Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Glenn C. Wilcox American tunebooks #4593-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Purchased from Glenn and Helen Wilcox of Murray, Ky., in November 1991.

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: Rebecca Hollingsworth, November 1991

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827.
• Dance music.
• Hymns.
• Marches.
• Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix, 1809-1847.
• Tune-books.
• Wesley, Charles, 1707-1788.
• Wesley, John, 1703-1791.
• Wilcox, Glenn C., 1927-
• Wilcox, Helen S.

The Glenn and Helen Wilcox Collection of American Religious Tunebooks is only a portion of the total library built by the Wilcoxes. The full collection includes popular music published on small cards during World War II, classical scores and recordings, etc. The religious tunebook holdings were particularly extensive, comprising approximately 1,932 volumes acquired by the Wilcoxes and some 1,490 volumes from the collection of the late Reverend Charles Atkins, a Congregational minister in New Hampshire with whom Glenn Wilcox had co-edited The Southern Harmony. At Atkins's death in the 1970s, his collection passed to the Wilcoxes.

This collection is part of a group of about 300 volumes acquired by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from the Wilcoxes in 1991.

Four volumes of handwritten music, most of which was copied from other sources. Many pieces in all four volumes consist entirely of musical notations without words. Except for the notations in volumes 1 and 4, as noted below, there is no indication as to date, compiler, or place of compilation.

Folder 1 (32 pp.) consists of dance music, such as marches and quicksteps, mostly without lyrics. The flyleaf carries the name "D. Weed."

Folder 2 (68 pp.) is labeled "copy book" and contains music of many types. Included are hymns, a Christmas carol, a polka, a nursery rhyme, arias, and works by Beethoven and Mendelssohn.

Folder 3 (379 pp.) is a hymnal, containing many hymns based on the Psalms; there are also hymns for Christmas and Good Friday. Many are labeled "Wesley's," presumably referring to Methodist preacher and composer Charles Wesley.

Folder 4 (72 pp.) contains miscellaneous songs, most carrying the names of places. Some are labeled as hymns, but most are not. At the end of the volume there are several blank pages and one page bearing the name "Hiram Stevens" and the date 1843.