An advertisement in the sheet music of the song "Goodbye Broadway, Hello
France" (1917) announces: "Music will help win the war!" This ad hits
upon an American sentiment expressed not just in advertising, but heard
from other sectors of society during the American engagement in the
First World War. It was an idea both imagined and practiced, from
military culture to sheet music writers, about the power of music to
help create a strong military and national community in the face of the
conflict; it appears straightforward. Nevertheless, the published sheet
music, in addition to discourse about gender, soldiering and music,
evince a more complex picture of society. This book presents a study of
sheet music and military singing practices in America during the First
World War that critically situates them in the social discourses,
including issues of segregation and suffrage, and the historical context
of the war. The transfer of musical styles between the civilian and
military realm was fluid because so many men were enlisted from homes
with the sheet music while they were also singing songs in their
military training. Close musical analysis brings the meaningful musical
and lyrical expressions of this time period to the forefront of our
understanding of soldier and civilian music making at this time.
