ASCAP: Creative Americans Organize

Victor Herbert on the Deck of the Ship Imperator (detail),
copyright 1914.
Prints and Photographs Division

On February 13, 1914, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) was founded in New York City. The purpose of this organization was and remains to protect the copyright and performance rights of the works of its members: composers, songwriters, lyricists and music publishers. Its first director was composer and musician Victor Herbert, an eloquent supporter of musicians' right to receive royalties for the use of their work.

According to the story told about the birth of the Society, the popular composer Victor Herbert became aware of the need for protection of musical creators' rights when he was visiting a hotel and overheard a musician playing a piece of music he had written. He knew that he had not been paid for the use of his music in performance, even though unauthorized public performance of music had been protected by copyright law since 1897. From that time, Herbert worked hard to organize creative artists into a collective and to bring the problem of payment of royalties to the attention of policymakers.

Compositions of ASCAP Members

"An Old Fashioned Wife; Oh Boy!"
Book and lyrics by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse,
Music by Jerome Kern, 1917.

"Get Together: Fox Trot"
Music by Victor Herbert, 1915.

"Mandy: Ziegfeld Follies of 1919"
Music and lyrics by Irving Berlin, 1919.

"Beale Street Blues"
Music by W.C. Handy, 1917.

Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920

Early associated with Thomas Edison, Herbert recognized the importance of the phonograph, making and issuing early recordings of some of his works in orchestral versions. Herbert's testimony had an impact on the passage of the American Copyright Law of 1909 which extended composers' rights to include royalties for the sale of recorded music.

Bernstein with Composer/Lyricist Stephen Sondheim,
The Leonard Bernstein Collection, circa 1920-1989

Herbert served as director and vice-president of ASCAP until his death in 1924. Some other members of ASCAP represented in American Memory include W.C. Handy, Irving Berlin, George M. Cohan, Ira and George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, Duke Ellington, and Leonard Bernstein.

Today, members of ASCAP include musical composers of all types of music from rock, hip-hop, country-western, and musical comedy, to symphonic and operatic music. A tiny sample of the ASCAP membership includes Andrew Lloyd Webber, Mariah Carey, Elvis Costello, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Stephen Sondheim, Madonna, Stevie Wonder, Dave Matthews, Burt Bacharach, Andre Previn, Alanis Morrisette, and Korn.

• For more history and background on ASCAP and information about its members, visit the society's Web site. The site also includes a list of ASCAP winners and nominees for Grammy awards.
• For more on the life and work of musicians and composers, search the Today in History Archive. Examples of artists featured include, Dizzie Gillespie, Aaron Copland, Louis Jordan, Billie Holiday, Jelly Roll Morton, and Sophie Tucker.
• Search these sheet music collections on composers' names, such as Victor Herbert, Irving Berlin or Jerome Kern, to see more examples of music written by ASCAP members:
  • Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920 (from Duke University)
  • Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, 1870-1885
  • African-American Sheet Music, 1850-1920 (from Brown University)

Six Italian Folk Songs

Mario Olmeda,
February 13, 1939.
California Gold: Folk Music from the Thirties, 1938-1940

Italian-American Mario Olmeda shared his passion for traditional Italian singing with folk music collector Sidney Robertson Cowell on February 13, 1939, in Martinez, California. Cowell recorded Olmeda's rendition of six Italian folk songs, including "Marinaro (The Sailor)," and "La Capinera (The Blackbird)," a song he had learned, he said, from his father. Cowell also visited Italian-American communities in the nearby towns of Concord, Pittsburg, and Woodside. Her recordings and photographs of Italian Americans living in the San Francisco Bay Area are featured in California Gold: Folk Music from the Thirties, 1938-1940.

Mrs. Sanfilippo and Her Sister,
February 11, 1939.
California Gold: Folk Music from the Thirties, 1938-1940

Recordings of such titles as "Addio Mama (Goodbye Mama)," "Sugnu Monica per si e per no Lu Zitu Voglio e la Tonica No (I Want My Sweetheart and not this Nun's Robe)," and "Mio Marito e un Uomo Tipatiello (My Husband's an Old Grouch)" are available for listening. Cowell's comments on the Sicilians, made during her 1939 visit, provide additional insight into this community and their songs.

The musical heritage of numerous ethnic groups representative of the diverse peoples who settled in the San Francisco Bay Area are in California Gold: Folk Music from the Thirties, 1938-1940, including Armenians, Basques, and Croatians. The collection may also be browsed by Subject, Performers, Musical Instruments, or by individual Audio Titles. A term such as guitar, Portuguese or wedding may also be used to search the collection.

• Learn more about the experience of Italian immigrants in the United States by reading the many American Life Histories, 1936-1940 interviews with or about Italian Americans. To find them, search the collection on Italian or, for a more manageable query, Italian-American.
• FSA/OWI Color Photographs, 1935-1945 includes photographs of Italian Americans living in Southington, Connecticut, in the 1940s.
• Search on the term Italian in Music for the Nation, 1870-1885 for songs with an italian theme and "method of Italian singing."

  
  "Beautiful Italy,"
  M. S. Blacklock, composer, 1878.
  Music for the Nation, 1870-1885

• See footage of the extreme crowding many immigrants encountered in turn-of-the-century New York City in Move On, part of Life of a City: New York, 1898-1906. The film, produced in 1903, features footage of push-cart vendors blocking traffic in their struggle to carve out a space to sell their wares in the congested streets of New York City's Little Italy.
• Search the Today in History Archive on opera for features on the Metropolitan Opera House and on famous American singers such as Leontyne Price. Or, search this same archive on the terms Gaelic or Molokan for more information on Gaelic and Russian Molokan Church music recorded by Sidney R. Cowell.
• Additional ethnographic field collections available online include Voices from the Dust Bowl, 1940-1941 and Hispano Music and Culture of the Northern Rio Grande. The former was developed in the migrant work camps of California, the latter in Colorado and New Mexico.