The Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection is a gem among our Special Collections holdings. This carefully curated collection of 30,000 pieces of popular sheet music is the perfect lens through which to explore US reform movements, including suffrage, emancipation, anti-war, prohibition/temperance, and labor. This lecture will briefly introduce users to the history of the Levy Collection and give an overview of the series before diving into the emancipation movement. This lecture will include songs by African American composers that reflect period attitudes towards slavery, the civil war, and the role of black composers and performers in minstrelsy.