CHAPTER 9 | AMERICAN FOLK SONGS AND THEIR COLLECTORS 223
enrich the experience of English-speaking Americans, for they conjured up “a
world of romantic adventure” far removed from the Victorian values that domi-
nated English-language songs of the post–Civil War years, treating love as one of
life’s great mysteries.LABOR SONGS
During the late 1800s labor unions began to play a role in the struggle to
control a changing workplace. Joining forces to seek better pay and working
conditions, workers found that the threat of striking could be an effective bar-
gaining tool. In the face of an unequal balance of power, they sang songs to
boost morale and affi rm solidarity. Labor songs, written for jobs ranging from
mining to farming, are another source that fed into the stream of American
folk music.
Leopold Vincent’s Alliance and Labor Songster (1891) was compiled for use at
meetings of the Farmers’ Alliance, which by 1890 claimed more than three mil-
lion members. One example from that collection, “The Right Will Prevail,” sung
to the tune of “Sweet By and By” (see LG 7.2), illustrates the uncompromising
tone that labor songs usually took:
W hen the Workingmen’s cause shall prevail
Then the class-rule of rich men shall cease,
And the true friends of Labor will hail
With a shout the glad era of peace.
Right will reign by-and-by,
W hen the Workingmen come into power;
Right will reign by-and-by,
Then the gold thieves shall rule men no more.
Readers will recognize an impulse for parody hark-
ing back to the broadside ballads of the 1700s. Here the
author transformed a gentle affi rmation of heavenly
peace into an attack on capitalists. One can only specu-
late about the full range of meanings this song carried
in 1891. For some, the use of “Sweet By and By” must
have signifi ed confi dence: just as believers would go
to heaven, workers would prevail over bosses. On the
other hand, if triumph was to be postponed until some
vague “by and by,” perhaps others took this version
more pessimistically, as in a later parody that promises:
“There’ll be pie in the sky when you die.”
Since labor songs were militant, they were often
sung to melodies whose original texts drew clear
lines between right and wrong. Civil War songs were
favorites. (Many labor songs were based on the “Battle-
Hymn of the Republic” and on Root’s “Battle Cry of
Freedom” and “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp.”) Other patri-
otic tunes were borrowed as well, including “Amer-
ica” (“My country, ’tis of thee,” which in turn adopted
its melody from “God Save the King”). As part of aK Songsters like this one,
published in 1887, circulated pro-
labor messages cheaply, relying
on familiar music for much of their
impact.172028_09_205-230_r3_ko.indd 223 23/01/13 11:29 AM