Popular Song and Working-Class Culture
This chapter considers the ways that popular songs, circulated via inexpensive sheet music and as printed song sheets that contained only lyrics, reflect the worldview and aspirations of working-class populations in the United States. It shows that when read against theatrical trade newspapers, men’s sporting newspapers, and daily newspapers catering to working men, a richer and more complex view of working-class culture emerges from these songs. Songs reinforced a sense of class cohesion, and articulated class values and working-class gender construction. They also reflected the integration of ethnic groups such as Germans and Irish into American culture, and reinforced social hierarchies based on race, gender, immigrant status, and proficiency with language. While the characters depicted in American popular song were often unique to the United States, the fact that they came from a shared tradition of English humor allowed them to travel globally.