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Apr. 7 | MAASA Joint Conference—April, 2011
Joint conference on material culture, April 7-11, 2011, UW-Madison
Resources: Abstracts of American Studies Dissertations
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Boots, Cheryl Charline. "Earthly Strains: The Cultural Work of Protestant Sacred Music in Three Nineteenth-Century American Popular Novels," American and New England Studies, Boston University, May 2000.
This dissertation explores the place of Protestant sacred music within three nineteenth-century popular novels, each of which addresses the question of America as a multiracial society. The novels use Protestant psalms, hymns, spirituals, or gospel songs to create moments of egalitarian resonance. Those moments are essential to the narratives’ campaigns in support of or opposition to a multiracial America. Music is central to each author’s argument, whether it is for or against such social equality. First the concept of egalitarian resonance as a cultural experience is laid out. This is the experience of equality among individuals who sing together or who listen to responsively to singing. Second, James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans use of psalm tunes, texts and performances are examined. Third is an examination of Methodist hymns, camp meeting songs and spirituals in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Finally, an evaluation of gospel songs and the hymn “Nearer My God to Thee” in Deborah Dunham Kelley-Hawkins’s Four Girls at Cottage City.
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