Singing for Freedom: The Hutchinson Family Singers and the Nineteenth-Century Culture of ReformYale University Press, 2008 M10 1 - 312 pages In the two decades prior to the Civil War, the Hutchinson Family Singers of New Hampshire became America’s most popular musical act. Out of a Baptist revival upbringing, John, Asa, Judson, and Abby Hutchinson transformed themselves in the 1840s into national icons, taking up the reform issues of their age and singing out especially for temperance and antislavery reform. This engaging book is the first to tell the full story of the Hutchinsons, how they contributed to the transformation of American culture, and how they originated the marketable American protest song.Through concerts, writings, sheet music publications, and books of lyrics, the Hutchinson Family Singers established a new space for civic action, a place at the intersection of culture, reform, religion, and politics. The book documents the Hutchinsons’ impact on abolition and other reform projects and offers an original conception of the rising importance of popular culture in antebellum America. |
Other editions - View all
Singing for Freedom: The Hutchinson Family Singers and the Nineteenth ... Scott Gac Limited preview - 2008 |
Singing for Freedom: The Hutchinson Family Singers and the Nineteenth ... Scott Gac No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
Abby Hutchinson Patton Abolitionism abolitionist American Anti-Slavery American Anti-Slavery Society antebellum Anti-Slavery Society antislavery meeting Asa Hutchinson audience Blackface Boston brothers Charles Christian Cockrell concert Convention Culture Danvers David Ditson early emancipation England entertainment Excelsior farm Frederick Douglass Free Soil friends Hall Hampshire Henry Herald of Freedom Historical Society History Hutch Hutchin Hutchinson Family Singers ibid inson Jesse Hutchinson Jesse Jr John Greenleaf Whittier John Hutchinson John’s Joshua Journal Judson Hutchinson leaders Liberator Liberty Party listeners lived Lowell Mason Lynn Mary Massachusetts melody Milford Minstrels musicians nation New-Hampshire nineteenth century North Norton Old Anti-Slavery Days Old Granite Oxford University Press performance Philadelphia political Polly popular Rainers reform religion religious revival Rogers rural sacred sang sheet music siblings singing slave slavery social song Story Sumner temperance tion town Tribe of Jesse tune Vocalists Whig Whittier William Lloyd Garrison WMPL women York