Uploaded January 2021 | Updated September 2026, 6 days ago
Day 305 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series
First published in Carl Sandburg's 1927 The American Songbag.
Sandburg writes: "The barber shop harmonizers of midwest towns used to make up their own melodies and then mix in the words. In Galesburg [Sandburg's birthplace], boys from the Q. railroad shops, from Colton’s foundry and the Purington brickyards, would meet in front of Brown’s hotel or the Union hotel, practice with their voices as they strolled off Main Street, and then make the rounds of the ice-cream “sociables” held by various churches on a summer evening.
Some boys would find the girls they were looking for. Others stayed with the bunch and sang. One of the favorite pieces, about the time of the Chicago anarchist case [The Haymarket Square Incident, May 4, 1886], was this white man’s spiritual."
Day 305 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series
First published in Carl Sandburg's 1927 The American Songbag.
Sandburg writes: "The barber shop harmonizers of midwest towns used to make up their own melodies and then mix in the words. In Galesburg [Sandburg's birthplace], boys from the Q. railroad shops, from Colton’s foundry and the Purington brickyards, would meet in front of Brown’s hotel or the Union hotel, practice with their voices as they strolled off Main Street, and then make the rounds of the ice-cream “sociables” held by various churches on a summer evening.
Some boys would find the girls they were looking for. Others stayed with the bunch and sang. One of the favorite pieces, about the time of the Chicago anarchist case [The Haymarket Square Incident, May 4, 1886], was this white man’s spiritual."
