Play That Barber Shop Chord: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

Sheet music for the song Play That Barber Shop Chord. The front cover of the sheet music features an image of a man in blackface wearing a tuxedo and top hat. The man is set against a background of music bars and notes. On the top of the front cover, red and black type reads: [PLAY THAT / BARBER SHOP CHORD]. Above and below the image of the man, black type reads: [PROMINENTLY FEATURED BY / BERT WILLIAMS / Words by / WM. TRACEY / Music by / LEWIS F. MUIR]. At the bottom of the front cover there is a logo for the publisher that reads: [J. Fred Helf Company / 136 West 37th St. N.Y. City / Successor to Helf & Hager Company]. Underneath the logo the number 6 appears in black ink. The inside cover of the sheet music contains music bars and notes printed in black in for a song titled: [Betsy Ross]. The interior of the sheet music contains three pages printed in black ink for the song Play That Barber Shop Chord. The back cover features sheet music in blue ink for a song titled: [My Love Is Greater Than The World].

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 1910
• Subject of: Bert Williams, American, 1874 - 1922
• Composed by: Lewis F. Muir, American, 1884 - 1915
• Written by: William G. Tracey, American, 1893 - 1957
• Published by: J. Fred Helf Company, American
• 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 1/2 × 10 3/16 in. (34.3 × 25.9 cm)
• Place collected: Sonora, Tuolumne County, California, United States, North and Central America
• Place printed: New York City, New York County, New York, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Blackface
• Topic: Minstrel (Music)
• Topic: Stereotypes
• Topic: Vaudeville
• Object number: 2014.275.5
• 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 underlying object's rights statement is: Public domain Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.