{"id":5301,"date":"2026-05-04T18:57:43","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T18:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/?p=5301"},"modified":"2026-05-04T19:47:01","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T19:47:01","slug":"centers-new-exhibit-on-the-road-again-sousas-letters-home-opens-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/2026\/05\/04\/centers-new-exhibit-on-the-road-again-sousas-letters-home-opens-today\/","title":{"rendered":"New Exhibit, “On the Road Again: Sousa’s Letters Home,” Opens Today.\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Great Lakes Naval Band Recruitment Photograph, 1917.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sousa\u2019s influence on late 19th<\/sup>– and early 20th<\/sup>-century music is well known, but very little is known about his relationship with his family. \u00a0As a traveling band leader Sousa gave thousands of concerts between 1892 and 1932 and spent months away from his family.\u00a0 Throughout his time on tour, however, he regularly wrote to his family, revealing much about his relationship with them and his life on tour.\u00a0 Many of his letters describe his travels and his occasional frustration with train delays and bouts of poor health.\u00a0 Sousa’s family also sent letters to distant hotels where he was scheduled to stay, often telling him about their activities at home and occasionally expressing their gentle frustration about missed family holidays and birthdays.<\/p>\n

During WWI in 1917, Sousa offered his services to the U.S. Marines and then the U.S. Army, but he was turned down because of his age and became frustrated by their responses.\u00a0 However, the commandant of the Great Lakes Naval Center offered Sousa a commission as a lieutenant in the United States Naval Reserve to organize and train Navy bands for the war.\u00a0\u00a0Sousa\u2019s short letter to his wife on September 21, 1917, announcing his Navy commissioning, probably caught her by surprise because instead of returning home after temporarily disbanding his civilian band, he would begin touring with the Great Lakes band.<\/p>\n

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Great Lakes 7th Regimental Band, Barracks 629, Great Lakes Training Station, 1918.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While on tour with the Great Lakes Naval Battalion band on May 17, 1918, Sousa wrote, \u201cDearest Jane, I am here with the band until Tuesday night, then to Cleveland [and] N.Y. for the war bond concert and some work in connection with the Atlantic Fleet\u2026Hope to see you on the 28th<\/sup>.\u00a0 With much love and kisses, devotedly, Philip.\u201d\u00a0 By early September, however, Sousa\u2019s civilian band was reconstituted to complete their Willow Grove Park performances, and he left for Chicago rather than returning home.\u00a0 This annoyed Sousa’s wife and daughters since they hadn’t seen him for a good portion of 1918.<\/p>\n

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Great Lakes Naval Band-First Liberty Loan Parade-5th Avenue, New York City, 1917.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sousa\u2019s tenure with the Naval Battalion Band ended in 1920, but his 1919 civilian band, which continued to tour across America and Canada, left Sousa little time for family and the growing tensions on the home front.\u00a0 \u00a0His July 6, 1919, letter to his wife began, \u201cDearest wife.\u00a0 The same forces that silently and relentlessly led the world into a war\u2026started an individual and family antipathy that has no parallel in history\u2026Our family is not the only one\u2026Philip\u2019s contempt for Priscilla and Helen, Helen\u2019s contempt for the rest, Priscilla\u2019s indifference to me and you\u2026make each other as unhappy as possible\u2026The average person\u2019s judgement about other\u2019s affairs is usually of no value\u2026Devotedly. Philip\u201d<\/p>\n

It is unclear what caused this animosity, but Sousa\u2019s continuous touring with his civilian band most likely inflamed these tensions.\u00a0\u00a0This exhibit documents, through personal letters and photographs, the personal and professional life of America’s March King and the musicians who performed with the Great Lakes Naval Band during and after WWI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sousa\u2019s influence on late 19th– and early 20th-century music is well known, but very little is known about his relationship with his family. \u00a0As a traveling band leader Sousa gave thousands of concerts between 1892 and 1932 and spent months away from his family.\u00a0 Throughout his time on tour, however, he regularly wrote to his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":511,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/511"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5301"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5310,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5301\/revisions\/5310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}