Missouri Harmony
The Missouri Harmony, first published in 1820, was the most popular of all frontier shape-note tune books during its reign. The 185 songs compiled in the collection were favorites used in Protestant churches and singing schools, and many were deeply rooted in American culture by the time of its first publication. The story of the book is the story of a burgeoning nation, with its origins in a St. Louis school (where it was introduced by singing master Allen Carden) and its spread along the Mississippi River and its tributaries. It’s said that even Abraham Lincoln and his sweetheart, Ann Rutledge, sang from The Missouri Harmony at her father’s tavern in Illinois.
Read more about Missouri Harmony: The Original Editions: 1820 Through 1850s, Abe Lincoln and The Missouri Harmony, Compilation of The Songs, New Fangled Replaces Old Fashioned, The 2005 Revised Edition
Famous quotes containing the words missouri and/or harmony:
“The traveller on the prarie is naturally a hunter, on the head waters of the Missouri and Columbia a trapper, and at the Falls of St. Mary a fisherman.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves,
The brilliant moon and all the milky sky,
And all that famous harmony of leaves,
Had blotted out man’s image and his cry.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)