Arts & Music

Resources in this category:

African-American Sheet Music, 1850-1920
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/rpbhtml/

"This collection consists of 1,305 pieces of African-American sheet music dating from 1850 through 1920. The collection includes many songs from the heyday of antebellum black face minstrelsy in the 1850s and from the abolitionist movement of the same period. Numerous titles are associated with the novel and the play Uncle Tom's Cabin. Civil War period music includes songs about African-American soldiers and the plight of the newly emancipated slave. Post-Civil War music reflects the problems of Reconstruction and the beginnings of urbanization and the northern migration of African Americans. African-American popular composers include James Bland, Ernest Hogan, Bob Cole, James Reese Europe, and Will Marion Cook. Twentieth century titles feature many photographs of African-American musical performers, often in costume. Unlike many other sorts of published works, sheet music can be produced rapidly in response to an event or public interest, and thus is a source of relatively unmediated and unrevised perspectives on quickly changing events and public attitudes. Particularly significant in this collection are the visual depictions of African Americans which provide much information about racial attitudes over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries."

Black Film Center/Archive
http://www.indiana.edu/~bfca/

The Black Film Center/Archive at Indiana University "is a repository of films and related materials by and about African Americans. Included are films which have substantial participation by African Americans as writers, actors, producers, directors, musicians, and consultants, as well as those which depict some aspect of black experience." The site provides the opportunity to view short film clips (may require special software), view lists of Center publications, and find out more about the Center's collections.

Black Film Research Online
http://blackfilm.uchicago.edu/

Here is a resource guide for the study of black film culture.

Drop Me Off in Harlem: Faces of the Renaissance
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/exploring/harlem/facesmai...

"What happens when creative and intellectual minds, wealthy patrons, and fervent activists live in the same place? Discover how prominent figures in Harlem influenced, challenged, and supported one another in the period between 1917 and 1935. Investigate how their collective and individual voices reflected and shaped what we now call the Harlem Renaissance." Site inlcudes information about Harlem, biographical information on actors, musicians, and other notable individuals, and multimedia materials related to their lives and work.

Harlem Renaissance
http://www.fatherryan.org/harlemrenaissance/

This site portrays the "Harlem Renaissance as a cultural movement that allowed African-Americans to show their creative abilities to the world." It includes visual, theater, music and performing arts displays. Contains links to other Harlem Renaissance sites.

Jazz: A Film by Ken Burns
http://www.pbs.org/jazz/

The online counterpart to Ken Burns' documentary Jazz includes extensive biographical profiles and discographies of major jazz musicians, a chronology of the development of jazz, essays about jazz and its place in American culture, and audio clips of jazz compositions.