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Author Topic: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885  (Read 34995 times)

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triskel

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #60 on: October 28, 2013, 03:40:29 PM »

This one, which is quite large (almost 13" tall) and would have been relatively expensive with all those mirrored trumpets, shows that even a better-quality instrument was available with only 8 buttons.

triskel

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #61 on: November 16, 2013, 03:12:51 AM »

There's a carte de visite photo on eBay, described as 1870's by the seller, that shows a man (possibly in minstrel costume?) with one of these large early melodeons, just to get an idea of scale:


triskel

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #62 on: November 16, 2013, 03:55:37 AM »

Looking at him in the left handed playing position, the two people immediately to his left are right handed,
which is probably likely.

Whilst, by the same token, the man immediately behind him, with their glass level with his face, appears to be left-handed...

But I'm more inclined to think that the artist wasn't too bothered about right- or left-handed, and put the picture together from a number of sketches (some of which may have got reversed in the final composition) - after all, it's not a photograph. In fact, I don't think a photographer of that time would even have been able to capture such a scene.

Chris Ryall

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #63 on: November 16, 2013, 11:44:13 AM »

… and I've been given tickets for over-speculation!

Like it though, the numbers add up and left handers didn't survive catholic primary school in those days, it was considered slightly demonic :-\ South paws were scarce, so odds could be good

Any sort of evidence may be hard to come by… but we have a picture  :o
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Chris Ryall

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #64 on: November 16, 2013, 01:02:36 PM »

USA education is I believe technically secular. Though no one has ever described it as being "of the Left" ;) I believe some still teach that all melodeon systems were made on the same day, and that we shouldn't play on Sundays
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triskel

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #65 on: November 16, 2013, 01:24:13 PM »

... left handers didn't survive catholic primary school in those days, it was considered slightly demonic..

It certainly was, later on in the Irish school system (considered demonic, that is).

I think the alternative meanings of sinister (left) and dexter (right, and from which we derive dexterous) say it all really...    ???

Quote
But would it have been in the USA in the nineteenth century?

Though the chances are that (from the location) our melodeon player was quite possibly a recent immigrant, so went to school in Ireland?

Nick Collis Bird

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #66 on: November 16, 2013, 07:12:34 PM »

Just from an engraving ! This gets more and more fascinating .
For a start, do we have the artist and / or the engravers name ? This info could narrow the field considerably .
A real Sherlock Holmes adventure.  ???
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triskel

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #67 on: November 16, 2013, 09:30:05 PM »

.. there couldn't have been too many left handed box players about.

I don't know of any in those days, in fact there are precious few these days either...  ???

sqwzboxstudent

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #68 on: November 16, 2013, 11:23:11 PM »

Just had a look at the pic on page 1, as soon as i saw it i looked at the guy sat next to him , and thought " hes checking out what tune it is on his iphone on tunepal... " DOH !

but, to be fair, it does look very much like a dictaphone ! Any ideas what he may have been holding ???
« Last Edit: November 16, 2013, 11:26:04 PM by sqwzboxstudent »
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The Blues Viking

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #69 on: November 17, 2013, 12:05:28 AM »

It certainly was, later on in the Irish school system (considered demonic, that is).
But would it have been in the USA in the nineteenth century?
The school system there may have been more enlightened?
Either way, this chap seems to have survived it ok!

As regards over-speculation... a little bit of that never hurt anyone.  ;)

My father grew up in rural Arkansas in the 1930s-1940s and left-handedness was just not tolerated; in fact, my father was a lefty and his family did everything they could to make him "the right way around." To this day he does some things with his left hand and some with his right, and he signs his name with either. But then, rural Arkansas back then could hardly be considered "enlightened."

TBV
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Mutt

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #70 on: November 17, 2013, 04:46:45 AM »

USA education is I believe technically secular.

The USA has a sadly recent history of virulent anti-catholicism, so Irish and (later) Italian immigrants created their own parochial, pay-as-you-go school system, in parallel to the U.S. public school system, and it survives to this day.  I can easily imagine our left-handed melodeon player getting his "sinister" knuckles rapped by the Sisters and learning to write right-handed. In baseball, at least, there seem to have been allowances made, so perhaps the same was true of an instrument that was played in the home but not in the orchestra.
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triskel

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #71 on: November 17, 2013, 06:27:48 AM »

For a start, do we have the artist and / or the engravers name ? This info could narrow the field considerably .

I couldn't read it before, but I've established tonight that the artist was A. B. Shults and his signature is in the bottom left of the picture:


Albert B. Shults, 1868-1913, worked as an illustrator and cartoonist and seems to have often sketched street life and immigrants to New York.

triskel

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #72 on: November 17, 2013, 07:40:26 AM »

Albert B. Shults, 1868-1913..

Not thinking that date of birth sounded credible for somebody who was producing drawings like Immigrants landing at Castle Garden in 1880, I started a little Genealogical research on him - he's listed on the 1900 New York Census as Albert B. Shultz, widower, lodging at 47, Bowery, born New Jersey in June 1862 (father born Germany, mother New York), occupation "Artist (Sketch)".

Which may be more than anybody knew about him up until a couple of minutes ago.  ???

Nick Collis Bird

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #73 on: November 17, 2013, 08:02:38 AM »

This gets better and better Triskel
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Has anyone heard of the song. “ Broken Alarm-clock Blues” ? It starts   “I woke up this Afternoon”

Nick Collis Bird

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #74 on: November 17, 2013, 08:34:27 AM »

Amazingly, my Grandmother traced our family back to William the Conquerer, including Joan Cromwell, Oliver's aunt. And all that before the age of computers !  :o
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Has anyone heard of the song. “ Broken Alarm-clock Blues” ? It starts   “I woke up this Afternoon”

triskel

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #75 on: November 17, 2013, 05:56:38 PM »

Just had a look at the pic on page 1, as soon as i saw it i looked at the guy sat next to him , and thought " hes checking out what tune it is on his iphone on tunepal... " DOH !

... Any ideas what he may have been holding ???

I'm not quite sure which one you mean Tommy, but the men either side of him have drinks in their hands, and the guy behind him seems to be twiddling with his beard - as you do!  ::)


sqwzboxstudent

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #76 on: November 17, 2013, 06:04:24 PM »

Ah yes, i look with sober eyes reveals the bottom of the glass ! Double DOH ! Il get me coat....
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triskel

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #77 on: November 17, 2013, 06:26:28 PM »

Ah yes, i look with sober eyes reveals the bottom of the glass ! Double DOH ! Il get me coat....

I've got a spare pair of specs I could send you...  ;)

But I do see which one you mean now.

triskel

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #78 on: November 18, 2013, 06:08:45 AM »

Seeing that I got my scanner (sort of) working again today, here's a high-definition scan of the whole print;

Chris Ryall

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Re: Irish melodeon player in New York - 1885
« Reply #79 on: November 18, 2013, 06:25:47 AM »

Now Mrs.Edgar Merry, she thought she’d have a ball
So she sent out invitations around to one and all.
It really was a christening I’d have you understand
And just to make it a success she did engage a band.

  To me raa, to me ray, to me rew-dum, rew-dum riddle
  They played upon the fiddle and danced up and down the middle,
  Jolly boys and pretty girls, enough to please you all.
  A regular slap-up sort of a spree was Mrs. Merry’s ball.

There was beer and ale and whisky and punch and porter too
And pipes and cake tobacco you could either smoke or chew.
There were lots of cakes and pastries, and likewise bread and cheese.
And snuff upon the table just to make the ladies sneeze.

  (Now play an instrumental selection of polkas and hornpipes.)
                                                           
Well they introduced the baby and we kissed it twice all round
Then Mrs. Merry fainted and fell nearly to the ground.
So they brought her round with water wi’ a drop o’ something in,
And when she did regain her feet the dancing did begin


Nice old song that I used to do, almost forgotten! Sort of apposite to this nicely scanned image, but won't help in the quest. The American actress Mrs Merry's husband was [google,google] … Robert
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