Publisher's Synopsis
In this important new collection, editor Douglas Messerli has collected 78 lyrics of American folksongs and popular music from the 19th century. Some of these songs are beautiful but the vast majority, especially the minstrel songs and the Civil War ballads, are often perverse in their racial humour and sexual undertones. From the patriotically conceived America of 1832 to the rebelliously insistent I'll Marry the Man I Love of 1897, the songs in this volume reveal the vast range of the American people and their ways of living.
