Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-247) and indexes.
Contents:
Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Prologue : why Dixie? -- The alley and its denizens -- Weepy time down south : early sentiment and sentimentality -- Typecasting : Southern social and ethnic, that is -- "Y'all come" : Southern hospitality, conviviality, and leisure-time fun -- Dixie is for lovers -- Undercutting the idyllic : realism, satire, and parody -- "All aboard for Dixie land" : homesickness, traveling home, and "mammy songs" -- Glorifying Dixie : southern myths and Southern pride -- Moonlight and magnolias : the alley and the myth -- Epilogue : the years they drove old Dixie down.
Summary:
Tin Pan Alley, once New York City's songwriting and recording mecca, issued more than a thousand songs about the American South in the first half of the twentieth century. In Reinventing Dixie, John Bush Jones explores the broad impact of these songs in creating and disseminating the imaginary view of the South as a land of southern belles, gallant gentlemen, and racial harmony. In profiles of Tin Pan Alley's lyricists and composers, Jones explains how a group of undereducated and untraveled writers--the vast majority of whom were urban northerners or European immigrants--constructed the specific and detailed images of the South used in their song lyrics. In the process of evaluating the origins of Tin Pan Alley's songbook, Jones analyzes these songwriters' attitudes about North-South reconciliation, ideals of honor and hospitality, and the recurring theme of the yearning for home. Though a few of the songs employed parody or satire to undercut the vision of a peaceful, romantic South, the majority ignored the realities of racism and poverty in the region.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.