“All Coons Look a Like to Me”: Museum Object and Cultural History
“All Coons Look a Like to Me”: publishing date: 1896. composer; lyricist: Hogan, Ernest. publisher: M. Witmark & Sons.
The object in the museum catalogue
This sheet music for the song, "All Coons Look Alike to Me: A Darkey Misunderstanding” was composed by Ernest Hogan. Hogan is billed as “the composer of the famous Pas-Ma-La” on the cover. The music was published by M. Witmark and Sons in New York, New York in 1896. Coon songs were popular from around 1890-1910 and often presented insulting and stereotypical racist depictions of African-Americans. In this song, “all coons look alike” to the female singer of this song because she only had eyes for one man. The composer, Ernest Hogan was black and later regretted writing the song.
Materials, dates and provenance
- publishing date: 1896
- composer; lyricist: Hogan, Ernest
- publisher: M. Witmark & Sons
- Object Name: sheet music
- Physical Description: paper (overall material)
- Physical Description: ink (overall material)
- Measurements: overall: 14 in x 11 in; 35.56 cm x 27.94 cm
- place made: United States: New York, New York
- ID Number: 1979.1154.12
- accession number: 1979.1154
- catalog number: 1979.1154.12
- Credit Line: Gift of C. Malcolm Watkins
- Data Source: National Museum of American History
Sources and reuse
Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.
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