Songs and Sounds of the Anti-Rent Movement in Upstate New York

The Saratoga County History Center at Brookside Museum is proud to present a program focusing on the musical legacy of the Anti-Rent movement in Upstate New York. Upstate New York’s Anti-Rent Movement is considered the last struggle over feudalism in the United States. Tenant farmers in the Hudson-Mohawk region engaged in organized protest throughout the 1840s to contest monopoly ownership of the land they worked. Arguing their cause in newspapers, on broadsides, and at rallies, their aspirations also took shape in poetry and song. During this presentation, taking place on August 30 at 2 p.m., discussion of this major 19th-century reform movement will be interspersed with Anti-Rent songs from broadsides and newspapers.

More than twenty sets of lyrics (and one instrumental composition) were written at various stages of the conflict. Some of their musical sources, such as “Old Dan Tucker” and “Bruce’s Address,” are still well known. Each song offers insight into the role vernacular music played in one of the nineteenth century’s major social reform movements. This is the first book to gather the poetry and corresponding tunes into one publication. Nancy Newman is Professor in the Department of Music and Theatre and Joint Faculty in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the State University of New York at Albany. She is the author of Songs and Sounds of the Anti-Rent Movement as well Good Music for a Free People: The Germania Musical Society in Nineteenth-Century America.

This event is free with registration and is presented with the support of Adirondack Trust Company. Tickets and more information are available online at brooksidemuseum.org.