Is It True What They Say About Dixie?: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

Sheet music for “Is It True What They Say About Dixie?” The cover has a black background with white printed text. The title [Is It True / What They Say About / Dixie / ?] is at the top of the front cover. There is a drawing of a man in a black suit, white gloves, and blackface standing in the center of the cover with his arms outstretched. The bottom right corner has the composers [IRVING CAESAR / SAMMY LERNER / GERALD MARKS]. There are three (3) pages, printed on both sides. The back of the front cover has [Try this over on your Piano / The Rooster’s Crowin’] by Irving Caesar, Jean Herbert, and Gerald Marks. “Is It True What They Say About Dixie?” begins on the loose middle page and continues onto the interior back page. The back cover has an excerpt of [Dust Off That Old Pianna [sic]] inside a decorative border. There is chipping and loss around the edges of all the pages.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 1936
• Published by: Irving Caesar Music, Inc., American, 1930s - 1970s
• Created by: Irving Caesar, American, 1895 - 1996
• Created by: Sammy Lerner, Romanian American, 1903 - 1989
• Created by: Gerald Marks, American, 1900 - 1997
• Created by: Jean Herbert, born 1905
• Type: sheet music
• Medium: ink on paper
• Dimensions: H x W: 12 3/8 × 9 3/16 in. (31.4 × 23.3 cm)
• Place made: New York City, New York, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: American South
• Topic: Blackface
• Topic: Caricature and cartoons
• Topic: Minstrel (Music)
• Topic: Stereotypes
• Object number: 2017.14.12
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of the Stokes/Washington Family
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: © Irving Caesar Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.