriented. Female attendance at musical presentations had gone up. Vaudeville and Broadway both experienced a noticeable increase in female patrons, (accompanied of course by men).
If we were to compare two songs of relatively similar content and popularity, each published at different times before and after 1892, such as I’ll Take You Home Again, Cathleen (1876) and Bedelia (1903) we notice a striking difference in the rhythm, flavor and tone. The first is quietly reserved, in the Foster tradition, modest, unassuming, and passive. The newer song is passionate, sexy, linguistically unrestrained and very assertive. In the case of the songs Silver Threads Among the Gold (1873) and Put On Your Old Gray Bonnet (1909), both dealing with problems of aging, the difference is even more striking. One is solemn, celibate, stern, reserved, reverent, and religiously accepting impending death. The other is happy, upbeat, fun, relaxed, aggressive, and looking for great things in the future. These are only a few examples of the differences that existed in the music of these two periods.
It is difficult to quantify the impact of social music, and even more difficult to assign or even establish relationships to actual events. However it is possible to detect themes in the music that either reflected the realities that were emerging or attempted to encourage popular trends. We do know that Tin Pan Alley always managed to closely ride the waves of fashion and fad. Sometimes the music may have even introduced social trends.
Songwriters of the day were people supremely observant of the times, who eagerly wrote about emerging fads, trends, social patterns that they saw and heard, and actual events and situations that they felt consumers could understand and relate to: these were the writers of social songs.
I picked about 80 songs that were from the years between 1880 and 1915. The songs were picked because they were popular and because they made social comments. Some songs (e.g. Down went McGinty, Throw Him Down McCloskey, The Bow’ry, although popular, are not included because they are novelty songs that offered little by way of social comment. Each of the chosen songs was rated on its relative social importance on a scale from 1 to 10. If a song had serious content we used it,
1. Had serious impact on or reflected cultural trends. (Daisy Bell
freedom through
bicycles, Meet Me Tonight in
Dreamland, sexual
freedom)
2 Made a clear social statement. (Mansion of Aching
Hearts, prostitution)
3. Described a trend or change in custom that was
going on (Elsie from Chelsea,
trolley romance)
4. Ofered insight into new movements in society.
(Ever/body’s Doing
It, new way to dance)
On February 14, 1892, Rev. Parkhurst ascended the pulpit of Madison Square Presbyterian Church, just as he had done continuously for the last 12 years, to again deliver his weekly diatribe against the sins of the Tenderloin. The Tenderloin was an area of Manhattan, bound on the east and west by 6th and 8th Avenues and on the north and south by 14th and 32nd Streets. It was a more or less continuous collection of taverns, brothels, and beer halls. The name came about because police who worked that district were reimbursed handsomely by local merchants to maintain a hands-off policy and to engage only in scheduled raids that did not interfere with ongoing business. There was money to be made on both sides; but still, some people were offended at the complacent acceptance of prostitution.
But
on this particular day, there sat in the congregation a young reporter
who actually took Rev. Parkhurst seriously, and his sermon was splashed
all over the front page of The New York World. The expose caused such a
stir that the suddenly outraged citizenry of New York
threw out Tammany Hall [29] in 1895 with the election of William
Strong, a conservative reformer. As it turned out however, New Yorkers
weren’t all that happy with reform. They liked
it better the old way, so in 1897 Strong was voted out and replaced by
another Tammany Hall puppet, whose mandate was to leave the Tenderloin
alone.
Taken
from The Poilce Gazette entitled “
More prostitution occurred during Victorian times than most other periods in modern history. In fact, the industry reached a high point around 1890. One of the main reasons for this marked increase in prostitution was a Victorian attitude that happily married women were not supposed to enjoy sex, that sex was nothing more than an inconvenient obligation, and that a wife had to “endure it” in order to have children. Sex as enjoyment did not exist in this context, so young girls about to become wives were told to behave in bed in a tolerant yet very indifferent way. Add to this the natural fears of young girls who had been discouraged from any type of “improper’ behavior since youth, and it could be expected that their sexual performance was very much like cold fish in a freezer.
In addition, according to moral dictates of the times, women were absolutely forbidden to have sex during pregnancy or menstruation. Therefore, even if a young man was lucky enough to find a companion who wasn’t intimidated by her strict upbringing, he was still likely to lose out to old wives tales and the difficulties of birth control. After all, many wives became pregnant soon before or after marriage, and the vital joy of newlywed sexual discovery was often removed from the marital equation, sometimes never to return.
Because of this folklore, the frequency of sex was probably about once a month,[30] so middle-class husbands were just plain sex starved. Therefore young men who were otherwise loving and caring toward their families sought out the services of reputable brothels and women who were forthcoming, enthusiastic, and accomplished in their sexual abilities because these men were quite literally unable to enjoy sex with their wives.
There were three kinds of prostitutes: call girls, ladies of the brothels, and streetwalkers. A call girl, or dollymop, was often set up in an apartment as a mistress to some rich man. She was usually gifted and well educated. She was required to provide service to her benefactor and be available at his behest, but often she earned additional money on the side. In 1900 Harry Von Tilzer wrote the popular song Bird in a Gilded Cage about this type of kept woman, something entirely remarkable in that day and age. He almost got away with it, but had to bow to convention to get the song published. So he added a line that suggested that the girl in the gilded cage was “respectably” married. Many if his contemporaries, however, understood the true intent of the song.
By far the most common type of prostitute was the “lady of the night,” who lived and worked in a brothel. She was under the supervision of a madam. Brothels were very popular in America, especially among the emerging middle class. Women who worked there had some degree of security, and the customers who frequented a reputable brothel could be reasonably assured that they would receive good value for their money and that the girls were free of disease.
Songwriters of the day worked in an area of New York near the Tenderloin, and undoubtedly sympathized with the difficulties of these young women. By 1902, Harry Von Tilzer’s reputation was so great that he was able to make still bolder social commentary in song and this time had no trouble getting it published. Mansion of Aching Hearts was a story describing the plight of just such a lady living in a brothel.
In the days of early popular music, songwriters were experimenters. For the first time songs contained somewhat honest dialogue between the sexes about romantic and even sexual topics. To us the lyrics seem awkward, childish, and even stupid, but in 1900 it was all hot and exciting stuff. Here are a few of my favorite politically incorrect phrases:
1. If you refuse me, baby you lose me, then you’ll be left alone
(Hello, My Baby).
2. But some day you will come back to me, and love me tenderly (Good-by,
My Lady Love).
3. Come to me my melancholy baby (My Melancholy Baby).
4. It’s sad when you think of her wasted life, for youth cannot
mate with age (Bird in a Gilded Cage)
5. I know I’m to blame. Ain’t it a shame (Bill Bailey)
6. Cause you got another papa on the Salt Lake line (Casey
Jones).
7. My heart’s acting strangely (I’m Falling in Love With
Someone)
8. From temptations, crimes, and follies, villains, taxi-cabs,
trolleys (Heaven Will
Protect the Working Girl).
9. I have a daughter who is hungry for love (He had to get
under and Fix Up His Automobile)
10. Sound of kisses floating on the breeze (By the Light of the Silvery
Moon)
The art of romantic sweet talk by telephone never went out of style, but continues unabated to this day with social networks, cell phones, e-mail, and tweets. Songs of the day presented of cleaver ways that young men and women were able to meet no the "wire'.
Your Girl to the Movies) or go to the many amusement parks (Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland), or take a ride in an airplane, (Come Josephine, in My Flying Machine), or, more likely, go for a spin in an automobile. Songs made extensive use of the car such as In my Merry Oldsmobile.
But
by far, one of the most common ways for men and women to initiate and
carry on romantic dialogue was the telephone, and by the turn of the
20th century there were many, many telephone songs around. Some
researchers have put the count at well over 100, the most popular of
which was Hello, My Baby.
I’ve got a little baby
but she’s out of sight
I talk to her across the telephone.
I’ve never seen my
honey,
But she’s mine all
right,
So take my tip and leave this gal alone.
Every single morning you will hear me yell,
Hey
central, fix me up along the line.”
She connects me with
my honey, then I ring the bell,
And this is what I say to
baby mine.
Hello,
my baby.
Hello,
my honey
Hello,
my ragtime gal.
Send
me a kiss by wire.
Baby my
hearts on fire.
If you refuse me,
Honey you loose me
Then
you’ll be left alone.
So Baby telephone
And tell
me I’m your own [32].
Perhaps one of the most artistic and successful of all telephone songs occurred some years later in 1924 with Berlin’s haunting melody All Alone. .[33] Here is McCormack singing All Alone.
Just like
a melody that lingers on,
You seem
to haunt me night and day.
I never
realized ‘till you were gone,
How much
I care about you.
I can’t
live without you.
All
alone, I’m so all alone.
There is no one else but you.
All alone, by
the telephone,
Waiting for a ring, a ting-a-Iing.
All alone in the
evening
All alone feeling blue,
Wondering where you are,
and how you
are,
and if you are all alone too.
America’s love affair with popular music started with After The BalL The song deals with a case of avoidable misunderstanding, because an intolerant man refused to deal with an obviously embarrassing situation. Men were not supposed to do that anyway, at least not under Victorian rules. The man behaved appropriately according to existing standards of behavior, but to his utter and complete ruin.
In brief: This old man tells a story to his niece about a beautiful woman he had once taken to a dance. He had gone to get her a glass of water, and as he was returning, saw her in the arms of another man (who, unknown to him, was the woman’s brother). Full of anger and disgust, the young man left her, never to see her again, and she died of a broken heart (for she loved him deeply). Years later, he discovered the awful truth and had to live with .
We see here that older standards of conduct, especially concerning romance, simply no longer worked. The obvious action in this case would be to confront and immediately resolve things, but the teller of this tale could not do this because he was unable to unbend. To let his hurt be known would be to expose that he was vulnerable, and in need of reassurance. He could not stand the thought of seeing himself as a supplicant. Some of this aversion to doing anything that could be interpreted as beseeching is reflected in Robert Browning’s poem, My Last Duchess. [35]
After the Ball is different from other tearjerkers. It moves through three stages: confusion and anger, sorrow of loss, and then penance and reparation. The confusion when the man sees his girl with someone else, the sorrow when, years later, he realizes how ridiculous his reaction was (which was behaving like any Victorian male was supposed to), and finally penance when, as an old man, he reveals his soul to his young niece (which is not Victorian at all). None of the tearjerker material of this period can be taken lightly, ror it represented the seeds of torch music and country music themes that developed 50 years later, much of which was based upon this same cycle of sin, loss, and repentance.
Following
his big hit Daisy Bell,
Harry
Dacre came through again with
the song Elsie from Chelsea{shall-see).
It is a story of two
Written in 1896, the song describes ordinary American people doing ordinary American things. This was the beginning of “Love American Style,” even though Dacre was English and the song was originally placed in a section of London. It still demonstrates that there was a rapidly changing value system and that popular music was closely following what was really going on. It shows that the old customs of meeting and being properly introduced were no longer practical in American society as class destination was rapidly disappearing.
The song My Gal Sal presents a woman who stands for the ideal female image, the Gibson Girl: a girl who is loving, caring, and at the same time independent, rebellious, athletic, and outspoken. Yet she is not a suffragette, because she feels that true independence can be gained in other, less ostentatious ways. The song sets up an achievable standard for women, and suggests that they don’t necessarily have to do wild and flamboyant things to obtain equality. Instead, kindness and an ability to council are the true ways to political, economic, and sexual equality.
They call her frivolous Sal,
A
peculiar sort of a gal,
With a heart
that is mellow,
An all round good fellow,
Is my old
pal.
You’re troubles, sorrow, and
care
she
was always willing to
share
A mild sort of devil,
but dead on
he level is my gal sal.
By the Light of the Silvery Moon is an example of sexual freedom. It is an instance of independent and unchaperoned courtship. By 1909, Americans had begun to accept the dangerous and revolutionary custom of unescorted dating, along with its predictable consequences.
In I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now, an ex-boyfriend laments because his girl has just left him and is going with somebody else. In the song he says, “I wonder if she ever tells him of me?” Women were not only becoming free in their affairs of heart, but they were even willing to openly discuss these things--a big Victorian no-no.
Wait Till the Sun Shines Nellie describes a intimate exchange between two newlyweds (or lovers). The woman expresses her extreme pleasure on her man’s decision to go to Coney Island even though it may rain. This was a very forward type of intimacy.
“How I long,” she sighed, “for a trolley ride
Women could meet men without introduction, and in all kinds
of
settings: streetcars, dance halls, and emerging
a. Elsie from
Chelsea (trolley
or bus).
b. Daisy Bell (interesting
way to honeymoon)
c. Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland (rendezvous in an- amusement park).
d. Hello, My Baby ( telephone).
e. Come Josephine, in My Flying Machine (airplane)
f. My
Merry Oldsmobile (car).
Men could describe their inner feelings about women.
a. I Wonder
Who’s Kissing Her Now.
b. Goodbye,
My Lady Love.
c. You Made
Me Love You.
d. My
Melancholy Baby.
e. All Alone.
f. As the car sped on its way,
And she whispered low, Say
you’re all right, Joe,
You just won my heart today [37]
Other examples in popular songs of the day that reflect a world in change where standards of romantic behavior were being redefined.
a. My Wife Has Gone to the Country.
b. Gypsy Love Song.
c. Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland.
d. Shine On Harvest Moon.
e. Take Your Girlie to the Movies.
f. By the Light of the Silvery Moon.
g. Row, Row, Row.
h. My Sweetheart’s the Man in the Moon.
Songs before 1892 observed older notions of a woman’s proper place: caring for the young, cooking, and church-related activities. There was a clear demarcation between right and wrong, what was expected of a woman and what was not. But songs beginning soon after 1892, began to represent entirely different and sometimes very confusing standards for women. With bloomer girls and Gibson Girls came songs of a bolder sort; and still later, after 1910, popular music promoted even a higher level of emotional and romantic independence: Let Me Call You Sweetheart, Moonlight Bay, My Melancholy Baby, Hello Frisco, You Made me Love You, Marietta, and Oh, You Beautiful Doll all presented images of women who were able to feel and act independently. As the popular music period evolved from its big start in 1892, women were for the first time recognized as a significant part of society. Popular songs lost their high minded condescension and nebulous unworldly qualities. Women suddenly begun to be reshaped by the music they sang and danced to.
Songs about woman involved modern technology. The bicycle and the car put women in a position never before attained, and all this to reinforce, and solidified their struggle to attain voting rights. In 1892 only two states had ratified state-wide and local suffrage for women. By 1915 many states had passed suffrage rights for women, until by the end of the First World War, the l9th amendment brought universal suffrage.
What part then did popular music play in all this? There is no real way to measure the effect of a constant diet of these “social songs” on a male-dominated country, but I suggest it had more effect than meets the casual eye. The idea of women’s rights involved shifts in public attitude. This may have been accomplished gradually over a period of many years, and the message of popular music beginning as early as 1892 certainly continued to reinforce this notion. Songs of the time did reflected a growing interest in personal relationships, and with personal relationships comes equality. Suffrage was, after all, a logical consequence of this spirit of equality that had for years been strongly promoted by popular music.
Is
bicycling bad for the heart?
Charles Dana Gibson,1897
Here are some other links in this article:
Origins of Early Popular Music
Minstrelsy
Broadway
Vaudeville
Other sources
People Growth - the First Baby Boom and it's effect
1 Barney Fegan, My gal is a High
Born Lady, 1896 (the first popular ragtime song).
2 Reay Tannahill, in History (Stein & Day, New York, 1980), 389.
3 Stephen Foster, Beautiful
Dreamer, 1864.
4 In German, cooking, church, and children were the traditional
responsibilities of a woman.
5 Alfred Bryan & Fred Fisher, Come
Josephine in My Hying Macnine, 1910.
6 G. Kennedy and R. Hanch, That
Up-to-date girl of mine, 1896.
7 The Gibson girl was a figure created by cartoonist Charles Dana Gibson.
She was characterized as independent, mature, friendly, athletic and
charming.
8 A. Mills & Sterling
, Meet Me in St. Louis Louis, Louis 1904.
9. Diane Snyder-Haug, Antique
& Vintage Clothing (Kentucky: Collector Books, 1997), 9.
10 Snyder-Hang, 35.
11 Lilly and Daniels, that’s
Where my Money Goes, 1901.
12 Miriam Gurco, The Ladies of Seneca Falls (New York: MacMillanPublishing Co., Inc.), 146.
13 Gurco, 143.
14 “A woman shall not
put on that which pertaineth unto a man”. Deuteronomy, 22:5.
15 Gurko, 144.
17 Census
figures show that there were about 12 million families at that
time. There were at least that many bikes on the road.
18 Crown and Glenn Coleman, No
Hands, (NewYork, Henry Holt& Co., 1996), 18. @ 1996 by Judith
Crown and Glenn Coleman. Reprinted by permission.
19
Crown &
Coleman, 18.
20 Crown & Coleman, 20.
21 Crown & Coleman, 20.
22 Crown & Coleman,20
23 Crown & Coleman, 20.
24 Douglas
Gilbert, Lost Chords: The
Diverting Story of American Popular Songs (New York: Cooper
Square Publishers, Inc., 1942), 215.
25 Crown &
Coleman, 23.
26
To be exposed
to improved living conditions. When Moses left Egypt, some Israelites remained behind because they had become used to
comfortable Egyptian living.
27
John D’Emilio
and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate
Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1988), 194.
28 D’emilio and Freedman, 195.
29 Tammany Hall refers to the Democratic Party machine that
controlled New York for many years.
30 The
History of Sex, The History Channel, Aug 17, 1999, Dir. Melissa
Jo Poltier, Ed. Diana Freidberg.
31 Thomas Gray, She is more to be pittied than censured, 1894.
32 Joe Howard, hello, my baby, 1899.
33 All Alone sold 2 million records and 1 million in sheet music.
34 Irving Berlin, All Alone, 1924.
36 Paul Dresser, my gal sal, 1906.
37 A sterling & Harry Von Tilzer, wait till the sun shines Nellie,
1902.
38 ”Then
then there would be some stooping; and I choose never to stoop” from
My Last Douchess reflects an attitude that men could not reveal their inner emotions for
fear of showing weakness.