An Introduction to America’s Music

CHAPTER 7 | INDUSTRIALIZATION AND THE RISE OF GOSPEL MUSIC 173

The chorus repeats the second half, ba, and the framing piano introduction and

tag state the main idea as well, for an overall form of

The words of the chorus also repeat the lines that begin the fi rst verse. All this

repetition makes for a structure in which love is a force of stability: a haven

shielding partners from the ravages of time.

INDUSTRIALIZATION AND THE RISE

OF GOSPEL MUSIC

During the years between the Civil War and World War I, the United States

became the world’s foremost industrial nation. As industry advanced, agricul-

ture declined. By 1910, when manufacturing jobs were on the rise, farm workers

made up only 31 percent of the labor force, compared with 53 percent in 1870.

Changes in the nation’s economic and social structure touched all aspects of

American life, music included. Industrialization brought more people into cit-

ies, where industries were concentrated. As that trend continued, the popular

song trade came more and more to be ruled by the tastes of city dwellers.

Industrialization did more than shift workers from the countryside to the

city; it changed the nature of work and, in the process, alienated many workers.

A machinist testifi ed in 1883: “The different branches of the trade are divided

and subdivided so that one man may make just a particular part of a machine

and may not know anything whatever about another part of the same machine.”

Wages for such workers were low and job security nonexistent, at the same time

that industrialization brought great wealth to a few and raised the country’s

standard of living. Such working conditions form the background for a key reli-

gious development of the postwar years: the Protestant urban revival movement—

sometimes called the Third Great Awakening—which also borrowed from the

popular song and sheet music trade.

Revivals aimed at bringing the gospel—the glad tidings of

Jesus and the kingdom of God—to unchurched Americans of

all social and economic classes. One of the movement’s leaders

was Dwight L. Moody. Born in 1837 in Massachusetts, Moody

moved to Chicago in the mid-1850s, where he prospered in the

shoe business. He began Christian work with the YMCA (Young

Men’s Christian Association) and in 1864 founded a nondenomi-

national church. Moody’s preaching emphasized God’s love,

soft-pedaled his wrath, and cultivated sentiment over theolog y.

He also favored simple, popular hymns like William Bradbury’s

“Jesus Loves Me.”

In the early 1870s Moody held evangelical meetings in Great

Britain, accompanied by his musical director, Ira Sankey, who

led group singing and sang solos while playing the reed organ.

The effect of these meetings was enormous. Kindling a national

intro verse chorus tag

aaaba ba a

K Ira Sankey (1840–1908)

leads the singing at an

1877 revival at the Boston

Tabernacle presided over by

evangelist Dwight L. Moody

(1837–1899), visible to

Sankey’s right.

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