“Women, Work, and Song in Nineteenth-Century France” explores both women’s work and the cultural work about women in the popular song industry, drawing on a selection of pieces from the 19th-Century French Sheet Music Collection at the Marvin Duchow Music Library. The exhibition highlights the varied and evolving roles of women over the course of the century, as producers, singers, and workers. These roles were inextricably linked to social developments, politics, revolutions and armed conflicts, the effects of the industrial revolution, and the expansion of consumer culture. The exhibition pieces reveal the cultural reaction to the changing position of women in society, observed in the songs’ text, music, and cover illustration (which were primarily created by men). Read more >

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