Sam DeVincent Collection of Illustrated American Sheet Music, Series 31: Dialects and Foreign Songs
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: This collection was purchased by the Smithsonian Institution in 1988 from Sam and Nancy Lee DeVincent.
setName: label: See more items in
content: Sam DeVincent Collection of Illustrated American Sheet Music, Series 31: Dialects and Foreign Songs
abstract: label: Summary
content: Sam DeVincent loved music and art and began collecting sheet music with lithographs at an early age. Series 31 contains materials documenting dialects and foreign songs. An overview to the entire DeVincent collection is available here: Sam DeVincent Collection of Illustrated American Sheet Music.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 4 Boxes
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1847-1952
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.0300.S31
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: Collection processed by Eva Buchanan, Katie DeFonzo, and Stephanie Haeg, interns, summer 2017; supervised by Vanessa Broussard Simmons, archivist. 

Collection digitized by Noah Stewart, digitization technician, 2025.
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Includes material documenting the cultural values and popular attitudes toward different ethnicities in the United States. The bulk of the material dates from 1873 to 1924. The materials are arranged in alphabetical order by dialect in four boxes. The music is generally composed for piano and piano/vocal and includes Italian, German, Mexican, and Yiddish dialects. Other dialects of the series are French, Russian, Irish, and Cockney. Most of the songs are in English, depicting stereotypical attributes of each dialect. These subjects include families, religion, wealth, traveling, and cuisine. Most of the compositions are ragtime music as well as waltzes, two-steps, marches, and ballads. The illustrations in the series depict stereotypical images of individuals from different ethnic backgrounds.
relatedmaterial: label: Materials in Others Organizations
content: Sam DeVincent Collection of American Sheet Music, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana

This collection contains duplicates of materials in the Smithsonian collection, as well as materials acquired by Mr. DeVincent after the donation to the Smithsonian. The phonograph records described above were transferred to the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
label: Materials in the Archives Center, National Museum of American History
content: Donald J. Stubblebine Collection of Musical Theater and Motion Picture Sheet Music and Reference Material, 1843-2010 (AC1211)
label: Forms Part of
content: Series 31: Dialects and Foreign Songs forms part of the Sam DeVincent Collection of Illustrated American Sheet Music.

An ongoing, updated list of DeVincent topical series is available via the Smithsonian finding aid portal.