The Library of Congress has snared a notable collection: archives of the world’s largest performing rights organization.
Its Music Division has acquired archival materials from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publisher Foundation, a not-for-profit arm of ASCAP.
“The gift of these materials reunites much of it with many of the special collections given to the Music Division over the years by individual ASCAP members, including Victor Herbert, Leonard Bernstein, Irving Caesar, George and Ira Gershwin, Vernon Duke and Aaron Copland,” the library stated.
The kinds of things received by the library from ASCAP include music manuscripts, printed music, published and unpublished lyrics, correspondence and personal, business, legal and financial documents, scrapbooks and film, video and sound recordings.
“Large, complete archives already received include those of ASCAP founding member Irving Caesar — writer of such memorable songs as ‘Swanee,’ ‘Tea For Two’ and ‘Just A Gigolo’ — and Harold Adamson, lyricist of ‘Around the World in 80 Days, ‘I Couldn’t Sleep a Wink Last Night,’ ‘An Affair to Remember’ and the ‘I Love Lucy’ theme,” it continued. Also in the library is the original ASCAP cash book, showing dues paid by the original members and the cash expenditures of the organization from 1914 to 1919.
Susan H. Vita, chief of the Music Division, made the announcement. The new material is being processed by researchers.
Note, many of the library’s collections are available online.
