Carol J. Oja
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195058499
- eISBN:
- 9780199865031
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195058499.003.0011
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
American composers not only explored new compositional byways during the 1920s but also sought ways to bring their work before the public. They were good at it, often finding others willing to invest ...
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American composers not only explored new compositional byways during the 1920s but also sought ways to bring their work before the public. They were good at it, often finding others willing to invest time and money in devising opportunities for performance and publication. As a result, a string of new music organizations appeared in New York City, including the International Composers' Guild, the League of Composers, the Pan American Association of Composers, and the Copland-Sessions Concerts. These followed parallel ventures in the visual arts. During the first two decades of the century, Alfred Stieglitz's Gallery 291 exhibited new European and American art, while selected dealers such as Stephan Bourgeois began featuring modernist painting. This chapter looks at the legacy of composers Marion Bauer, Frederick Jacobi, Emerson Whithorne, and Louis Gruenberg in the field of modernist music in New York.Less
American composers not only explored new compositional byways during the 1920s but also sought ways to bring their work before the public. They were good at it, often finding others willing to invest time and money in devising opportunities for performance and publication. As a result, a string of new music organizations appeared in New York City, including the International Composers' Guild, the League of Composers, the Pan American Association of Composers, and the Copland-Sessions Concerts. These followed parallel ventures in the visual arts. During the first two decades of the century, Alfred Stieglitz's Gallery 291 exhibited new European and American art, while selected dealers such as Stephan Bourgeois began featuring modernist painting. This chapter looks at the legacy of composers Marion Bauer, Frederick Jacobi, Emerson Whithorne, and Louis Gruenberg in the field of modernist music in New York.
Eric Salzman and Thomas Desi
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195099362
- eISBN:
- 9780199864737
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195099362.003.0022
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter discusses Roy Hart, the Roy Hart Theater, and the roots of extended vocalism; widening of vocal range and inclusion of non-traditional vocal sounds and techniques; the American ...
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This chapter discusses Roy Hart, the Roy Hart Theater, and the roots of extended vocalism; widening of vocal range and inclusion of non-traditional vocal sounds and techniques; the American monologists; Meredith Monk, her techniques, vocal esthetic, and music-theater works; other well-known performers; and Quog Music Theater and the American Music Theater Festival.Less
This chapter discusses Roy Hart, the Roy Hart Theater, and the roots of extended vocalism; widening of vocal range and inclusion of non-traditional vocal sounds and techniques; the American monologists; Meredith Monk, her techniques, vocal esthetic, and music-theater works; other well-known performers; and Quog Music Theater and the American Music Theater Festival.
Elizabeth B. Crist and Wayne Shirley (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300111217
- eISBN:
- 9780300133479
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300111217.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This chapter looks at a period in Aaron Copeland's life that would be his busiest and most productive. It highlights several events and accomplishments that Copeland went through during these years ...
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This chapter looks at a period in Aaron Copeland's life that would be his busiest and most productive. It highlights several events and accomplishments that Copeland went through during these years such as his invitation to the First Festival of Pan American Chamber Music by its sponsor, Elizabeth Sprague Coolridge. He composed a piece for CBS radio (Music for Radio). He lectured at the New School for Social Research and also played a role in the founding and formation of the American Composers Alliance. He promoted the cause of music education in his New School lectures, titled “What to Listen for in Music” and he obtained the opportunity to compose a score for the documentary film, The City, for the New York World's Fair. The chapter explores his love affair and relationship with Leonard Bernstein, as well as the compositions he would produce during World War II.Less
This chapter looks at a period in Aaron Copeland's life that would be his busiest and most productive. It highlights several events and accomplishments that Copeland went through during these years such as his invitation to the First Festival of Pan American Chamber Music by its sponsor, Elizabeth Sprague Coolridge. He composed a piece for CBS radio (Music for Radio). He lectured at the New School for Social Research and also played a role in the founding and formation of the American Composers Alliance. He promoted the cause of music education in his New School lectures, titled “What to Listen for in Music” and he obtained the opportunity to compose a score for the documentary film, The City, for the New York World's Fair. The chapter explores his love affair and relationship with Leonard Bernstein, as well as the compositions he would produce during World War II.
John W. Troutman
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469627922
- eISBN:
- 9781469627946
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469627922.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
Since the nineteenth century, the distinct tones of kika kila, the Hawaiian steel guitar, have defined the island sound. Here historian and steel guitarist John W. Troutman offers the instrument's ...
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Since the nineteenth century, the distinct tones of kika kila, the Hawaiian steel guitar, have defined the island sound. Here historian and steel guitarist John W. Troutman offers the instrument's definitive history, from its discovery by a young Hawaiian royalist named Joseph Kekuku to its revolutionary influence on American and world music. During the early twentieth century, Hawaiian musicians traveled the globe, from tent shows in the Mississippi Delta, where they shaped the new sounds of country and the blues, to regal theaters and vaudeville stages in New York, Berlin, Kolkata, and beyond. In the process, Hawaiian guitarists recast the role of the guitar in modern life. But as Troutman explains, by the 1970s the instrument's embrace and adoption overseas also worked to challenge its cultural legitimacy in the eyes of a new generation of Hawaiian musicians. As a consequence, the indigenous instrument nearly disappeared in its homeland. Using rich musical and historical sources, including interviews with musicians and their descendants, Troutman provides the complete story of how this Native Hawaiian instrument transformed not only American music but the sounds of modern music throughout the world.Less
Since the nineteenth century, the distinct tones of kika kila, the Hawaiian steel guitar, have defined the island sound. Here historian and steel guitarist John W. Troutman offers the instrument's definitive history, from its discovery by a young Hawaiian royalist named Joseph Kekuku to its revolutionary influence on American and world music. During the early twentieth century, Hawaiian musicians traveled the globe, from tent shows in the Mississippi Delta, where they shaped the new sounds of country and the blues, to regal theaters and vaudeville stages in New York, Berlin, Kolkata, and beyond. In the process, Hawaiian guitarists recast the role of the guitar in modern life. But as Troutman explains, by the 1970s the instrument's embrace and adoption overseas also worked to challenge its cultural legitimacy in the eyes of a new generation of Hawaiian musicians. As a consequence, the indigenous instrument nearly disappeared in its homeland. Using rich musical and historical sources, including interviews with musicians and their descendants, Troutman provides the complete story of how this Native Hawaiian instrument transformed not only American music but the sounds of modern music throughout the world.
Howard Pollack
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199791590
- eISBN:
- 9780199949625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199791590.003.0016
- Subject:
- Music, History, American, Popular
This chapter considers Blitzstein’s few years of co-habitation with Bill Hewitt; his continued leftist activities, including his involvement with the American-Soviet Music Society and his support for ...
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This chapter considers Blitzstein’s few years of co-habitation with Bill Hewitt; his continued leftist activities, including his involvement with the American-Soviet Music Society and his support for Henry Wallace; the growing censuring of him and his activities by anti-communists, including his inclusion in Red Channels; and his heightened championing of the amalgamation of popular and serious traditions as found in American, including Broadway musicals, and in the Soviet Union, including Prokofiev. This chapter also surveys his work from the immediate postwar years, including an unproduced show about Soviet-American friendship, Goloopchik; his incidental scores for Lillian Hellman’s Another Part of the Forest and G. B. Shaw’s Androcles and the Lion; and his ballet for Lincoln Kirstein and the New York City Ballet, The Guests, choreographed by Jerome Robbins.Less
This chapter considers Blitzstein’s few years of co-habitation with Bill Hewitt; his continued leftist activities, including his involvement with the American-Soviet Music Society and his support for Henry Wallace; the growing censuring of him and his activities by anti-communists, including his inclusion in Red Channels; and his heightened championing of the amalgamation of popular and serious traditions as found in American, including Broadway musicals, and in the Soviet Union, including Prokofiev. This chapter also surveys his work from the immediate postwar years, including an unproduced show about Soviet-American friendship, Goloopchik; his incidental scores for Lillian Hellman’s Another Part of the Forest and G. B. Shaw’s Androcles and the Lion; and his ballet for Lincoln Kirstein and the New York City Ballet, The Guests, choreographed by Jerome Robbins.
Glenn Watkins
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520231580
- eISBN:
- 9780520927896
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520231580.003.0019
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
All-black units served in the historically segregated armed forces of the United States as late as the Korean War. No fewer than 3,000 black soldiers, freed from slavery, had fought in the army of ...
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All-black units served in the historically segregated armed forces of the United States as late as the Korean War. No fewer than 3,000 black soldiers, freed from slavery, had fought in the army of the American Revolution. Others figured in the War of 1812 and the Battle of New Orleans of 1814, and as many as 200,000 served in the Union army and navy during the Civil War. During the Great War, there were four black regiments in the regular army. The role of black service musicians in maintaining high levels of morale was soon a matter of record among the Allies and Central Powers alike, and their musical contributions were destined to reverberate long after the Armistice. This chapter focuses on the so-called “hellfighters” of the 369th regiment, including John Philip Sousa and James Reese Europe; the continuous production of “coon songs,” some written by black musicians themselves; bandmasters and the birth of an American conservatory in Fontainebleau, France; and the idea of a readily identifiable “American Music.”.Less
All-black units served in the historically segregated armed forces of the United States as late as the Korean War. No fewer than 3,000 black soldiers, freed from slavery, had fought in the army of the American Revolution. Others figured in the War of 1812 and the Battle of New Orleans of 1814, and as many as 200,000 served in the Union army and navy during the Civil War. During the Great War, there were four black regiments in the regular army. The role of black service musicians in maintaining high levels of morale was soon a matter of record among the Allies and Central Powers alike, and their musical contributions were destined to reverberate long after the Armistice. This chapter focuses on the so-called “hellfighters” of the 369th regiment, including John Philip Sousa and James Reese Europe; the continuous production of “coon songs,” some written by black musicians themselves; bandmasters and the birth of an American conservatory in Fontainebleau, France; and the idea of a readily identifiable “American Music.”.
Elizabeth B. Crist and Wayne Shirley (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300111217
- eISBN:
- 9780300133479
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300111217.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This chapter narrates events of great influence and importance in Aaron Copeland's life during the Great Depression. It notes the event of the First Festival of Contemporary American Music held on ...
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This chapter narrates events of great influence and importance in Aaron Copeland's life during the Great Depression. It notes the event of the First Festival of Contemporary American Music held on April 30 and May 1, 1932 at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, New York. At this event, the newly formed Young Composer's Group performed, composed of students of Nadia Boulanger and people Copeland knew. The chapter notes Copeland's role in the festival, and how his song selection was enthusiastically received. His performance at the piano is also considered a landmark in the history of the reception of Ives's music. Furthermore, the chapter showcases the letters that Copeland wrote to newspapers clarifying his supposed comment on newspaper critics being a “menace.” It marks the significance of Copeland's visit to Mexico City, whereby he adopted a style rooted in folk tradition that brought about the creation of his greatest works as Billy the Kid and Appalachian Spring.Less
This chapter narrates events of great influence and importance in Aaron Copeland's life during the Great Depression. It notes the event of the First Festival of Contemporary American Music held on April 30 and May 1, 1932 at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, New York. At this event, the newly formed Young Composer's Group performed, composed of students of Nadia Boulanger and people Copeland knew. The chapter notes Copeland's role in the festival, and how his song selection was enthusiastically received. His performance at the piano is also considered a landmark in the history of the reception of Ives's music. Furthermore, the chapter showcases the letters that Copeland wrote to newspapers clarifying his supposed comment on newspaper critics being a “menace.” It marks the significance of Copeland's visit to Mexico City, whereby he adopted a style rooted in folk tradition that brought about the creation of his greatest works as Billy the Kid and Appalachian Spring.
Nancy Yunhwa Rao
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040566
- eISBN:
- 9780252099007
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040566.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
In this expansive project, Nancy Yunhwa Rao examines the world of Chinatown theaters, focusing on iconic theaters in San Francisco and New York but also tracing the transnational networks and ...
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In this expansive project, Nancy Yunhwa Rao examines the world of Chinatown theaters, focusing on iconic theaters in San Francisco and New York but also tracing the transnational networks and migration routes connecting theaters and performers in China, Canada, and even Cuba. Drawing on a wealth of physical, documentary, and anecdotal evidence, Rao brings together the threads of an enormously complex story: on one hand, the elements outside the theaters, including U.S. government policies regulating Chinese immigration, dissemination through recordings and print materials of the music performed in the theaters, impresarios competing with each other for performers and audiences, and the role of Chinese American business organizations in facilitating the functioning of the theaters; and on the other hand, the world inside the theaters, encompassing the personalities and careers of individual performers, audiences, repertoire, and the adaptation of Chinese performance practices to the American immigrant context. The study also documents the important influence of the theaters on the Chinatown community's sense of its cultural self. Presenting Chinese American music as American music, Rao's work significantly revises understandings of American music by placing the musical activities of an important immigrant group firmly within the bounds of music identified as "American," liberating it from the ghetto of exoticism. Firmly grounded in both Chinese and English language sources, this study offers critical insight into both historical and contemporary questions of cultural identity in the American context.Less
In this expansive project, Nancy Yunhwa Rao examines the world of Chinatown theaters, focusing on iconic theaters in San Francisco and New York but also tracing the transnational networks and migration routes connecting theaters and performers in China, Canada, and even Cuba. Drawing on a wealth of physical, documentary, and anecdotal evidence, Rao brings together the threads of an enormously complex story: on one hand, the elements outside the theaters, including U.S. government policies regulating Chinese immigration, dissemination through recordings and print materials of the music performed in the theaters, impresarios competing with each other for performers and audiences, and the role of Chinese American business organizations in facilitating the functioning of the theaters; and on the other hand, the world inside the theaters, encompassing the personalities and careers of individual performers, audiences, repertoire, and the adaptation of Chinese performance practices to the American immigrant context. The study also documents the important influence of the theaters on the Chinatown community's sense of its cultural self. Presenting Chinese American music as American music, Rao's work significantly revises understandings of American music by placing the musical activities of an important immigrant group firmly within the bounds of music identified as "American," liberating it from the ghetto of exoticism. Firmly grounded in both Chinese and English language sources, this study offers critical insight into both historical and contemporary questions of cultural identity in the American context.
Joel Sachs
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780195108958
- eISBN:
- 9780190268015
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780195108958.003.0024
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This chapter considers the debate over the definition of “American” music, a complex issue entangling art with patriotism. While American painters and writers had achieved international recognition ...
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This chapter considers the debate over the definition of “American” music, a complex issue entangling art with patriotism. While American painters and writers had achieved international recognition and consequent acceptance at home, American composers remained largely unappreciated. A few musicians, including Henry Cowell, argued that compositional Americanism was completely unnecessary and virtually impossible at a high level of quality. They agreed that folk or vernacular music was useful only if composers could substantially elevate it as they absorbed it into “art” music. The sudden growth of jazz in the early 1920s suggested another route to “American music.” Henry was troubled by narrow definitions of “American,” so he challenged European and American ignorance of American musical diversity. He often attacked jazz as a criterion for American authenticity. In his introduction to the book American Composers on American Music, Henry tackled the controversy.Less
This chapter considers the debate over the definition of “American” music, a complex issue entangling art with patriotism. While American painters and writers had achieved international recognition and consequent acceptance at home, American composers remained largely unappreciated. A few musicians, including Henry Cowell, argued that compositional Americanism was completely unnecessary and virtually impossible at a high level of quality. They agreed that folk or vernacular music was useful only if composers could substantially elevate it as they absorbed it into “art” music. The sudden growth of jazz in the early 1920s suggested another route to “American music.” Henry was troubled by narrow definitions of “American,” so he challenged European and American ignorance of American musical diversity. He often attacked jazz as a criterion for American authenticity. In his introduction to the book American Composers on American Music, Henry tackled the controversy.
Samuel A. Floyd
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195109757
- eISBN:
- 9780199853243
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195109757.003.0010
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
Throughout its history in the United States, black music has been through the repetition and revision of texts, through the interplay of black language and black music in a long chain of Signifyin(g) ...
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Throughout its history in the United States, black music has been through the repetition and revision of texts, through the interplay of black language and black music in a long chain of Signifyin(g) tropes, such that African American peasants became and continue to be poets in a land that initially denied them the right to be called artists of any stripe. It is clear from the nature of their texts and their tunes that the makers of this music—the repeaters and revisers of the musical derivatives of the ring—have privileged and honored the spirit of Esu as, for example, that spirit is personified in the redoubtable Harriet Tubman, who bid many thousands to come ride her train.Less
Throughout its history in the United States, black music has been through the repetition and revision of texts, through the interplay of black language and black music in a long chain of Signifyin(g) tropes, such that African American peasants became and continue to be poets in a land that initially denied them the right to be called artists of any stripe. It is clear from the nature of their texts and their tunes that the makers of this music—the repeaters and revisers of the musical derivatives of the ring—have privileged and honored the spirit of Esu as, for example, that spirit is personified in the redoubtable Harriet Tubman, who bid many thousands to come ride her train.
Imani Perry
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469638607
- eISBN:
- 9781469638621
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469638607.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Singing and fighting for freedom have been inseparable in African American history. May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem, tells an essential yet understudied part of that ...
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Singing and fighting for freedom have been inseparable in African American history. May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem, tells an essential yet understudied part of that story. Lift Every Voice and Sing, penned by James Weldon Johnson and composed by his brother Rosamond in 1900, was embraced as an anthem that captured the story and the aspirations of Black Americans almost immediately. This book shares the story of that song, as it traveled from South to North, from churches to schools, and from civil rights to Black power, and beyond. Because it is an anthem, the story of this song is also a social and cultural history. Readers will learn of the institutions and organizations, as well as the lessons and the emotions shared by those who sang together. Drawing on a wide array of materials including: letters, newspaper articles, essays, poems, novels, school curricula, speeches and the programs of hundreds of organizations, readers have a window into the robust social, cultural and political world that African Americans organized in the face of an unequal society, and how that world produced people who were capable of transforming the nation and world.Less
Singing and fighting for freedom have been inseparable in African American history. May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem, tells an essential yet understudied part of that story. Lift Every Voice and Sing, penned by James Weldon Johnson and composed by his brother Rosamond in 1900, was embraced as an anthem that captured the story and the aspirations of Black Americans almost immediately. This book shares the story of that song, as it traveled from South to North, from churches to schools, and from civil rights to Black power, and beyond. Because it is an anthem, the story of this song is also a social and cultural history. Readers will learn of the institutions and organizations, as well as the lessons and the emotions shared by those who sang together. Drawing on a wide array of materials including: letters, newspaper articles, essays, poems, novels, school curricula, speeches and the programs of hundreds of organizations, readers have a window into the robust social, cultural and political world that African Americans organized in the face of an unequal society, and how that world produced people who were capable of transforming the nation and world.
Edward A. Berlin
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199740321
- eISBN:
- 9780190245221
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199740321.003.0012
- Subject:
- Music, History, American, Opera
Joplin’s first publication after Freddie’s death was Bethena, a sad, poignant waltz. It was issued by T. Bahnsen, a piano manufacturer that published two other Joplin pieces in 1905. With Leola, ...
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Joplin’s first publication after Freddie’s death was Bethena, a sad, poignant waltz. It was issued by T. Bahnsen, a piano manufacturer that published two other Joplin pieces in 1905. With Leola, published by Stark’s subsidiary American Music Syndicate, Joplin for the first time warned against playing ragtime fast. By the end of 1905, he had started on another opera. Stark moved to New York that year, opening an office a few blocks from Tin Pan Alley; his son William continued operation of the St. Louis office. Joplin lived in Chicago for part of 1906, trying to cultivate contacts with other major publishers While in Chicago, he collaborated on Heliotrope Bouquet with the extremely talented but musically illiterate, Louis Chauvin; the piece was published by Stark the following year. In 1907, before leaving for New York, Joplin also collaborated on a song with the socialist publisher F. F. Berry.Less
Joplin’s first publication after Freddie’s death was Bethena, a sad, poignant waltz. It was issued by T. Bahnsen, a piano manufacturer that published two other Joplin pieces in 1905. With Leola, published by Stark’s subsidiary American Music Syndicate, Joplin for the first time warned against playing ragtime fast. By the end of 1905, he had started on another opera. Stark moved to New York that year, opening an office a few blocks from Tin Pan Alley; his son William continued operation of the St. Louis office. Joplin lived in Chicago for part of 1906, trying to cultivate contacts with other major publishers While in Chicago, he collaborated on Heliotrope Bouquet with the extremely talented but musically illiterate, Louis Chauvin; the piece was published by Stark the following year. In 1907, before leaving for New York, Joplin also collaborated on a song with the socialist publisher F. F. Berry.
Joel Sachs
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780195108958
- eISBN:
- 9780190268015
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780195108958.003.0033
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This chapter focuses on Henry Cowell's first summer in California's San Quentin Prison, where he was sentenced to one to fifteen years in 1936 due to a morals charge involving a young man. Henry's ...
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This chapter focuses on Henry Cowell's first summer in California's San Quentin Prison, where he was sentenced to one to fifteen years in 1936 due to a morals charge involving a young man. Henry's pre-prison fear of being forbidden to write was unfounded, but the daily limit of a single two-page letter prevented him from staying in touch with his friends and maintaining his professional activities. In San Quentin, he had been temporarily assigned to a morning sweeping detail until a full-time job was organized. In his letters to his father Harry, Henry refrained from describing the real conditions of the prison. At the time, San Quentin seemed like a powder keg ready to explode, jammed with 6,000 men in a space designed for half as many. The prison was also filled with contraband—drugs, alcohol, weapons, poison, knockout drops, cigars, candy—all ingeniously smuggled in. After about a month, Henry discovered that prisoners had ordered the books New Musical Resources and American Composers on American Music more than a dozen times under a lending agreement with the state library at Sacramento.Less
This chapter focuses on Henry Cowell's first summer in California's San Quentin Prison, where he was sentenced to one to fifteen years in 1936 due to a morals charge involving a young man. Henry's pre-prison fear of being forbidden to write was unfounded, but the daily limit of a single two-page letter prevented him from staying in touch with his friends and maintaining his professional activities. In San Quentin, he had been temporarily assigned to a morning sweeping detail until a full-time job was organized. In his letters to his father Harry, Henry refrained from describing the real conditions of the prison. At the time, San Quentin seemed like a powder keg ready to explode, jammed with 6,000 men in a space designed for half as many. The prison was also filled with contraband—drugs, alcohol, weapons, poison, knockout drops, cigars, candy—all ingeniously smuggled in. After about a month, Henry discovered that prisoners had ordered the books New Musical Resources and American Composers on American Music more than a dozen times under a lending agreement with the state library at Sacramento.
