"The Moon Shines on the Moonshine": Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This sheet music for the song "The Moon Shines on the Moonshine” was composed by Robert Hood Bowers with lyrics by Francis DeWitt, and published by Shapiro, Bernstein & Co., Inc., in New York, New York, in 1920.

There is an image of American entertainer and comedian Bert Williams on the cover. The cover indicates: "...Sung with Sensational Success by Bert Williams. Sensational song hit of Ziegfeld Jr's Ziegfeld Follies."

The song, among the most popular in The Ziegfeld Follies of 1919, laments the closure of liquor distilleries and breweries while celebrating the illicit production of moonshine "in the mountain tops, far from the eyes of cops." The song became a hit the same year that the 18th Amendment, prohibiting the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages, was ratified into law. Williams recorded the anti-prohibition anthem for Columbia Records and it sold over 250,000 copies, one of his best-selling releases and biggest hits of the era.

Materials, dates and provenance

• publishing date: 1920
• depicted (sitter): Williams, Bert
• publisher: Shapiro, Bernstein & Co., Inc.
• Object Name: sheet music
• Physical Description: paper (overall material)
• Physical Description: ink (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 12 1/4 in x 9 3/8 in; 31.115 cm x 23.8125 cm
• place made: United States: New York, New York
• ID Number: 2015.0018.01
• accession number: 2015.0018
• catalog number: 2015.0018.01
• 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.