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Mary Had a Little Lamb

jojo

Senior Editor
Posts: 2056

jojo @ 2025-01-17 15:34:54 UTC

Sarah Josepha Hale is the author of this beloved nursery rhyme. As a young poet and writer, Hale moved to Boston in 1828 to become the editor of the first women's magazine in the United States, later known as "Godey's Lady's Book." It was in Boston that Hale met Lowell Mason a young musician and composer intent on bringing music education into America's public schools.


Mason and Hale shared the belief that simple children's poems set to music could be used to teach good, Christian morals to kids that would help them grow them into productive and upright citizens. At Mason's request, Hale wrote a short book of 15 poems called "Poems For Our Children", which was published in 1830. Mason then wrote simple melodies to accompany each poem, including the six-verse poem then known as "Mary's Lamb".

attachment

https://archive.org/details/poemsforourchild00hale/page/6/mode/2up?view=theater


Interestingly, the tune Mason wrote for Mary's Lamb, which was included in his 1831 book "Juvenile lyre", likely the first public school songbook, sounds nothing like the melody every schoolkid now knows by heart. That melody was borrowed later from a popular minstrel tune called "Goodnight, Ladies", specifically the chorus that goes, "Merrily we roll along, roll along, roll along. Merrily we roll along, over the dark blue sea!".


https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/arts/literature/controversy-behind-mary-…

attachment

https://archive.org/details/juvenilelyreorhy00maso/page/60/mode/2up?view=theater


So here's the original tune of Mason's 1831 setting of Sarah Hale's poem

https://www.mamalisa.com/mp3/mary_had_a_little_lamb_moffat_lib.mp3


So this needs some reapairing on the site ?

I made a start here: Goodnight, Ladies

And here: Mary Had a Little Lamb


JoJo greets

Last edit: 2025-01-19 09:33:54 UTC by jojo


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