American popular songs

Collection Data

Description
The first decades of a comprehensive holding of popular American sheet music. Totaling more than 400,000 titles, the collection came to the Library in 1966 from the estate of George Goodwin (1900-1966), a radio station director who developed the Tune-Dex, a comprehensive 25,000 card catalog index of popular songs. (He also published several compendia of songs in the 1950s with the title "Song-Dex.") The information on the cards was nearly exhaustive, documenting composer, publisher, licensing and copyright information as well as the song's words, music and chords, all on two sides of 3 x 5 inch index card! Achieved in the pre-automation era, Goodwin's idea was a great success and for a time used extensively by those in the industry including NYPL.
Names
Goodwin, George, 1900-1966 (Former owner)
Dates / Origin
Date Issued: 1890 - 1909
Library locations
Music Division
Topics
Popular music -- United States -- 1890-1909
Songs
Vocal music
Genres
Sheet music covers
Scores
Type of Resource
Notated music
Still image
Identifiers
NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b10826013
Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 35301010-c58d-012f-1196-58d385a7bc34
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