The great republic grand national allegory and tableaux, written and revised for J.M. Hager's entertainments
Springfield, Mass. Samuel Bowles & Co., printers, 1870. 5¾" x 3½", pp. 32; original printed pink wrappers; near fine. Inside wrappers, pages 1-2 and 19-20 contain advertisements of Steinway & Sons pianos. Nineteenth-century American drama, the cast of characters including the Goddess of Liberty, George Washington, Christopher Columbus, Truth, an Indian Princess, the Army of the Potimac, Spanish sailors, etc. J.M. Hager, originally a singer, conducted large singing classes in New York, and exhibited them in concerts. He came to specialize in presentations of this musical "allegory", at first entitled The Great Rebellion and written in 1863 by Henry Morford. Rewritten by Miller and renamed The Great Republic, its themes are reunion, reconstruction, nationalism, and postwar expansion. Hagar continued to produce it until 1885, recruiting more numerous bodies of singers such as the teachers and pupils of the Flushing public schools (see George C.D. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage, v. 6-13). Five copies in OCLC: AAS, Harvard, Brown, Chapel Hill, and Buffalo P.L. Item #69703
Price: $135.00
