{"object":[{"sourceId":{"label":"Source ID","value":"4575"},"copyright":{"label":"Copyright","value":"The American Folk Art Museum believes this work to be in the public domain."},"creditline":{"label":"Credit Line","value":"Museum purchase with partial funds provided by Becky and Bob Alexander, Lucy and Mike Danziger, Jane and Gerald Katcher, Donna and Marvin Schwartz, Kristy and Steve Scott, and an anonymous donor"},"endDate":{"label":"End Date","value":"1821"},"sortNumber":{"label":"Sort Number","value":"2014     1    1"},"invno":{"label":"Accession number","value":"2014.1.1"},"description":{"label":"Description","value":"Approximately 40 decorated pages, colors vibrant."},"medium":{"label":"Medium","value":"Watercolor and ink on paper"},"geographyPlaceregion":{"label":"Place/Region","value":""},"media":{"label":"Media","value":[{"mediaURL":"https://collection.folkartmuseum.org/internal/media/dispatcher/4718/full","mediaDepartment":"Object Photographs","mediaType":"Image","mediaId":"4718"},{"mediaURL":"https://collection.folkartmuseum.org/internal/media/dispatcher/4719/full","mediaDepartment":"Object Photographs","mediaType":"Image","mediaId":"4719"},{"mediaURL":"https://collection.folkartmuseum.org/internal/media/dispatcher/4720/full","mediaDepartment":"Object Photographs","mediaType":"Image","mediaId":"4720"}]},"title":{"label":"Title","value":"Tunebook"},"geographyCity":{"value":""},"textEntriesWebsitedisplaytext":{"value":["Introduced in late-18th century England, the \"shape note\" system was developed in the United States as a way to teach reading music by sight, and thereby facilitate community and congregational singing. It became a popular instructional tool that paired distinctively shaped note heads with corresponding musical (fa-sol) syllables; for example, fa was a triangle, sol a circle, la a rectangle, and mi a diamond. Adopted widely by schools and itinerant singing masters, the shape note system first appeared in The Easy Instructor, a tune book patented in 1798 by Edward Stammers and William Little that was initially published in Philadelphia by William Little and William Smith, (c.1801), before being sold to Albany-based publisher Websters & Skinners who, with singing master Daniel Steele, released a veritable flood of editions\u2014tens of thousands of copies\u2014of The Easy Instructor between 1801\u20131831.Little is known of Daniel Steele beyond a short advertisement in the Albany Argus dated December 16, 1817 that reads: Mr. Steele will commence school this evening for the purpose of instructing youth in the Rudiments of vocal Music [sic]. There is no evidence of Steele\u2019s musical career prior to 1817, but it can be assumed that he was brought on by Websters & Skinners to provide insight into the musical selection and various editorial updates that were made to each new edition. The Easy Instructor fluctuated with popular taste, substituting in new fashionable European tunes for old American favorites. The volume reached its peak popularity between 1814 and 1817, and continued to be edited and published by Steele until his death in 1828. From 1828-1831, Oliver Steele & Co. resumed publication releasing the final three editions.","Presbyterian immigrants of Scotch-Irish descent, fleeing unrest and displacement in Ulster, began arriving in the American colonies beginning in the seventeenth century and continuing into the early nineteenth. Settling initially in Pennsylvania, New York, and New England, many continued their journey further into frontier areas of Virginia, North Carolina, and Ohio, where there were greater opportunities. Daniel Steele, whose name is inscribed in this remarkable illustrated and illuminated tunebook, is not identified but was of Scotch-Irish heritage based on the psalm tunes contained in these pages. They comprise ten of the twelve traditional tunes used with the Scottish Psalter published in 1650, the metrical version of the psalms in which singing constituted a primary feature of the denomination. It has recently been recognized that a small number of such illuminated psalm books, once believed to be of Pennsylvania German origin, were actually made by members of Scotch-Irish communities. They are written in English, and the earliest examples include the sanctioned tunes that are written using Sol-Fa notation, a system of musical notes that enabled all congregants to sing the sacred psalms. This booklet of forty some-odd pages further includes several drawings that apparently derive from English and Irish sources, such as a depiction of Springhill Castle in Ireland. One illustration of the \"Whimsical Lover and Frail Alice\" is based on an engraving of 1786, an anti-Semitic lampoon on Sampson Gideon, a banker and financier of Jewish heritage who was raised as a Christian and granted an Irish peerage as First Baron Eardley of Spalding, County Lincoln. Another page illustrates the \"Moon and Seven Stars,\" which may refer to the jig tune played by American patriots as they burned a British war ship in the harbor of Warwick, Rhode Island, in 1772, and may also have held Masonic connotations. A page of particular note shows a figure in the guise of a plague doctor, wearing the characteristic mask in the form of a beaked bird and carrying a scythe, a symbol of death. The imagery may be connected to two pages whose inscriptions indicate the death of an infant. These include Epitaph on an Infant, composed in 1794 by Samuel Coleridge and later emended in the form as it appears in this tunebook, and verses from Isaac Watts\u2019s Divine and Moral Songs, first published in 1715.Stacy C. Hollander, \"Tunebook, 1821\" exhibition copy for American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2020. Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.　To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org"]},"collections":{"label":"Collections","value":["Books","eMuseum - Collection Highlights"]},"geography":{"label":"Geography","value":""},"id":{"label":"Id","value":"155141"},"geographyState":{"value":"Pennsylvania"},"geographyCountry":{"value":"United States"},"onview":{"label":"On View","value":"0"},"people":{"label":"Artist / Maker","value":{"displayOrder":"1","personRole":"Artist","personID":"2207","content":"Daniel Steele"}},"classifications":{"label":"Classification(s)","value":"Books/Manuscripts/Information Artifacts"},"textEntries":{"label":"Text Entries","value":["Introduced in late-18th century England, the \"shape note\" system was developed in the United States as a way to teach reading music by sight, and thereby facilitate community and congregational singing. It became a popular instructional tool that paired distinctively shaped note heads with corresponding musical (fa-sol) syllables; for example, fa was a triangle, sol a circle, la a rectangle, and mi a diamond. Adopted widely by schools and itinerant singing masters, the shape note system first appeared in The Easy Instructor, a tune book patented in 1798 by Edward Stammers and William Little that was initially published in Philadelphia by William Little and William Smith, (c.1801), before being sold to Albany-based publisher Websters & Skinners who, with singing master Daniel Steele, released a veritable flood of editions\u2014tens of thousands of copies\u2014of The Easy Instructor between 1801\u20131831.Little is known of Daniel Steele beyond a short advertisement in the Albany Argus dated December 16, 1817 that reads: Mr. Steele will commence school this evening for the purpose of instructing youth in the Rudiments of vocal Music [sic]. There is no evidence of Steele\u2019s musical career prior to 1817, but it can be assumed that he was brought on by Websters & Skinners to provide insight into the musical selection and various editorial updates that were made to each new edition. The Easy Instructor fluctuated with popular taste, substituting in new fashionable European tunes for old American favorites. The volume reached its peak popularity between 1814 and 1817, and continued to be edited and published by Steele until his death in 1828. From 1828-1831, Oliver Steele & Co. resumed publication releasing the final three editions.","Presbyterian immigrants of Scotch-Irish descent, fleeing unrest and displacement in Ulster, began arriving in the American colonies beginning in the seventeenth century and continuing into the early nineteenth. Settling initially in Pennsylvania, New York, and New England, many continued their journey further into frontier areas of Virginia, North Carolina, and Ohio, where there were greater opportunities. Daniel Steele, whose name is inscribed in this remarkable illustrated and illuminated tunebook, is not identified but was of Scotch-Irish heritage based on the psalm tunes contained in these pages. They comprise ten of the twelve traditional tunes used with the Scottish Psalter published in 1650, the metrical version of the psalms in which singing constituted a primary feature of the denomination. It has recently been recognized that a small number of such illuminated psalm books, once believed to be of Pennsylvania German origin, were actually made by members of Scotch-Irish communities. They are written in English, and the earliest examples include the sanctioned tunes that are written using Sol-Fa notation, a system of musical notes that enabled all congregants to sing the sacred psalms. This booklet of forty some-odd pages further includes several drawings that apparently derive from English and Irish sources, such as a depiction of Springhill Castle in Ireland. One illustration of the \"Whimsical Lover and Frail Alice\" is based on an engraving of 1786, an anti-Semitic lampoon on Sampson Gideon, a banker and financier of Jewish heritage who was raised as a Christian and granted an Irish peerage as First Baron Eardley of Spalding, County Lincoln. Another page illustrates the \"Moon and Seven Stars,\" which may refer to the jig tune played by American patriots as they burned a British war ship in the harbor of Warwick, Rhode Island, in 1772, and may also have held Masonic connotations. A page of particular note shows a figure in the guise of a plague doctor, wearing the characteristic mask in the form of a beaked bird and carrying a scythe, a symbol of death. The imagery may be connected to two pages whose inscriptions indicate the death of an infant. These include Epitaph on an Infant, composed in 1794 by Samuel Coleridge and later emended in the form as it appears in this tunebook, and verses from Isaac Watts\u2019s Divine and Moral Songs, first published in 1715.Stacy C. Hollander, \"Tunebook, 1821\" exhibition copy for American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2020. Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.　To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org"]},"beginDate":{"label":"Begin Date","value":"1821"},"displayDate":{"label":"Date","value":"1821"},"exhibitions":{"label":"Exhibitions","value":[{"exhibitionDisplayDate":"Monday, March 5, 2018 - Thursday, July 5, 2018","exhibitionEndISODate":"2018-07-05","exhibitionID":"224","exhibitionISOBeginDate":"2018-03-05","exhibitionBeginDate":"2018","exhibitionTitle":"Holding Space","exhibitionEndDate":"2018"},{"exhibitionDisplayDate":"Tuesday, February 11, 2020 - Sunday, January 3, 2021","exhibitionEndISODate":"2021-01-03","exhibitionID":"239","exhibitionISOBeginDate":"2020-02-11","exhibitionBeginDate":"2020","exhibitionTitle":"American Perspectives","exhibitionEndDate":"2021"},{"exhibitionDisplayDate":"Saturday, July 2, 2016 - Monday, September 19, 2016","exhibitionEndISODate":"2016-09-19","exhibitionID":"159","exhibitionISOBeginDate":"2016-07-02","exhibitionBeginDate":"2016","exhibitionTitle":"AMERICAN MADE","exhibitionEndDate":"2016"},{"exhibitionDisplayDate":"Saturday, May 22, 2021 - Sunday, October 8, 2023","exhibitionEndISODate":"2023-10-08","exhibitionID":"245","exhibitionISOBeginDate":"2021-05-22","exhibitionBeginDate":"2021","exhibitionTitle":"American Perspectives (Travel)","exhibitionEndDate":"2023"}]},"dimensions":{"label":"Dimensions","value":"5 × 8 1/2\" (closed)"}}]}