Community Songbook collection

The Community Songbook Collection is a part of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) Historical Center collection at the University of Maryland, College Park. NAfME is a national organization dedicated to the promotion of music education. This collection is made up of a wide assortment of songbooks and song collections ranging in date from 1804 to 1996, with the bulk of the collection spanning from 1928 to 1958. Within the collection are several different types of songbooks for various ages, group compositions, and functions. The collection includes books for children, to be used for instruction and early performance; books for differing ages and abilities of vocal groups from primary and middle school voices to full choral ensembles; and books meant for the general public, either to be used at home, within the community, at special events, or in religious services. The collection’s broad scope provides insight into music education and social mindsets of the United States over the past century. Studying the resources available to teachers can reveal the employment of different educational methods over time; in addition, study of the types of songs and song collections being published and sold to the public can reveal the societal traits of a population from a particular time period. The collection holds value for a researcher interested in both music education and the general American public of the 19th and 20th centuries.