Book contents
- American Song and Struggle from Columbus to World War II
- American Song and Struggle from Columbus to World War II
- Copyright page
- Praise for American Song and Struggle
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Broken Spears and Songs of Sorrow
- Chapter 2 Good Newes from Virginia
- Chapter 3 A Capital Chop
- Chapter 4 If I Had but a Small Loaf of Bread
- Chapter 5 Where Today Are the Pequot?
- Chapter 6 There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood
- Chapter 7 A Tragedy That Beggared the Greek
- Chapter 8 Muscle, Blood, and Steel
- Chapter 9 Rule Anglo-Saxia
- Chapter 10 The Hand That Feeds You
- Chapter 11 We Are Many
- Chapter 12 100% American
- Chapter 13 We’re Up Against It Now
- Chapter 14 The Panic Is On
- Chapter 15 To Thee We Sing
- Conclusion
- Notes and Sources
- Song Index
- General Index
Chapter 8 - Muscle, Blood, and Steel
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2022
- American Song and Struggle from Columbus to World War II
- American Song and Struggle from Columbus to World War II
- Copyright page
- Praise for American Song and Struggle
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Broken Spears and Songs of Sorrow
- Chapter 2 Good Newes from Virginia
- Chapter 3 A Capital Chop
- Chapter 4 If I Had but a Small Loaf of Bread
- Chapter 5 Where Today Are the Pequot?
- Chapter 6 There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood
- Chapter 7 A Tragedy That Beggared the Greek
- Chapter 8 Muscle, Blood, and Steel
- Chapter 9 Rule Anglo-Saxia
- Chapter 10 The Hand That Feeds You
- Chapter 11 We Are Many
- Chapter 12 100% American
- Chapter 13 We’re Up Against It Now
- Chapter 14 The Panic Is On
- Chapter 15 To Thee We Sing
- Conclusion
- Notes and Sources
- Song Index
- General Index
Summary
Labor’s gloves are off, and the country is rocked by waves of strikes, all backed by militant battle songs. The Pullman Strike brings to the fore Eugene Debs and other champions of labor and socialism, Coxey’s Army marches on Washington (singing), German immigrants fly the red flag of Anarchism (in song), and Jews fleeing from Russian pogroms swell the streets and sweatshops of New York’s Lower East Side, transforming the national soundscape with Yiddish labor anthems and laying the foundations of modern musical theater. The Mexican corrido becomes more prominent amidst white nativist hostility, and in California the Chinese community continues to pit their authentic songs of struggle against the slanders of minstrelsy and the insult of the Chinese Exclusion Act. On the western plains, the Lakota Ghost Dance and its attendant songs drive the US government into a panic born of ignorance, culminating in the massacre at Wounded Knee. With the frontier officially closed and white settler colonialism entrenched from sea to shining sea, the champions of Manifest Destiny look further westward, to the Pacific islands, where a songwriter named Lili’uokalani, the queen of Hawai’i, awaits her overthrow.
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- American Song and Struggle from Columbus to World War 2A Cultural History, pp. 150 - 173Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022