ABSTRACT
Popular music serves as a medium through which people recall places, spaces, and activities of the past. While it overtly links time and place, popular music also embeds cultural values into our collective psyche. Popular music not only entertains; it challenges social structures, and it is often in music-related venues that cultural change is formulated. Because popular music is so culturally powerful, it is critical to examine women’s abundant contributions as performers, consumers, and producers. This chapter explores the intersectionality of gender and race by examining differing roles for Black and white women in American popular music between 1895-1945. Along with investigating racial and gender-based segregation, the chapter addresses how women’s visual images were used in print advertising and on stage. Included in the discussion are American parlor songs, circuses, revues, theatre, dance, and trends in Tin Pan Alley marketing. Guided listening experiences feature the work of Carrie Jacobs Bond, Ella Fitzgerald, the Andrews Sisters, Billie Holiday, and Maybelle Carter.
