This is the first publication of an annotated monograph by the noted composer and folksong scholar Ruth Crawford Seeger. Originally written as a foreword for the 1940 book Our Singing Country, it was considered too long and was replaced by a much shorter version. According to her stepson, Pete Seeger, when the original was not included "Ruth suffered one of the biggest disappointments of the last ten years of her life. It just killed her . . . She was trying to analyze the whole style and problem of performing this music." Along with her children Mike and Peggy Seeger, he has long desired to see this work in print as it was meant to be read. The manuscript has been edited from several varying sources by Larry Polansky, with the assistance of Seeger's biographer Judith Tick. It is divided into two sections: I. "A Note on Transcription" and II. "Notes on the Songs and on Manners of Singing." Seeger examines all aspects of the relationship between singer, song, notation, the eventual performer, and the transcriber. In Section I, Seeger develops a complex and well-organized system of notation for these songs which is meant to be both descritive (transcription as cultural preservation) and prescriptive (she intended that others would be able to perform these songs). In Section II, she provides an interpretive theory for performance of this music, and suggests how performers might make the songs "their own" through a deep knowledge of the original styles. Ruth Crawford Seeger considered this work to be both a major accomplishment and a central statement of her own ideas on the topic. Larry Polansky is Associate Professor of Music at Dartmouth College, and a well-known composer and theorist on American music. Judith Tick is Professor of Music at Northeastern University and author of the first major biography of Ruth Crawford Seeger.

A little-known fact about the prominent US psychologist and educator Carl E. Seashore (1866–1949) is that he was deeply involved in the American eugenics movement. He was among the US academics to support eugenics long before German Nazis embraced it. A titan in a host of disciplines and a proponent of radical education reform, Seashore used his positional power to promote a constellation of education reforms consistent with central precepts of eugenics. Many of these reforms, including tracking, gifted and talented programs, and high-stakes standardized testing, were adopted and remain standard practice in the United States today. He promulgated the idea that musical talent is biologically inheritable, and he developed the first standardized tests of musical talent; these tests were used by early-twentieth-century researchers in their attempts to determine whether there are race differences in musical talent. Seashore’s ideas and work profoundly shaped music education’s research trajectory, as well as enduring “commonsense” beliefs about musical ability. An intersectional analysis, “Destined to Fail” focuses on the relationship between eugenics and Seashore’s views on ability, race, and gender. Koza concludes that Seashore promoted eugenics and its companion, euthenics, because he was a true believer. She also discusses the longstanding silences surrounding Seashore’s participation in eugenics. As a diagnosis and critique of the present, “Destined to Fail” identifies resemblances and connections between past and present that illustrate the continuing influence of eugenics—and the systems of reasoning that made early-twentieth-century eugenics imaginable and seem reasonable—on education discourse and practice today. It maps out discursive, citational, and funding connections between eugenicists of the early twentieth-century and contemporary White supremacists; this mapping leads to some of Donald Trump’s supporters and appointees.

Music and lyrics for over 200 songs. John Henry, Goin' Home, Little Brown Jug, Alabama-Bound, Ten Thousand Miles from Home, Shack Bully Holler, Black Betty, The Hammer Song, Bad Man Ballad, Jesse James, Down in the Valley, The Bear in the Hill, Shortenin' Bread, The Ballad of Davy Crockett, and many more.

In this volume, leading scholars of photography and media examine photography’s vital role in the evolution of media and communication in the nineteenth century. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the introduction of telegraphy, the development of a cheaper and more reliable postal service, the rise of the mass-circulation press, and the emergence of the railway dramatically changed the way people communicated and experienced time and space. Concurrently, photography developed as a medium that changed how images were produced and circulated. Yet, for the most part, photography of the era is studied outside the field of media history. The contributors to this volume challenge those established disciplinary boundaries as they programmatically explore the intersections of photography and “new media” during a period of fast-paced change. Their essays look at the emergence and early history of photography in the context of broader changes in the history of communications; the role of the nascent photographic press in photography’s infancy; and the development of photographic techniques as part of a broader media culture that included the mass-consumed novel, sound recording, and cinema. Featuring essays by noteworthy historians in photography and media history, this discipline-shifting examination of the communication revolution of the nineteenth century is an essential addition to the field of media studies. In addition to the editors, contributors to this volume are Geoffrey Batchen, Geoffrey Belknap, Lynn Berger, Jan von Brevern, Anthony Enns, André Gaudreault, Lisa Gitelman, David Henkin, Erkki Huhtamo, Philippe Marion, Peppino Ortoleva, Steffen Siegel, Richard Taws, and Kim Timby.