Saint Louis Blues: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A signed copy of WC Handy's Saint Louis Blues sheet music. Front cover, light blue with a black-and-white depiction of two men by a river filled with various sized boats at the center, with [WC Handy's] at the top center in white, with [SAINT LOUIS BLUES] in black underneath, and [City of / St. Louis / 1872] in black ink in a white elaborate circle underneath the depiction, with Handy Brothers Music Co. Inc. logo and address below at the center. White elaborate line decoration as border of front cover. Interior is off-white with black type. Music sheet on interior of front and back covers, with one single sheet of interior paper, with front and back as music sheets. Footer on first interior page reads [Copyright MCMXIV by W.C. Handy / Published by Handy Brothers Music Co., Inc., 1587 Broadway, N.Y.C. / International Copyright Secured All Rights Reserved]. Back cover is an excerpt from W.C. Handy's "The Memphis Blues".

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 1914
• Written by: W. C. Handy, American, 1873 - 1958
• Type: sheet music
• Medium: ink on paper
• Dimensions: closed: 12 1/8 × 9 1/4 × 1/16 in. (30.8 × 23.5 × 0.2 cm)
• Dimensions: open: 12 1/8 × 18 5/16 × 1/16 in. (30.8 × 46.5 × 0.2 cm)
• Place depicted: Saint Louis, Missouri, United States, North and Central America
• Place printed: New York City, New York, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Object number: 2014.3.22
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Paxton and Rachel Baker
• 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 displayed image also has an explicit CC0 designation. The underlying object's rights statement is: Public domain Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.