When The Moon Shines: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

Sheet music for the song When The Moon Shines. The front cover for features an illustration of a country road running along a wood fence. Text box with black and white photographs appears in the bottom right corner. Inside the text box, there are two small circular black and white photographs of two African American men. Black type in box reads: [WHEN / THE MOON / SHINES / Introduced with pleasing effect in /WILLIAMS & WALKER'S / BIG PRODUCTION / WORDS BY / ALEX ROGERS / MUSIC BY / JAMES VAUGHAN / The ATTUCKS / MUSIC / PUBLISHING COMPANY / 1255 - 57 BROADWAY N.Y.]. Handwritten in ink, in the top left corner, is [Mrs. D.W. McDonald]. The interior of the sheet music has three pages of music bars and notes in black ink. The back cover of sheet music features sheet music for [“WHY ADAM SINNED”].

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 1904
• Subject of: Bert Williams, American, 1874 - 1922
• Subject of: George "Nash" Walker, American, 1873 - 1911
• Written by: Alex Rogers
• Composed by: James D. Vaughan, American, 1864 - 1941
• Published by: The Attucks Music Publishing Company, American, founded 1904
• Owned by: Vernon Sugg McDonald, American, 1906 - 1982
• Owned by: Mary Elizabeth Sugg, American, 1839 - 1915
• Type: sheet music
• Medium: ink on paper
• Dimensions: H x W: 13 3/4 × 10 3/4 in. (34.9 × 27.3 cm)
• Place collected: Sugg McDonald House, Sonora, Tuolumne County, California, United States, North and Central America
• Place printed: 1255 - 57 BROADWAY N.Y, New York City, New York, New York, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Minstrel (Music)
• Object number: 2014.275.2
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Sylvia Alden Roberts
• 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.