Collection Items

  • Article
    Christensen's Ragtime Review The term "ragtime" took on new shades of meaning in the first decades of the 20th century. Originally defined as the "classic rag" style of African-American piano players in the 1880s and 1890s, it described a unique style in which the pianist "ragged" or syncopated the rhythms. Later, however, "ragtime" came to signify a world of popular entertainment that had been sterilized for general...
  • Article
    History of Ragtime Ragtime, a uniquely American, syncopated musical phenomenon, has been a strong presence in musical composition, entertainment, and scholarship for over a century. It emerged in its published form during the mid-1890s and quickly spread across the continent via published compositions. By the early 1900s ragtime flooded the music publishing industry. The popularity and demand for ragtime also boosted sale of pianos and greatly swelled...
  • Article
    Treemonisha Scott Joplin composed three works for the stage. The first, The Ragtime Dance, depicted a typical African-American dance gathering; it was performed in 1899 at the Black 400 Club in Sedalia, Missouri. The second work, A Guest of Honor, about Booker T. Washington's dinner with Teddy Roosevelt at the White House, premiered in East St. Louis, Illinois, in 1903. Joplin took the production on...
  • Article
    Classic Rag Ragtime music adapted to the unique style and invention of each composer and musician. Certain rags, however, particularly those by Scott Joplin and the composers who published with John Stark & Son, can be categorized as "classic." These instrumental rags fit a certain musical structure.
  • Article
    Sit Down, Shut Up, and Listen to Ragtime: Bob Milne and the Occupational Folklore of the Traveling Piano Player Every group, from the smallest family to the largest ethnicity, has a repertoire of informally learned stories, sayings, customs, techniques, and expressive traditions. This material is called folklore. Folklore allows group members to recognize one another as members of a specialized community, to express group solidarity, and to interact in ways that they find especially useful, satisfying, or meaningful. Occupational groups are no exception,...