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Banjo Collection
Banjo Collection
Description of the Banjo Collection
A collection of materials related to banjos held by the Rare Books and Special Collections Department. Many of these items were acquired from the Robert Fraker Collection of Nineteenth-Century Banjo Instruction Manuals.
Includes
- 36 banjo instruction manuals
- 32 minstrel broadsides
- Sermons, essays, and other writings
- Three published dissertations on the banjo
- Two banjo music sales catalogs
- One loose piece of sheet music
Background
For an introduction to the banjo, its history, and its cultural significance up to the Jazz Age and biographies of the authors of these banjo instruction manuals see 19th Century Banjo Instructions Manuals, a digital exhibit on the Hamilton College Library Online Exhibits website (powered by Omeka).
For a selected bibliography of primary sources for further research on the history of the banjo, see Bibliography - 19th Century Banjo Instructions Manuals, a digital exhibit hosted on the Hamilton College Library Online Exhibits website (powered by Omeka).
Contact
Christian Goodwillie, Director and Curator of Special Collections and Archives
E-mail: cgoodwil (at) hamilton (dot) edu
Telephone: (315) 859-4447
Special Collections
Burke Library
198 College Hill Road
Clinton, NY 13323
Display Options
Pages
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- 8th Season Boston Museum. No. 367 ... Lots of fun! Change of programme every night! Last week of the performances of Horn, Wells, and Briggs' popular and talented troupe of Ethiopian Serenaders! Who will introduce on Thursday evening, July 31, 1851, and e
- Broadside advertising performances by Horn, Wells and Briggs' Ethiopian Serenaders at the Boston Museum on Thursday, July 31, 1851, and through the week. Performance include "Black Shakers," "Dutch Drill," and "Old Tar River.";
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- 8th Season Boston Museum. No. 370 ... Positively the last performances of Horn, Wells, and Briggs' Ethiopian serenaders! This Saturday afternoon & evening commencing at 3 & 8 o'clock, p. m.
- Broadside advertising performances by Horn, Wells and Briggs' Ethiopian Serenaders at the Boston Museum on Saturday, August 2, 1851.; Date is incribed in pencil on the front of the broadside.
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- Arch St. Theatre : Positively the last week Monday evening, June 13, 1859 ... Morris Bro's Pell & Trowbridge's minstrels and cow-bell-o-gians!!
- Broadside advertising stage performances by the Morris Brothers, Pell & Trowbridge's Minstrels in Philadelphia on June 13, 1859.; Charles Morris information derived from a New York Times obituary from April 20, 1922. [https://www.nytimes.com/1922/04/20/archives/charles-a-morris-veteran-minstrel.html];
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- Benefit of Frank Brower opera night : thirteenth and last night but two, of Ordway's Æolians!
- Title from content of broadside after header information.; At head of title: Wheatley's Arch St. Theatre Wednesday evening, July 21st.; Broadside advertising performance by Ordway's Æolians in Philadelphia at Wheatley's Arch St. Theater on Wedenesday, July 21st 1858. Acts include various musical performances and a stage performance entitles "Oh! Hush!";
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- Birch, Wambold, Bernard & Backus, San Francisco Minstrels : Thursday evening, Jan. 25, 1866.
- Title from content of broadside after header information.; At head of title: San Francisco Minstrels 585 Broadway, opposite Metropolitan Hotel. Nulli secundus! Thirty-eighth week. Houses crowded to repletion.; Broadside advertising musical and stage performances by the Birch, Wambold, Bernard & Backus San Francisco Minstrels in New York on January 25, 1866.;
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- Boston Museum ... Friday evening, July 11, [1856] : unprecedented attraction for the benefit of S.S. Sanford! Manager of the Sanford Opera Troupe.
- Broadside advertising stage performances of music and dance ensembles and a performance of the 5th act of William Shakespeare's "Richard III" by Sandford's Opera Troupe in Boston on Friday, July 11, 1856.;
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- Boz's Juba, with C. W. Pell's Ethiopian Serenaders, from the Royal Gardens, Vauxhall, will give a morning concert at the theatre, this day, Saturday, October 7, commencing at two o'clock.
- Title from content of broadside after header information.; At head of title: Theatre-Royal, Bath.; Broadside for a performance by Boz's Juba (William Henry Lane) and G.W. Pell's Ethiopian Serenaders at the Theatre-Royal in Bath, England.; The date of 1848 is handwritten on the broadside.
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- Bryant's Minstrels : benefit of Dan Bryant & Eph Horn!
- Titlefrom content of broadside after header information.; At head of title: Boston Museum! Acting and Stage manager Mr. E. F. Keach.; Broadside advertising musical ensemble performances by Bryant's Minstrels at Boston Museum on Friday, August 2,1861.; Evan Evans Hern (1823-1877) performed under the stage name "Eph Horn" -- Burnt Cork and Tambourines: A Source Book for Negro Minstrelsy, by William ... [description clipped]
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- Burbeck & Browne's Minstrels will give an entertainment at [blank] hall, on [blank] evening.
- Broadside advertising musical and ensemble performances by Burbeck & Browne's Minstrels. Not date or location is specified.;
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- Charley White's complimentary benefit! : and last night of the troupe in Brooklyn, Friday evening Jan. 8th.
- Title from content of broadside after header information.; At head of title: Musical Hall, Brooklyn corner of Fulton and Orange sts., late Brooklyn Museum; Broadside advertising performances by Charley White, Sile Weed, Frank Wells (Bernard Mundy), and Master Tucker along with Charley White's Opera Troupe at Musical Hall, in Brooklyn on Friday, January 8th, 1857.;