[Ads-l] =?Windows-1252?Q?=93Dixie=94_?=in the New Yorker

[Stephen Goranson]

I agree that D. D. Emmett--as far as I know--did write the music for Dixie.

Yet, given the several newspaper uses of "south of Dixon's line" (e.g. 1838, 1841, etc. and...1858) and "south of.... Dixon's land," and given the Dixie kid's games, with borders and two sides, and given Ben Zimmer in The Atlantic writing "Jonathan Lighter, the editor of the Historical Dictionary of American Slang, pieced together evidence that connects the Mason-Dixon line to Dixie via an unexpected intermediary: a children’s game played in New York City," and given additional finds by Barry Popik, and others--and maybe given the D. Dix asylum proposal in 1858 and following backlashes (she did manage a state not federal hospital in Raleigh)--the claim that D. D. Emmett was necessarily the first to use the word "Dixie" in reference to the south, is, at least, less than a given.

Stephen Goranson

________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2020 9:50 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: “Dixie” in the New Yorker

I read the book about the Snowdens not long after it appeared. Indications
that the Snowdens composed "Dixie," and that Emmett then "stole" it, are,
IMO, almost non-existent.

As I posted elsewhere some fifteen years ago:

> Prof. Sacks is to be commended for being able to retain her good humor
despite criticisms of "Way Up North in Dixie." As earlier reviewers have
noted, "Way Up North in Dixie" really does provide a new and unique picture
of a free African American family in Ohio before the Civil War.

But the question here is whether Daniel Emmett wrote "Dixie." The evidence
all together, including that unearthed through dedicated work by the
authors of "Way Up North in Dixie," says that yes, he really did. To assume
otherwise on the basis of hearsay and conjecture is, I think, to engage in
wishful thinking - as is pressing a position that has so few facts to
recommend it.

I wonder, for example, what substantive resemblance there is between the
melody of "Dixie" (surely the song's strongest and most defining feature)
and African American melodies in general? There's no first-hand
contemporary counterclaim of authorship by anyone, and the circumstantial
evidence for the Snowdens' involvement is limited. Whereas Emmett was a
professional pop musician, there's no evidence that any of the Snowdens
composed striking new melodies in a European style, and no demonstrated
connection of "Dixie" to black musical idioms.

It's no surprise, but Daniel Emmett wrote "Dixie."  <

JL



On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 10:30 PM Andy Bach <afbach at gmail.com> wrote:

> “ Its use as a doting nickname for the Confederacy was popularized by “I
> Wish I Was in Dixie’s Land,” a minstrel song published in 1860 and usually
> performed in blackface. The song is credited to Daniel Decatur Emmett, a
> white man from Knox County, Ohio, though the scholars Howard and Judith
> Sacks have suggested that Emmett stole the tune from the Snowdens, a family
> of freed slaves who performed and farmed around Emmett’s home town.”
>
>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/why-the-chicks-dropped-their-dixie__;!!OToaGQ!-LEgrJWpiJ_eoeV2MRoVIDfcKnOuKolzpu6PGcEsrcqvnlali3bQQl9nOzYoCs_0$
>
> --
> Andy Bach
> Afbach at gmail.com
> Not at my desk
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.americandialect.org__;!!OToaGQ!-LEgrJWpiJ_eoeV2MRoVIDfcKnOuKolzpu6PGcEsrcqvnlali3bQQl9nO1yNSbHQ$
>


--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.americandialect.org__;!!OToaGQ!-LEgrJWpiJ_eoeV2MRoVIDfcKnOuKolzpu6PGcEsrcqvnlali3bQQl9nO1yNSbHQ$

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org