Tag: John Philip Sousa

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Military Marches and the Sousa Archives

With Memorial Day and military march concerts around in the corner in the United States, the IDHH is featuring a collection related to the “American March King”: the Sousa Archives Music Instrument Digital Image and 3D Model Collection from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library.

John Philip Sousa (1854–1932), known as the “American March King,” was a conductor and composer best known for his military marches. Some of his well-known marches are “The Stars and Stripes Forever” (the National March of the United States of America) and “The Liberty Bell” (used as the theme for the television series Monty Python’s Flying Circus). In addition to his music, Sousa helped to develop the sousaphone, a brass instrument related to the tuba that is easier to perform while marching.

The Sousa Archives and Center for American Music (SACAM) seeks to document America’s diverse music heritage through the acquisition and preservation of archival records and historical artifacts in multiple formats. Their Sousa Archives Music Instrument Digital Image and 3D Model Collection is a collection of images of photographs taken from multiple viewpoints of musical instruments in the Center’s physical collections, ranging from flutes to trumpets to guitars; some of the instruments also have a 3D digital model constructed that can be viewed online as well.

Here are a few of our favorite instruments:

image of a clarinet from the front side
Clarinet [front side view]. [undated] University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library. Sousa Archives Music Instrument Digital Image and 3D Model Collection. Courtesy of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library.
image of a heckelphone from the front side
Heckelphone [front side view]. 1926. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library. Sousa Archives Music Instrument Digital Image and 3D Model Collection. Courtesy of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library.
image of coronet from the right side
Cornet [right side view]. 1880. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library. Sousa Archives Music Instrument Digital Image and 3D Model Collection. Courtesy of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library.
image of a soprano saxophone from the right side
Saxophone (soprano) [right side view]. 1947. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library. Sousa Archives Music Instrument Digital Image and 3D Model Collection. Courtesy of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library.

Want to see more?

Visit the IDHH to browse the Sousa Archives Music Instrument Digital Image and 3D Model Collection or to see more items and collections from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library.          

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Welcome University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

This month the IDHH welcomes the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) into the hub. UIUC is no stranger to DPLA, and has been a contributing content hub to DPLA since 2013, so we are pleased to welcome a DPLA veteran aboard. UIUC comes to the IDHH with 19 collections ranging in subject from historical maps of Africa to theater and costume design, Irish political cartoons, and much more.

As part of the many collections that the University of Illinois is making available, the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music’s Music Instrument Digital Image and 3D Model Collection boasts 231 images of historical instruments (1810-1972) and includes both the familiar and the unfamiliar. The instruments chronicle the evolution of many of the instruments that we recognize today, as well as many instruments that are a product of their time and did not continue to be produced.

Check out this sneak peek of some of the instruments in this collection.

Frontal view of bugle against black background.
Bugle from the Carl Busch Papers and Music Instrument Collection, ca. 1833-1924 (series 12/9/91), Sousa Archives and Center for American Music, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Rectangular experimental guitar made of wood. Right side has 10 levers, there are 12 strings in the center, and a metal plate at the bottom.
Experimental Guitar, Elbern H. “Eddie” Alkire Personal Papers and Music Instrument Collection, 1926-1997 (series 12/9/91), Sousa Archives and Center for American Music, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Image of a heckelphone. Double-reed instrument made of a reddish wood with metal keys.
Heckelphone from the University Bands Collection, ca. 1840-1997 (series 12/9/93), Sousa Archives and Center for American Music

Wood and ivory instrument with finger holes. In the bagpipe family.
Musette from the Carl Busch Papers and Music Instrument Collection, ca. 1833-1924 (series 12/9/93), Sousa Archives and Center for American Music, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Silver instrument with keys, similar to saxophone, but with bell facing upwards.
Sarussophone from the Carl Busch Papers and Music Instrument Collection, ca. 1833-1924 (series 12/9/93), Sousa Archives and Center for American Music, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

To see more of the images in the collection, please click here.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has many other collections as part of the IDHH here.