Coleman, Billy,

Harnessing harmony : music, power, and politics in the United States, 1788-1865 / Billy Coleman. - Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, (c)2020. - 1 online resource (xv, 249 pages) : illustrations

Includes bibliographies and index.

"The star-spangled banner" and the development of a federalist musical tradition -- Musical organizations and the politics of American civil society -- Music and respectability in antebellum electoral politics -- Music and the making of a conservative radical.

"'Harnessing harmony' uses music to unravel the relationship between elite power and the people through their uses of culture in politics from the early national period to the Civil War. Coleman traces how understandings of musical power were used to shape the development of a popular American political culture. It explores primarily how elites, at a time of mass democratization and rapid social change, looked to music to persuade Americans to rise above political and partisan conflict to instead create a more unified, orderly, and deferential society. In doing so the work identifies a distinctively conservative strain of musical thought and action. As our readers point out, it impressively challenges prevailing scholarly assumptions about political music being more 'bottom up' than 'top down'"--



9781469658896


Conservatism--History.--United States
Elite (Social sciences)--History.--United States
Political culture--History.--United States
Music--Political aspects--History--United States--18th century.
Music--Political aspects--History--United States--19th century.


Electronic Books.

ML3917 / .H376 2020