American Music Timeline American Music Timeline
Part II: The 1800s
by David Johnson

1814 1842 1861 1880 1891 1897 Next: 1900-1920

1814
Francis Scott Key writes poem The Defense of Fort McHenry, which appears in The Baltimore Patriot newspaper
1815
Key puts The Defense of Fort McHenry to music of popular British song, To Anacreon in Heaven, and publishes "The Star-Spangled Banner"
1842
Philharmonic Society of New York founded, nation's oldest symphony orchestra
Circa 1850
Col. Sandford C. Faulkner believed to write music and words to The Arkansas Traveler, song (and also a play) about a country fiddler, popular in Ohio River Valley
1851
Stephen Foster writes "Old Folks at Home" for a minstrel show
1861
Julia Ward Howe writes poem for Atlantic Monthly, "Battle Hymn of the Republic," based on hymn, "John Brown's Body"; William Steffe (probably) writes music to create popular Civil War song
1866
Musical play, The Black Crook, forerunner of musical comedy of 1920s
1878
New York Symphony Orchestra founded
1880
In Spring, by John Knowles Paine, performed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, first American symphony published in U.S.
1881
Henry Lee Higginson establishes Boston Symphony Orchestra
1883
Metropolitan Opera House opens in New York
1891
Carnegie Hall opens in New York
1897
John Philip Sousa composes march "Stars and Stripes Forever"; creates more than 100 popular marches, orchestral music
1897
Composers Scott Joplin, James Scott, and Joseph Lamb establish, popularize ragtime, give birth to America's popular music industry, ending reliance on Europe
Next Page
Next: Boston's Symphony Hall is built

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