"Ol' Man River"

Object Details

authored Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Showboat

Ferber, Edna

playwright

Hammerstein II, Oscar

Kern, Jerome

singer

Robeson, Paul

publisher

T. B. Harms Company

Description

This sheet music contains the music and lyrics for “Ol’ Man River,” a song from the 1927 Broadway musical Show Boat, one of the masterpieces of American theater. Sheet music was a popular means of dispersing songs throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, before the widespread availability of phonographs and radio shifted the music industry’s focus to recorded songs. With sheet music such as this, people would typically gather around a piano and sing, bringing the stories and sounds of the theater into parlors across the country.

Show Boat is regarded as the first American musical to depart from the genre’s traditional light comedy by featuring serious dramatic complexities, notably race relations among people along the Mississippi River. Show Boat was adapted by Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern from the 1926 novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edna Ferber. Both the book and the musical mix humor with nostalgia as they recall the disappearing culture of the show boat. A novelty form of performance in the 1800s, a show boat was a floating theater that featured melodramas, musical acts, dancing, and vaudeville as it traveled along American waterways such as the Mississippi, Cumberland, and Ohio Rivers. The popularity of showboats declined in the 20th century as the country moved from the rivers to the roads and motion pictures replaced the stage as the main form of entertainment. The musical Show Boat recalls this era, as it follows the Cotton Blossom and the people the boat affects while traveling up and down the Mississippi.

Although the main focus of the musical is on the cast and crew of the Cotton Blossom, the most interesting and memorable character is Joe, the black dock worker who tells the story of hardships suffered by African Americans through the song “Ol’ Man River.” Juxtaposed against the white merrymakers on board—Show Boat was the first integrated musical, featuring actors of both races on stage and in the chorus— Joe totes bales of cotton and sings about his struggles. The lyrics “Ah gets weary an’ sick of tryin’, Ahm tired of livin’ an’ skeered of dyin’,” reflect the somber, yet resigned tone of the song. Just as with the problems of all the characters, the relentless Mississippi pays no heed, for the river just keeps rolling along.

The African American characters in Show Boat have been viewed by some as offensive caricatures that portray black people as servants. Animosity toward the play has been demonstrated in various ways. For instance, Paul Robeson, the famous singer for whom the part of Joe was originally written, altered the lyrics in his own recordings of “Ol’ Man River,” removing certain words and the stereotypical dialect. Protests are frequently staged against revivals of the musical, although some performing arts critics and historians point to the treatment of a mixed-race marriage in the play, Hammerstein’s own desire for tolerance, and the fact that portrayal of racist stereotypes in modern American theater employed is usually not to condone racism, but to satirize and condemn the mindsets that perpetuate it.

publishing date

1927

"Show Boat" debuted on Broadway

1927

ID Number

2008.3026.01

nonaccession number

2008.3026

catalog number

2008.3026.01

Object Name

sheet music

Physical Description

ink (overall material)

paper (overall material)

Measurements

overall: 11 7/8 in x 9 in; 30.1625 cm x 22.86 cm

place made

United States: New York, New York

show boat route

United States: Mississippi River

United States: Cumberland River

United States: Ohio River

Related Publication

On the Water online exhibition

Related Web Publication

http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthewater

See more items in

Culture and the Arts: Entertainment

Music & Musical Instruments

Popular Entertainment

Transportation

On the Water exhibit

Sheet Music

Exhibition

On the Water

Exhibition Location

National Museum of American History

National Museum of American History

related event

The Emergence of Modern America

Record ID

nmah_1336044

Metadata Usage (text)

CC0

GUID (Link to Original Record)

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746ac-6546-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa