Chronology
1640
The Bay_Psalm_Book was the first book printed in North America.
1707
Isaac Watts, Hymns and Spiritual Psalms offers newly written hymn texts for use in churches.
1715
John Tufts wrote An Introduction to the Singing of Psalm Tunes, considered the first singing school manual.
1736
John Wesley, Collection of Psalms and Hymns, written in Savannah, GA
1742
Charles Wesley, Hymns on God's Everlasting Love, London.
1770
William Billings published The New England Psalm Singer, including a first version of the song Chester, later revised for The Singing Master's Assistant.
1774
William Billings held his singing school in Stoughton, Mass.
1778
William Billings published The Singing Master's Assistant.
1798
The first system of shape notes published in Philadelphia.
1814
- 14 September, Francis Scott Key composed The Star-Spangled Banner.
1824
- 7 May, Beethoven's 9th Symphony in D minor premiered in Vienna.
1867
Slave Songs of the United States published, collecting songs of formerly enslaved people from plantations in the South immediately after the Civil War
1882-1898
James Francis Child published 5 volumes of collected folk songs from England and Scotland, known as the Child Ballads. Many songs were found to have versions in North America.
1892
Harry T. Burleigh attends New York Conservatory, encounters Antonín Dvorák who was the director. Burleigh's knowledge of African American spirituals, taught to him by his grandfather who was born a slave, influenced Dvorák's New World Symphony.
1910
John Avery Lomax published Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, recorded some of them on wax cylinder. Unlike Cecil Sharp, he collected songs across race lines in his efforts to preserve American musical culture.
1916-1918
Cecil Sharp, English folklorist who had collected many songs in England, moved to America during World War I and collected many English ballads from the Appalachians (Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee).
1939
- April 9, Marian Anderson delivered an open air concert in front of the Lincoln Memorial. It was arranged after controversy following her being denied permission to perform in Constitution Hall, controlled by the Daughters of the American Revolution, on account of race.