Award Name
Seymour Music Award Winner
Award Date
2019
Faculty Sponsor
Professor YouYoung Kang, Professor Jack Pitney
Description/Abstract
During the Civil War, musical fluidity led to an outpouring of songs written about the
conflict. With every popular song came at least one set of alternate lyrics known as
contrafacta. In this thesis, I analyze Northern anthem “The Battle Cry of Freedom,”
and Southern anthems “The Bonnie Blue Flag” and “Dixie” and their contrafacta.
Through the lens of contrafacta, I analyze how the North and the South understood
the terms “liberty” and “freedom.”
Recommended Citation
Wong, Melia, "“The air seems to infatuate the ear”: Confederate Anthems, Union Battle Cries, and their Respective Contrafacta" (2019). 2019 Claremont Colleges Library Undergraduate Research Award. 1.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cclura_2019/1
