Singing “Past, Present and Future”: Music in Early American Commemoration

Abstract

AbstractConstantly fearful about the fragility of the young republic in the decades following the Revolutionary War, Americans assiduously organized commemorative rituals. While historians have examined these commemorations, music's place in them has yet to be fully understood. By highlighting key themes in cross-regional, cross-racial discourse on commemoration and drawing on rich records preserved from Bennington, Vermont, this article exposes the varied purposes for which Americans used music in commemorations from the 1780s to the 1810s. In early postwar commemorations, Benningtonians used music to emphasize gratitude and virtue and educate local youth about proper behavior. As political rifts developed in the 1790s, community members also used music to articulate contemporary politics in terms of the revolutionary past and exhort their neighbors to take political action. To sustain these practices as new generations matured without firsthand experience of the war, locals used music to cultivate stronger ties to the battle. As Bennington illustrates, music provided a powerful means of shaping Americans’ perceptions of the past to urge them to action in the present for outcomes envisioned in the future, compellingly anchored in terms of gratitude, virtue, and memory.