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. During World War I, New York City audiences (if they knew the language of the performance) could attend patriotic musicals with titles like ____ War Brides and ____ Martyrs of America. What ethnic group fills in the blanks?

a. Jewish

From the late 1880s to around 1940, Yiddish-language theatre found a home in New York City—as did the wave of Jewish immigrants who brought the performance form to the U.S. Fleeing persecution in Russia, these immigrants, whether they chose to be performing artists or audience members, developed a unique theatre culture. Unlike the short variety acts of contemporary vaudeville, Yiddish theatre presented full-evening-length plays, accompanied by music or broken up with song-and-dance numbers. Plays adapted popular works by authors like Shakespeare and Anton Chekhov, drew from folklore and folk customs, and/or commented on recent events in the U.S. and abroad. Some addressed issues of assimilation, such as intermarriage and generational gaps, while others praised the virtues of the immigrants' adopted country—as did the musicals mentioned above.

2. In 1852, a 42-member opera troupe arrived in the U.S. After giving successful performances to immigrants from its country of origin, it traveled to New York City, where non-immigrants panned its performances. Where did the troupe come from?

d. China

In 1852, the Tong Hook Tong Dramatic Company arrived in California, following the stream of Chinese immigrants who had come to the state with the 1848 gold rush. Greeted warmly by immigrant audiences, they accepted a contract to perform in New York City. In New York, they discovered the contract was a scam, and secured their own theatre space, performing for New Yorkers independently. Chinese opera bears little resemblance to European opera, and even less to the "Oriental" image of China then popular on the mainstream stage. Confused by what they were seeing, New Yorkers rejected genuine Chinese theatre that did not match up with contemporary media stereotypes.

3. In the 1960s and 1970s, a grassroots theatre movement, beginning in efforts to educate migrant farmers and encourage them to form unions, took off, spreading across the United States. Which minority group did this movement represent?

c. Chicanos

In 1965, Luis Valdez, the son of Chicano migrant farm workers, founded the theatrical company El Teatro Campesino. El Teatro Campesino took theatrical performances—often without props, sets, or written scripts—directly to the camps of migrant farm workers. In its performances, the company sought to inspire farm workers to form a farm workers' union, but it also performed pieces based on Mexican popular theatre: corridas (dramatized ballads), peladitos (comic skits with an underdog protagonist), and religious pageants.

El Teatro Campesino's success led to the growth of a national Chicano theatre movement, which peaked in the 1970s.

4. In the late 1910s and the 1920s, record companies including Okeh, Paramount, Vocalion, and Columbia began releasing records by performers from which minority group?

c. African Americans

Prior to the Great Migration of the early 20th century, when African Americans came north in search of a better life, major record companies released African American music, but only as performed by white performers. Sensing the potential for a new market, the companies began to record African American performers and release their music on special labels targeted at African American audiences. Called "race records," these records were later marketed to white audiences as well. African Americans also established their own companies to distribute records—the first African American owned label, Black Swan, was established in 1921. Many styles of music associated with race records would later be recategorized as "rhythm and blues."

1. This was a popular Civil War song sung by Union and Confederate soldiers. Regimental bands typically ended evening camp concerts by playing this song and bands of opposing armies sometimes performed the song together across battle lines:

Home Sweet Home. John Howard Payne, a traveling actor who wrote the lyrics, lived his entire life in hotel rooms and boarding houses, never having an actual home.

2. After battle, while preparing casualties from the opposing army for burial, a captain discovered his own son among the dead soldiers. On his son’s body, he found the music for this song written on a scrap of paper:

Taps. Captain Robert Ellicombe asked his company bugler to play the music at his son's burial. The next day, Division Commander Gen. Daniel Butterfield, asked his bugler, Oliver Morton, to arrange the piece for a new bugle call, which was soon played throughout the entire Union Army.

3. The melody to this song was originally a popular drinking tune:

Star Spangled Banner. John Stafford Smith composed the melody for a London social club in the late 1700s, and the music was used for a religious hymn and later for a popular drinking song in London and America.

4. Originally a religious song, this music, with new lyrics, became a famous marching song:

Battle Hymn of the Republic. Southerner William Steffe composed the music for a religious hymn, and Union soldiers marched to the song, singing the words of "John Brown's Body." When Julia Ward Howe saw troops marching to the tune, she was so inspired by its pageantry that the words to "Battle Hymn" came to her in the middle of the night.

5. A man from Ohio wrote this song while sitting in a New York City hotel room:

Dixie. Northerner Dan D. Emett did not write the song with personal memories of old cotton fields back home. The song became a popular tune before the Civil War, and Confederate soldiers soon adopted it as their own. Ironically, the song was a favorite of Abraham Lincoln.

6. The author of this song never witnessed a battle or a baseball game before writing this piece:

Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Albert von Tilzer performed this song on vaudeville stages twenty years before he actually saw his first baseball game.