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“To Be an American”: How Irving Berlin Assimilated Jewishness and Blackness in his Early Songs

Gelbwasser, Kimberly

Abstract Details

2011, DMA, University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music: Voice.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, millions of immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe as well as the Mediterranean countries arrived in the United States. New York City, in particular, became a hub where various nationalities coexisted and intermingled. Adding to the immigrant population were massive waves of former slaves migrating from the South. In this radically multicultural environment, Irving Berlin, a Jewish-Russian immigrant, became a songwriter.

The cultural interaction that had the most profound effect upon Berlin’s early songwriting from 1907 to 1914 was that between his own Jewish population and the African-American population in New York City. In his early songs, Berlin highlights both Jewish and African-American stereotypical identities.

Examining stereotypical ethnic markers in Berlin’s early songs reveals how he first revised and then traded his old Jewish identity for a new American identity as the “King of Ragtime.” This document presents two case studies that explore how Berlin not only incorporated stereotypical musical and textual markers of “blackness” within two of his individual Jewish novelty songs, but also converted them later to genres termed “coon” and “ragtime,” which were associated with African Americans. This document also studies how visual and aural markers serve to reinforce or contradict ethnic identity as defined musically and textually by Berlin.

Steven Cahn, PhD (Committee Chair)
David Berry, PhD (Committee Member)
Barbara Paver, DMA (Committee Member)
75 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Gelbwasser, K. (2011). “To Be an American”: How Irving Berlin Assimilated Jewishness and Blackness in his Early Songs [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1305834530

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Gelbwasser, Kimberly. “To Be an American”: How Irving Berlin Assimilated Jewishness and Blackness in his Early Songs. 2011. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1305834530.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Gelbwasser, Kimberly. "“To Be an American”: How Irving Berlin Assimilated Jewishness and Blackness in his Early Songs." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1305834530

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)