Nancy Newman, "Songs and Sounds of the Anti-Rent Movement in Upstate New York: Including Twenty-Two New Settings of Period Tunes" (SUNY Press, 2025)

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Overview

Episode: Interview with Dr. Nancy Newman, author of Songs and Sounds of the Anti-Rent Movement in Upstate New York: Including Twenty-Two New Settings of Period Tunes (SUNY Press, 2025)

Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Dr. Nancy Newman
Date: October 18, 2025
Podcast: New Books Network

Theme:
This episode explores Dr. Nancy Newman's investigation into the music, lyrics, and broader sonic culture associated with the 19th-century Anti-Rent Movement in Upstate New York. Newman’s book, blending musicology and history, compiles, annotates, and re-sets historical songs, while examining how these musical activities both reflected and helped shape the politics, identity, and memory of the movement.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Genesis and Scope of the Book

• Background and Motivation [(02:32)]:

  • Dr. Newman is a musicologist at the University at Albany who has long been interested in the intersection of music and social justice, including both "art music" and vernacular traditions.

  • Drawn to the subject through a local folk collective's theater production, Newman’s curiosity deepened during a pandemic sabbatical when digitized sources revealed the movement’s rich musical traces.

  • Realized that the Anti-Rent Movement’s musical legacy had both regional and national significance, touching on property, power, and Native American dispossession.

    “I realized that this topic...has very important national implications for things like...the importance of land and property in shaping national culture, Native American dispossession, all sorts of things like that.”
    – Dr. Nancy Newman [05:47]

2. The Project’s Scale: Songs & Methodology

• Number and Nature of Songs [(07:27)]:

  • The book features 30 songs; of these, 22 had identifiable tunes, 7 had musical hints but unidentified melodies, and 1 is instrumental.

  • Many lyrics were set to familiar tunes like “Old Dan Tucker,” highlighting the era’s culture of contrafacta (writing new lyrics to existing melodies).

  • Newman transcribed lyrics, provided contemporary sheet music, and created simple new settings to facilitate further musical exploration.

  • Emphasizes the hope that modern musicians will revive these songs and record them eventually.

    “What these poets were doing...were taking familiar tunes of the day and saying, here’s a set of lyrics reflecting our situation...Sing it to this tune.”
    – Dr. Nancy Newman [09:51]

3. Historical Background: “Rent” and the Movement

• What “Rent” Meant [(12:16)]:

  • Explains that “rent” was a feudal vestige—tenants in New York paid not just in cash, but wheat, fowl, labor; they lacked land ownership, carried tax burdens, and were subject to harsh landlord powers like “distress” (seizing and auctioning tenant goods for unpaid rent).

    “They never, despite all of that, they never had actual ownership of the land. The tenants were also responsible for taxes...the landlord retained water, mineral, and timber rights...The leases were written in perpetuity.”
    – Dr. Nancy Newman [14:11]

  • The catalyst: After Stephen Van Rensselaer III’s death in 1839, desperate heirs demanded back rent, sparking tenant rebellion and the movement’s “Declaration of Independence” (July 4th, 1839).

4. Songs and Sounds as Organizing Tools

• Functions of Song [(22:15)]:

  • Songs expressed collective sentiment, consoled, informed, persuaded, mocked, and entertained.

  • Were central to rallies (especially Fourth of July events), fostering unity and morale.

    “It's because the song lyrics and their tunes express sentiment...songs help people rally spirits. They consoled...informed...and persuaded people to join in...”
    – Dr. Nancy Newman [22:18]

• The Power of Sound [(24:49)]:

  • “Tin horns” were used for signaling (e.g., warning of incoming law officers) across the region’s hilly landscape, becoming a movement symbol.

5. Cultural Reference Points in the Songs

• Scottish Influence [(27:08)]:

  • Scottish immigrant presence and the broad popularity of Scottish ballads (notably Burns, Scott, Hogg) informed tunes and themes.

• Native American Influence & Appropriation [(27:39)]:

  • Tenant farmers disguised themselves as “Calico Indians” (both as a tactic and symbol), linking with Native Americans over common themes of dispossession and contested land rights.

  • The movement’s organizational structure and rituals drew from stylized visions of tribal practices, echoing broader American traditions of “playing Indian.”

    “They identified with Native American dispossession, in fact...they were trying to challenge the titles that landlords...said that they had...Another part had to do with borders...So the, the anti renters were saying the titles were never legitimate even going back to negotiations with Native Americans.”
    – Dr. Nancy Newman [28:41]

6. Dissemination of Songs

• Spread of Lyrics and Music [(32:57)]:

  • Songs mostly shared via newspapers and broadsides, not formal concerts. Such media circulated widely; prints often changed multiple hands.

    “People not just read newspapers individually, but...shared printed material...one subscriber and it might reach four or five other hands.”
    – Dr. Nancy Newman [35:26]

7. Escalation and Outcome of the Movement

• Comic to Violent Tensions [(38:33)]:

  • Early years marked by slower escalation. From 1844, confrontation and violence escalated, culminating in a deadly confrontation (1845). This resulted in mass arrests, two death sentences, and a state of insurrection, before sentences were ultimately commuted.

  • The 1846 NY State Constitution outlawed future perpetual leases and redistributed responsibility, a major legislative impact.

    “...in 1846, the New York State constitution is revised...there is land reform. There's a real shift in the way that agricultural land is handled legally. And that's all because of the revision of the New York State Constitution.”
    – Dr. Nancy Newman [44:10]

8. Legacy and Memory

• Long-term Impact and Cultural Resonance [(45:43)]:

  • The Anti-Rent Movement is remembered as a triumph of organized collective action.

  • Songs and imagery persist through centennials, literature (e.g., Dragonwyck), festivals, reenactments, and even recent documentaries like Calico Rebellion.

    “At its most compelling and powerful, it's recollected as a matter of successful collective action to effect change...”
    – Dr. Nancy Newman [46:08]

• Modern Legal Resonance [(49:06)]:

  • New York’s anti-mask legislation originated in 1845 to counter “Calico Indians.” This legal quirk resurfaced during the COVID-19 pandemic mandate debates.

    “New York State had anti-mask legislation...put in place specifically to make what the Calico Indians were doing...illegal. And it was also part of...justifying rounding up so many people...”
    – Dr. Nancy Newman [49:42]

9. Next Steps & Future Work

• Continued Musical Outreach [(51:12)]:
  • Newman is releasing MIDI files of the tunes on SoundCloud, encouraging musicians to revive the repertory.
  • An excerpt from the book will be published in an upcoming collection on New York revolutions.
  • Other academic work includes studies on Alma Mahler (via MeToo lens) and a forthcoming history of the Chicago Musical College.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “I've had a long standing interest in the relationship between music and social justice...This is a topic that allows me to examine some of the codependencies between music culture...and popular movements.”
  – Dr. Nancy Newman [02:41]

• “These tenant farmers...in some ways appropriated aspects of Native American culture and practice...They identified with Native American dispossession, in fact.”
  – Dr. Nancy Newman [28:10]

• “I think that their usage was much more of the moment...newspapers and the broadsides they circulated. No doubt some...were sold at Fourth of July rallies...”
  – Dr. Nancy Newman [33:12]

• “...what I learned was that New York had a history of anti-mask legislation. In fact, it...was put in place specifically to make what the Calico Indians were doing...illegal.”
  – Dr. Nancy Newman [49:09]

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Key Timestamps

• 02:32 – Dr. Newman’s background & how she became interested in the Anti-Rent Movement
• 07:27 – Scope of songs included and methodology
• 12:16 – Historical meaning of “rent”; roots of the dispute
• 19:37 – Distress laws and their consequences
• 22:15 – Why songs and sound mattered in the movement
• 27:08 – Scottish and Native American influences
• 32:57 – How songs and lyrics circulated
• 38:33 – Escalation of the movement and legal/social outcomes
• 45:43 – Long-term impacts and memory of the movement
• 49:06 – Anti-mask law origins and relevance to the COVID era
• 51:12 – Next steps, SoundCloud project, and future research

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Natural Flow and Listening Value

This conversation offers an accessible and thorough entry into a little-known chapter of American history, brought alive through music and community memory. Dr. Newman’s warmth and curiosity match Dr. Melcher’s engaging, well-researched questions, resulting in a rich, rewarding exploration—particularly for listeners interested in American social movements, history, or musicology. The episode avoids jargon, skillfully translating complex legal and cultural topics into clear, vivid storytelling.

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Further Resources

• MIDI files, recordings, and renditions: Search Dr. Nancy Newman’s SoundCloud for Anti-Rent Movement songs
• Book excerpt: To be published in upcoming SUNY Press collection on revolutionary movements in New York State (2026)
• Recent documentary: Calico Rebellion on the anti-rent legacy in Delaware County

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Recommended for:
Historians, musicians, educators, and anyone interested in how cultural forms—songs and sound—shape and are shaped by social justice movements, property law, and American collective memory.

Transcript

[Dr. Nancy Newman]

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Welcome to the New Books Network.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Hello and welcome to another episode on the New Books Network. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Miranda Melcher, and I'm very pleased today to be speaking with Dr. Nancy Newman about her book titled Songs and Sound of the Anti Rent Movement in Upstate New York, published by Suny Press in 2025. This book is doing a whole bunch of interesting things here. On the one hand, it is a history of the anti rent movement in Upstate New York. We're going to talk about when that is, why that is, how that developed. But it's not just analyzing the songs and sounds from a historical perspective. It's also actually telling us what the songs are. So we've got lyrics, we've got music, we've got discussions about how, how people would learn these lyrics, what sorts of tunes were being used and where were they being drawn from. So there's lots of different layers of this history here and lots of ways I think that people might engage with it. So obviously a lot for us to discuss. Nancy, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.

[Dr. Nancy Newman]

Thank you for having me, Miranda. I am thrilled to be here.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Well, I'm very pleased to have you. Could you start us off by introducing yourself a little bit and tell us why you decided to write this book?

[Dr. Nancy Newman]

Well, thanks. I'm a musicologist by training or music historian. To make that more clear. And I teach at the University at Albany, which is part of the SUNY system, State of New York system. I've had a long standing interest in the relationship between music and social justice, and not just music composed, but music making, musical activity, and how it relates to political concerns, to power relations, and how those things are both reflective of reflected in music, but also how music shapes culture and so shapes different aspects of politics and power relations. I've also had a long standing interest in the interactions between so called art music and popular genres, so both classical and vernacular musics of the church, of the theater, film, dance and folk musics. So this is a topic that allows me to examine some of the codependencies between music culture as it's understood by music historians, but also popular movements. And also my first book looked at a German orchestra, actually an immigrant orchestra to the United States in the middle of the 19th century and their travels and activities here in the US and so this topic treats really the same time period. And so I felt like it was familiar territory with a different angle. So those are some of my background. But the more immediate reason for writing this book was the way I was introduced to the topic of the anti rent movement. There's a folk music collective in the area of longstanding called Old songs. And in 2014, so more than 10 years ago, they did a music theater production about this topic where they told the story of the regional history. It was narrated, but also had period music. And I had never heard about this before and I just thought it was so fascinating. And I've now stuck with that topic for again more than a decade. But when I really pursued it, actually that came about because a teaching sabbatical and the pandemic coincided. And I thought I would just write a small article. But what happened was that when I went online, I realized that because of the great effort to digitize various collections, both sheet music and also historical newspapers, I started finding more and more material related to this. And then of course, when the pandemic lifted, I was able to visit archives in person and round out my understanding and the materials I was working with. And I realized that this topic, it's much more than just of regional significance, but it has very important national implications for things like the, the really for the importance of land and property in shaping national culture, natural national priorities, Native American dispossession, all sorts of things like that. So it's been an ongoing fascination.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Thank you for that introduction. It's so intriguing to understand the different strands that come together to make a book happen. It's never one thing. And so. And it is sort of chance encounters that kind of go, wait a second. This actually builds on some other things I've done. And, oh, wait, what happens if I go over here? So definitely not surprised to hear that happening in this instance too. And a bunch of the things that you've mentioned already kind of come out in the book too, and probably in our discussion as well. But before we get into any of the things in detail, I want to make sure that listeners understand a bit of the scale of the project we're talking about here. Because it's not two or three songs that you've found and figured out how many songs are actually in the book. And what do you hope readers get from seeing them all together?

[Dr. Nancy Newman]

Well, I decided to stop at 30, actually, there may be more out there. The 30 also that I chose were really particular to this period from 1839 to 1846, when the Anti rent movement was really at its height. This is. Those are the critical years. The other thing that I follow through, and I'll return to the songs in a minute, but the other thing that I follow through was the persistence of anti rent expressive culture even after those critical years. And although I don't include additional songs, what I talk about the literature that emerged from it, some films, artworks, paintings, things like that. And that's one of the things that also continues to fascinate me about this topic and that is its persistence in regional and even national memory. So I just wanted to add that in as well. But to get back to your question about the number of songs in the book, so 30 is where I decided to stop. And of that I've got 22 where I could identify the tunes that were indicated as going with particular sets of lyrics. So, and I should add into that that one number is purely instrumental, no lyrics. The other 29 are lyrics and have lyrics. And seven of those, I don't know what the tunes are, but there's something about the lyrics that indicates musical connection. They might say chorus on them, or they might be titled with a musical genre name. So I wanted to include those two, because who knows, at some later point, those tunes could be identified, the tunes that were in the creator's mind, you know. So with those 22 songs, 16 of them, there's 16 separate tunes. There are songs that reuse some of the tunes. So, for example, Old Dan Tucker is used for several tunes, and Bruce's Address, a tune associated with Robert Burns, is used for five or Six songs. So some of them actually reuse tunes. And that's critical here, that's crucial here, because what these poets were doing, these lyricists were doing, were taking familiar tunes of the day and saying, here's a set of lyrics reflecting our situation or the situation, and sing it to this tune or this tune comes to mind in association. So what I do is I transcribe the lyrics out of newspapers and broadsides and I give the original sheet music. The sheet music, mostly sheet music. That's as close to what the anti renters might have come across. You know, what they would have had at hand themselves in terms of published music, so contemporaneous with their time as best I could. And then I sort of marry those together, producing a very simple new setting where I've transcribed the melody of the tune, right, the tune itself, and usually the first verse of the lyrics. My hope there is that future musicians will use these settings as a starting point for their own renditions of these songs, their own creations. And eventually I'd like to have this repertory recorded in one way or another, but one step at a time here for myself.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Yes, one step at a time indeed. But putting all of this together, I mean, I'm glad you outlined the process. It's clearly quite a lot of work. And perhaps in and of itself, I mean, one could probably put them together and go, great, that's the project done. But you did more than that because you also help us understand what is happening that gives rise to these songs. So can we do a little bit of that here? I think the first place is if we're talking about the anti rent movement and we're going all the way back into the 1840s. First of all, what does rent actually mean in this context? And how do we end up with an anti rent movement?

[Dr. Nancy Newman]

Yeah, thank you for that question. It is in some ways challenging to understand this because rent in this context and at this time was very, very different than today. And today, in fact, renters have a lot of protections that were not available at that time. So first of all, in this period and in this place that is New York State, there were a lot. There was this holdover, some would say from feudal relationship. And that seems incredible because by 1839, 1840, we already had the United States of America. We had a constitution. Every state had its own constitution. And yet what had happened in upstate New York was that families who had been loyal to the patriots during the American Revolution, they basically were allowed to keep their holdings that dated back Even to the 17th century to colonial times. And that was actually a transition since this area was first settled in terms of Europeans by the Dutch. And these great landholdings had carried over even through the British political takeover that happened in 1664. So in keeping something like these older feudal and colonial relations, rent for the tenant farmers meant that they never could gain title to the land that they farmed. And their payment was largely in bushels of wheat, and specifically four fat fowl, three or four fat fowl every year, and also a day's labor where they could be basically obligated to do any form of labor that the landlord or patron, as they were called locally from the Dutch term, required of them, asked of them, often with a horse or oxen cart or whatever. These things were special specified in their leases that were actually called indentures. And then there were other things that were part of those leases that had come to be considered onerous. And one was that if you sold your lease, you never had title, but if you sold your lease, you owed one quarter of that sale to the landlord. And so you might think of it this way, that every fourth time the land turned over, the landlord had made the entire value of the property back. So it actually was in their interest to even push people off the land. And because this was a farming situation, you know, people invested a lot, they cleared the land, they planted, they. They set up irrigation, whatever, all. All of those things. But they never, despite all of that, they never had actual ownership of the land. The tenants were also responsible for taxes. This became a big issue. And the landlord retained water, mineral, and timber rights. And these leases were, in the case of the Rensselaer family, the Van Rensselaer family, the leases were written in perpetuity. They never actually came up for negotiation again. If we take timber rights, for example, let's say a farmer planted an orchard. The landlord actually owned that orchard and might want to harvest it for timber. And the tenant actually had no say in that. So there were a lot of conditions that the farmers rebelled against. And the catalyst in 1839 was that the sort of reigning landlord of the Rensselaer estate, Stephen Van Rensselaer iii, he died. And that set up a lot of turmoil. The family was in debt, actually. And so they tried to. The sons tried to collect back rent. And it was at that point that some of the farmers in the state was called Rensselaerwick. But Albany county, as it was designated at that time, they tried to negotiate, and they were refused. And so they wrote their own declaration. Of independence and they basically started a rent strike. So that's the beginning of the anti rent movement.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Thank you for explaining all of that. I know it's a big question to throw at you, but that definitely helps make sense of the movement.

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[Dr. Nancy Newman]

Can I add. I'm going to add one other thing to that, if you don't mind. Go for it. And, and that is that landlords had recourse to something called distress at the time. So if there was not payment, they could request of the legal authority, the sheriff say, to serve writs of distress or distrainment and there would be public notice. And then in 30 days, a farm family's goods could be sold off. Their cattle, their animals, their tools, everything could be sold off for rent. So the landlords had a mechanism for getting law involved and that was called distress. And so it made families very vulnerable. And actually it's in part, there are other factors, but in part because of the anti rent movement that on laws about distress, what, what recourse a landlord has if rent isn't paid. Those laws actually changed in New York State as a result of agitation over this really distressing practice. So that it's not, I mean, we, we actually live with, with the, the effects of this to this day, that your personal goods can't be seized for payment of rent. Hence the classic families. This is a sad situation. Family's belongings on the lawn. Right when tenants are evicted. Back in those times, a family's goods were sold off and that left families truly impoverished. So again, that's why I say rent was such a different matter back in that time because the stakes in some ways were even higher than today. So there was legislation that helped protect the tenant from these things.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Yeah, that's definitely worth clarifying so that we don't fall into the trap of going, oh, well, the word is the same, therefore everything else is the same. Right. That's definitely not the case. And you've made the stakes very clear to why there would be a movement against these kinds of practices. Why were songs and sounds such a key part of this organizing?

[Dr. Nancy Newman]

Well, I think at the heart of it, it's because the song lyrics and their tunes express sentiment. The feelings, they provided an outlet for feelings around this lived experience. And sometimes people who were really at the heart of it, sometimes it was observers and advocates who felt compelled to weigh in and they wrote to newspapers. And so I think it's because of the depth of feeling that all of this evoked. And so that's the songs part of this also. The songs served very, you might say, practical functions. They were used at rallies, they were used at fourth of July gatherings. Fourth of July, after that initial Declaration of Independence, which was issued on the 4th of July, 1839, 4th of July became a very important gathering time. So the songs help people rally spirits. They also at times consoled and lamented losses. They informed. They also persuaded people to join in as the movement gained momentum, especially in about 1844, after about five years of various kinds of attempts to remedy the situation. But then there's also songs that mock, that satirize and also make people laugh, that provide an outlet and relief in that sort of way, too. So there's also the. The element of fun in some of the songs. And one of the things that attracted me to all of this is actually part of why it was so appropriate for old songs to stage a theatrical event. There was a lot of, you might say, street theater in how the anti renters and their advocates, also their hecklers and detractors, how people approach the situation. I also will say that sound played a very key role, and that's why it's included in my title. And I address this in various ways throughout the book, and that is that the anti renters, because the movement was spread out across a very large area. Even Albany county itself was, you know, many square miles. But eventually it was. The movement spread across 11 counties. But the tenant farmers would use tin horns, which are basically dinner horns, come in from the field, we've got dinner ready for you, kind of gadget, right? Just a simple tin horn. The farmers started using those same horns to signal other farmers, other tenants, that the law was coming, or the landlord's agent was coming to serve a writ or collect this or that. And the reason they used these horns was because sound would carry over these over the distances. This is a very hilly area. We go. There's an ascent from the Hudson river that bisected the Rensselaerwijk, holding all the way out to the Catskills, basically the Halderberg Hills and then the Catskill Mountain. So there's constant elevation and lots of hills. And so these tin horns were used to carry, to signal, come help out, the law is coming. And so they became a very important practical element and also a symbol of the movement.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Yeah, definitely emphasizing the sounds as well as the songs here. But I wonder if we can get into some of the content of the songs. Obviously, there's some utility in kind of using tunes that people already knew in many cases. But as you mentioned, or at least hinted at a moment ago, the references that people already knew weren't being used accidentally. So I wonder if we can speak specifically about references to Scots and to Native Americans, because they both seem to come up kind of more than maybe I was expecting. Why do we see these influences in the lyrics and the musical choices of these songs?

[Dr. Nancy Newman]

Well, that's a great question. And I try to treat those two topics as systematically as I can and they're different. So one is that there was a lot of Scottish immigration to this area at the time and even dating back into the 18th century as well. So some of it just has to do with the orientation and the heritage of people in the area. Some of it also has to do with the Scottish wonderful dissemination of traditional music or Scottish folk music so that you didn't have to be a Scottish person to also, you know, know some of these elements. And also the great literary esteem of figures like Robert Burns and Walter Scott and James Hoag, who's perhaps lesser known today, but was a sort of companion of Walter Scott in the collection of. They called it Scottish Minstrelsy and Ballads. Scottish Ballads. So Scott's influence comes into this story in lots of different ways. And then there's the Native American element, which is also complicated. So another symbol of the music, sorry, another symbol of the anti rent movement was something called the Calico Indians. And what had happened was that these tenant farmers, because they were in confrontations with the law, they began disguising their identities and they in some ways appropriated aspects of Native American culture and practice. But they did it for several, in several different ways and several different reasons. They identified with Native American dispossession, in fact. And the way that worked was that they were trying to challenge the titles that the landlords and the patroons said that they had, you know, the, the land claims, the property claims. And they tried to look into the treaties that were alleged and were never really proven. So that was part of it. Another part had to do with borders that were permeable. If you've ever had a plot surveyed, you know that the markers for that plot can be highly impermanent really. But it's what we. What, it's what we have. So. So for example, the borders, the, the if a boundary said, you know, it's branch of a river, well, what if the river, you know, was it this riverbed or was it that creek bed, that. That sort of thing. So, so the, the anti renters were saying that the titles were never legitimate, even going back to negotiations with Native Americans. So it had this legal, again, legal identification. It also had an organizational identification. After beginning in 1844, as the movement grew and the anti renters tried to get. Become more politically organized, they Actually took on a structure that resembled Native American tribal units and they called the members braves and things like that. So they were actually identifying with Native American practices that way. And then there's, of course, the ideological oppositional side of things too. There was a sort of recollection of the Boston Tea Party among this idea of taking on disguises and that representation as Native Americans. So I rely on the work of Philip Deloria and especially his early book called Playing Indian, to sort of untangle some of these things and address some of these things, because there is appropriation in here. And as Deloria says, it's at the heart of many aspects of American identity. So that's how Native American references come into the lyrics too. One song is called Ye Sons of Tuscarora, mentioning one of the Indian nations in upstate New York. There was references to Indian braves, et cetera.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Yeah, so many different references there. So thank you for helping us get a sense of the ways in which those references were involved in the movement. What about then the sort of practical, logistical side of a lyricist has written all these clever lyrics. They figured out what song people will know to put it to. How then do they get people to know that this song is an option? How were these songs disseminated?

[Dr. Nancy Newman]

Well, that's a very good question. One of the ways this is very unusual for me as. As a musicologist is that this is not a body of song, a repertory that as far as I can tell, was ever performed as such. You know, we know about operas and repertory and symphony literature that gets regularly performed in concerts. I don't think that these songs were used that way. I think that their usage was much more of the moment. It was in semi private situations. It was probably in the associations when they had their meetings. But we don't have. At least I didn't find very detailed records about that for the fourth of July. I did find references in the newspaper accounts of those gatherings of particular songs being sung. So that was a gold mine. But it's not a repertory in the sense of being intended for concerts and formal performance. So people read these. So the newspapers and the broadsides they circulated. No doubt some of the broadsides were sold at Fourth of July rallies, for example. They were probably sold at printers shops in various places. And the newspapers were of two, two sorts. One that had a few songs was actually the New York Herald. Early on, the Herald satirized what was going on from New York City. They satirized what was going on upstate and published a few songs. That is sets of lyrics. And then even more extensively, what we might call alternative newspapers. One emanating from New York City called the Working Man's Advocate, which during this time changed its name to Young America. And that was a paper devoted to the workers movement and they had made an alliance with what was going on among agricultural workers upstate. So that's one source, a very rich source. And then another is the Albany Freeholder. Another, this was an alternative newspaper, a weekly that was devoted to entirely to anti rent concerns. And the idea there was to give a voice to people who wanted to see land reform. And that was produced in Albany county. So people read those. People not just read newspapers individually, but it was a very widespread practice in this time to share printed material. So you might have one subscriber and it might reach four or five other hands because people did share printed materials very extensively. There are other historians have documented this sort of thing. So circulation itself is not the last word on who was reached by these printed items.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Yeah, that's definitely worth keeping in mind, but gives at least some estimate of sort of how things were moving around. So helpful to have at least a bit of a picture.

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[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

If we turn back then to the wider movement that these songs were part of, obviously this is not something you've hinted at already. It's not something that's over in a few weeks or even a few months. So can you maybe sketch out for us the extent to which these tensions escalate over time and if the songs and sounds, parts of it escalates as well?

[Dr. Nancy Newman]

Ah, good question. Yeah, yeah, it's slower for the first, let's say five years, actually four or five years. And because of certain legislative defeats, because of the landlords at times when they're allowed to collect distress, those actions are stepped up and then there's more resistance. So I chronicle this in my book in a direct and concise way because I'm always trying. What I tried to do was to sort of unveil the songs in a. As best I couldn't always tell chronologically where they fit. If it's on a broadside, for example, a song that's on a broadside that doesn't have a date on it, I had to use the evidence from the lyrics to figure out how it fit into the historical, the political legal developments. And so I try to show how the songs emerge often from very particular developments. And the intensity, as I say, after about five years really accelerates. People are getting more desperate on both sides, you might see, say. And this leads up to what turns out to be in this phase, the final physical confrontation. So all along, even from 1839, people agree the best way to settle these disputes is through the legal system, through the law, through discussion and negotiation. And this in fact, even from the beginning, from the first conflict in 1839, the governor, William Seward weighs in and he basically says to everybody, you can't settle this with physical confrontation, with violence. You've got to work with the legal system. And so as I say, there are commissions established and legislative action and all sorts of court decisions. And this drags on for a long time. It's not truly resolved. And so in 1844 things begin to accelerate. And the following year, 1845, actually what happens is the last physical confrontation. And this is when already there's been some incitement toward violence and some of the anti rent leaders have been jailed, not necessarily charged with, you know, anything but jailed. And so there's a. It's a very tense and dramatic situation. And then in 1845 there's a confrontation out in Delaware County. So that's the foothills of the. That's basically, that is the Catskills, and an undersheriff is killed. And in the aftermath of that, the county and actually the state's involved too. There's another governor in office and a state of insurrection is called. And that means that there's a lot of people are rounded up for that death. Over 200 men and a couple of them are sentenced to death and a couple to life in prison, a few more actually. And so this, this is a situation that the New York newspapers are commenting on it. It's of such great consequence because these are American citizens that had, you know, were being held for something, you know, that, that you know, probably were not committed, you know, was not, probably not 200 people were responsible for anyway, so that it met. The men were pardoned, they were eventually first their sentences commuted, then they were pardoned. So things do get settled, but ever after, but there was no direct physical confrontations after that for this phase of the anti rent movement anyway. And the other thing that happens at that time is actually the following year, 1846, the New York State constitution is revised. And one of those revisions clearly states that no leases of the type that the tenant farmers had lived under, no new leases of that type could ever be written again. And so there is land reform. There's a real shift in the way that agricultural land is handled legally. And that's all because of the revision of the New York State Constitution. And the anti rent voting block actually was part of why and how that came about. So in the lead up to all of this, as I say, there was a lot of many lyrics, a lot of poetry that was poured out, especially in those alternative papers. And so I think, you know, work with them as much as I could. There is one spot where the perpetual leases that were part of the Rensselaer estate actually are allowed to continue. That the New York State constitution did not cover those pre existing leases that said perpetuity in perpetuity. However, those leases were a lot less valuable as it turned out because the landlords were held respons responsible for taxes. There were various reasons that they were of less value than they had been. So there is still a little bit of agitation that happens on the former Rensselaer land, but that's another phase of things.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

And I'm really glad that you've explained kind of what happened, but also what the consequences were because this really was a big deal, not just in these communities, but more broadly. This did have impact on legislation. So can you maybe tell us more about any other short term impacts but also the longer term influences and the way this has been remembered?

[Dr. Nancy Newman]

Well, I think that I can say for a fact that this historical situation still reverberates in this area to this day. And I would say at its most compelling and powerful, it's recollected as a matter of successful collective action to effect change. And what I do in the book, once I treat all of those 30 songs in their historical context, I also look for the persistence of anti rent expressive culture ever since. So for, okay, we're, we're coming up to 200 years. So for example, at the centennial of the, of the movement in the 1940s, there was a whole, there was a lot of interest that was directed toward this and there were commemorations of various sorts in New York State. And then there were. There was national attention drawn to it, for example, through Anya Seton's novel Dragon Wick and the Hollywood film that was made based on that movie. And then in the 1950s, there was the Folk Festival of the Catskills, staged some reenactments, some plays based on, on the historical situation in the 1970s. There were school plays and community plays. So again, for people in the region in particular, it's been a sort of rallying point for the possibilities that can come out of collective action, not violence, nobody celebrating the violence. And the violence, mostly from what I've gathered, was accidental. There were a lot of guns around. But the power, the possibilities in collective action is very inspiring here. And I want to mention that there's a new documentary just starting to be shown called Calico Rebellion that is especially focused on Delaware county and the legacy of that final confrontation and the harsh response to it and how in Delaware county that legacy is still felt by the descendants who are in the area. So again, it's. These are some of the longer term impacts and resonances of these issues. Yeah.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Even though it was a pretty long time ago, those are definitely some clear threads that bring it all the way into the present. So thank you for helping us understand what those connections might be.

[Dr. Nancy Newman]

I'll tell you an interesting one and I actually start my book, I have a little prelude where I talk about this. And that is again, I was embarking on really in depth research when the pandemic was at its height and we all in New York. Right. Were subject to a mask mandate. And what I learned was that actually New York had a history of anti mask legislation. In fact, it was our Attorney General, Letitia James, who pointed out to Governor Cuomo that his executive order to wear masks violated some aspect of the penal code. And he quickly corrected that and the legislature approved it and all of that. But the reason that New York State had anti mask legislation was because right at the start of 1845 the legislature put that in place specifically to make what the Calico Indians were doing, disguising their identity with masks to make that illegal. And it was also part of that it turned out later that year to justify rounding up so many people in light of one man dying. So it's extraordinary to me that something so current for us mask legislation actually has its origins in New York State with the anti rent movement.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

I'm so glad you added that into our conversation because it was fascinating to read about in the book and I think that's a great place to end our discussion showing so clearly how this history is not just all the way back in time, it very much is still relevant today. So I just have one question left. What might you be working on now that this book is done?

[Dr. Nancy Newman]

Well, as I said, I'm still looking for ways to make the to bring the music to life and we'll see what form that takes. I do want to point out to listeners, and I think you might be able to put this in the notes for the podcast, that I do have MIDI recordings of all the tunes on SoundCloud and I also have there a rendition of one of the songs by a former student of mine who's a wonderful composer and singer songwriter Justin Friello, who I commissioned to do an arrangement and recording of what is essentially a political campaign song at the End of the which was published as a broadside toward the end of this anti Rent as a phase. And it's to the tune of Tippecanoe and Tyler too, so listeners might recognize that. So a couple of pre recorded pieces up there and then all of the tunes they're versions are available in MIDI just to get appetites whetted and maybe you know, inspire some other musicians. Also an excerpt from my book is going to be published in another SUNY Press book, a collection of writings about revolutions in New York State that's due to come out next year. And that book, it focuses on different revolutionary movements across New York from 1776 on. So there'll be an excerpt from my book for this other book on revolutions. So people should watch for that next next year as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. I also I published recently and so there's some follow up to this, an article on the composer and composer's wife, Alma Mahler, looking at her through the lens of the MeToo movement. So people might want to check that out. And I'm doing some work on a music conservatory in Chicago. I'd like to write the history of the Chicago Musical College, which is a fascinating place that starts in the sort of the second half of the 19th century and then its influence and impact into the first half of the 20th century. So those are my ongoing projects.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Plenty to keep you busy with. And listeners who want more detail of the book we've been discussing can, of course read it titled Songs and Sounds of the Anti Rent Movement in Upstate New York, published by Suny Press in 2025. Nancy, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.

[Dr. Nancy Newman]

Thank you, Miranda. I enjoyed doing this and your questions were wonderful.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Sam.