More on Prehistory of "Tin Pan Alley"

Shapiro, Fred fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
Tue Apr 3 10:49:32 UTC 2012


I have previously posted evidence from New Haven newspapers going back to 1890 indicating that "Tin Pan Alley" was used as some kind of generic street name earlier than the usage referring to New York City's songwriting / song publishing district (OED 1908, Popik 1903).  Now, in searching Chronicling America, I see other early evidence from non-New Haven cities:

1895 _Climax_ (Richmond, Ky.) 26 June (Chronicling America)  Pigg brothers, Less and Joe, have recently bought a saloon and grocery.  They are on back street in front of Tin-pan alley.

1898 _Daily Press_ (Newport News, Va.) 20 Mar. 1 (Chronicling America)  The authorship was fixed on Lankford.  It got a little too warm for the colored attorney and proprietor of a saloon in Tin Pan alley, and he left the city.

Fred Shapiro

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