The songs of America's first hundred years were as influential in their time as radio and television are today. Our forefathers were incited to early resistance by songs protesting the Stamp Act; soldiers were inspired to deeds of valor by rousing military marches; and Americans of all political persuasions were quickly informed of the latest triumphs and disasters through ballad broadsides, songsters, and sheet music dealing with contemporary events in colorful detail. Campaign songs were vital in communicating messages to masses of people. At a time when electioneering by political candidates was considered unseemly, bitter election campaigns were waged through songs, and politicians hired songwriters as readily as they hire public relations and advertising writers today. In Music for Patriots, Politicians, and Presidents, Vera Brodsky Lawrence employs a unique and unusually entertaining means of exploring the growth of our nation. It is a remarkable collection, with lyrics from pre-Revolution resistance to post-Civil War Reconstruction, covering nearly every important issue and event in the history of that period: the Constitution, presidential campaigns, battles, defeats, heroes, villains, slavery, abolition, and even women's rights. Accompanying each song--many of which are facsimiles of the original music pages--is Ms. Lawrence's informative and witty commentary. Contemporary documentary material gives enlightening historical background and explains the incidents and personalities that inspired the song text. The vitality of these songs is reflected in the splendid illustrations that appear on every page. Besides reproductions of rare sheet music and illustrated broadsides of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, full-page replicas in black and white and in color of pictorial sheet music covers--a beguiling, virtually unexplored branch of American artare included in the book's more than 500 illustrations, which together offer a rare opportunity to see as well as to hear history happen again [Publisher description].