1. When was the music for "John Brown's Body" first printed?

c. 1858

The tune that would later become "John Brown's Body" developed in the religious camp meetings of the Second Great Awakening (a period of widespread evangelical religious revival, from the early to mid-1800s). Though it existed in various forms for at least several years beforehand, the music first appeared in print in choral books in 1858. Religious lyrics accompanied these versions—and included the "glory, glory, hallelujah" chorus that would remain in "John Brown's Body."

2. Which of the following lines was not in the early versions of "John Brown's Body?"

d. But tho' he lost his life in struggling for the slave

According to the most common "origin story," the tune to "John Brown's Body" gained its most famous lyrics—"John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave"—in 1859, some time after the execution of John Brown, the abolitionist who led an antislavery raid on Harper's Ferry, VA, and was subsequently hanged. However, these lyrics were not, originally, about that John Brown. Instead, they referred to a Massachusetts Union soldier, whose fellow soldiers improvised the song from the original camp-meeting tune and religious lyrics to tease him. The song gained verses and lyrics and spread, to be heard by others who assumed "John Brown" was John Brown the abolitionist. Later lyrics, like (d) above, worked from this assumption.

3. In 1861, William Weston Patton published a version of the song in which John Brown was whom?

d. A radical abolitionist executed in 1859

William Weston Patton (pictured here), abolitionist and president of Howard University, heard the song "John Brown's Body" in one of its early versions and wrote a more polished, elaborate set of lyrics for the tune. These lyrics changed the song from being about a John Brown (sometimes the abolitionist and sometimes not) to the John Brown, explicitly telling the story of Brown's execution and memorializing him as a martyr to the abolitionist cause.

4. Julia Ward Howe wrote the lyrics to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" (which shares a tune with "John Brown's Body") after hearing "John Brown's Body" sung by whom?

c. A battalion of soldiers in Washington, DC

Abolitionist Julia Ward Howe (pictured here) first heard "John Brown's Body" sung by soldiers during an 1861 troop review in Washington, DC. The tune struck her, but the lyrics, in one of their early forms referring to John Brown of the Massachusetts militia, did not. Shortly afterwards, she woke in a DC hotel and composed the words of a poem set to the tune of "John Brown's Body" while lying in bed. In 1862, the Atlantic Monthly published her new lyrics—a paean to the Union Army—to be sung along with the music that had inspired her to write it.

1. 1790
families with 11 or more members
families holding 2-4 slaves
avg. slaves per slaveholding family
free colored slaveholding families
persons of Scotch nationality
persons of Hebrew nationality

2. 1840
white persons 20 years of age and over who cannot read and write
scholars in primary and common schools
female slaves 55-99 years of age
free colored females under 10 years of age
men employed in newspaper production
persons employed in navigation of canals

3. 1870
male citizens 21 years of age and over
persons born in Africa
persons 10 and over who cannot read
total state taxation
public debt of the county
youths employed in manufacturing

4. 1880
persons born in China
Indians
colored persons
farms 500-999 acres rented for fixed money rental
average hours labor per week in iron and steel manufacturing
average youths and children employed in manufacturing

5. 1900
other colored females 5-20 years of age
illiterate foreign-born alien males 21 years of age and over
native white illiterates 10 years of age and over of native parentage
farms of colored owners and tenants
capital invested in buildings used in manufacturing
salaries of salaried officials, clerks, etc. in manufacturing

6. 1910
rural population
white persons born in asian turkey
native white males of voting age of mixed parentage
Indian, Chinese, Japanese and male of all other races of voting age
persons 15-17 years of age attending school
farms of foreign-born whites

1. The severely religious trend of thought, the barrenness of life, and the dangers from Indian attacks that impended about the year 1691, account for the occurrence in Massachusetts of the witchcraft troubles. The theory of Satanic manifestations was commonly held in European countries, and there claimed its thousands of victims. In Salem and surrounding towns, two or three hundred persons, some of them being of the highest character, were accused of having allowed themselves to become possessed by the devil. Of these, nineteen were judicially condemned and were put to death. The comparative brevity and mildness of this outburst of religious fanaticism testifies to the real sadness of the Puritan mind. Nowhere in the world at this time was life more pure or thought more elevated.

1912

2. Early in the year [1692], two children of the family of a clergyman in Salem village, the one eleven, the other nine years of age, having been for some time indisposed, and no relief being obtained from medical aid, the attending physician suggested the probability of their being bewitched. The children, informed of their supposed situation, complained of an Indian woman, and declared they were "pinched, pricked, and, tormented" by her. Other persons, soon after, afflicted with various complaints, attributed their sickness to the same cause; and several of the imagined witches were put in prison. In the month of June eleven persons were tried, condemned, and executed. The awful mania increased. In September, nine more received sentence of death. Each became suspicious of his neighbor. The charges of witchcraft, commencing with the lower part of society, extended to all ranks; even a clergyman, among others, having been executed. A confession of guilt became the only security for life; such not being condemned. In October, the number of persons accused was so great, and their standing in society so respectable, that by general consent, all persons were released, and all prosecutions dropped.

1823

3. The most plausible explanation may lie in the uncertainty of life in late seventeenth-century New England. Salem Village, a farming town on the edge of a commercial center, was torn between old and new styles of life. Some families were abandoning agriculture for trade, while others were struggling to maintain traditional ways. The villagers who exploited the new economic opportunities were improving their status relative to their neighbors. Most people were uncertain about their destiny, but none more so than adolescent girls. As children their fate lay in the hands of their parents, yet their ultimate destiny would depend on their husbands. But would their husbands be farmers or artisans or merchants? What would their future lives be like? No one knew. By lashing out and in effect seizing command of the entire town, the girls gave their lives a certainty previously lacking. At the same time, they afforded their fellow townspeople an opportunity to vent their frustrations at the unsettling changes in their lives. The accused witches were scapegoats for the shattered dream of an isolated Bible Commonwealth.

1982

4. In 1692, the supposed witchcraft broke out in Salem and Danvers. Here the first subjects of it were children. The disorder, whatever its character may have been, … [at first] affected the lower classes only; but at length it pervaded all ranks and conditions. Two daughters of a minister, in Salem, were strangely affected. Before this they had been quiet, happy children but now they began to look wild, shriek, tell strange stories, sit barefoot among the ashes, or go abroad with their clothes and hair in great disorder, looking like insane people. Sometimes they were dumb; at others they would complain of being pricked severely with pins. The madness continuing to spread… Those who confessed the crime of witchcraft, however, were not executed. It was indeed a fearful time. Multitudes were suspected and accused, and at one period no less than one hundred and fifty were in prison for witchcraft…. The excitement at length passed away; and the more rapidly in proportion as the criminals were treated with clemency. Multitudes owned, at length, that they confessed their guilt to save their lives! For a century past little has been said of witchcraft in the United States, and few believe in its existence. The events we have narrated are supposed to have been the result of delusion.

1866