Re: Re: [Harp-L] Theory, etc. - history of positions



In Winslow's response to Iceman's posting he states that the popular image of harmonica playing in the Civil War was the creation of Hollywood screen writers, and that harmonica production was too low until the 1870s or 1880s for the instrument to have been widespread. However, in the Alan Bates collection site he links to in the same response, it says this: "First imported in quantity in the early 1860s, they (harmonicas) became popular with soldiers from both north and south. Many harmonica remains have been found around Civil War camp sites."
So which is correct?


David

On Feb 23, 2007, at 8:00 AM, winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Harmonica production was too low in the 1860s for harmonicas to have
been very widespread in the US during slavery times. Production wasn't
really large enough until about the 1870s or '80s, which was in fact a
time of great hope for black folks, with African Americans actually
getting elected to State office, until white racists figured out ways
to shut them out of the entire democratic process for the better part
of a century.

The popular image of the harmonica being played by Civil War soldiers
was created by Hollywood screenwriters. They remembered the very real
phenomenon of the harmonica being very widespread during the first
world war of 1914-1918, when annual harmonica production (and
exportation) was well into the multiple millions, and projected that
back to the Civil war scenes they were writing (soldiers gone off to
war, a past era, harmonica). Some folks I know will disagree, but I'm
pretty certain this is a false image. The production and distribution
just weren't there.





This archive was generated by a fusion of Pipermail 0.09 (Mailman edition) and MHonArc 2.6.8.