Music Division

The Music Division's special collections include the manuscripts and papers of several composers who wrote for silent film. Also relevant are collections of opera singers such as Geraldine Farrar, who became stars of the silent screen. This page outlines how to navigate these collections and their materials.

Special Collections Overview

The Music Division holds over six hundred named special collections in music, theater, and dance. Collections vary in size from fewer than a dozen items to more than half a million. Many of these collections are processed and have finding aids online. Others are in varying stages of processing and may have guides, inventories, or print finding aids available on-site.

Find special collections through two primary gateways:

Alphabetical List of Special Collections in the Music Division
The Performing Arts Reading Room website provides an alphabetical list of the Music Division's special collections with links to finding aids that describe the background and content of those collections.
Search Finding Aids Database
The Search Finding Aids Database allows you to keyword search across all of the Library's published finding aids. To limit your search to the Music Division's collections, select "Performing Arts" from the drop-down menu when searching. Keep in mind, however, that there may be relevant special collections to consult in the Library's Recorded Sound Research Center, Moving Image Research Center, Rare Books and Special Collections Reading Room, Prints & Photographs Reading Room, and other reading rooms.

Access Note: Some collections are housed off-site and require advance notice to retrieve. Contact us using our Ask a Librarian service if you have questions about researching a specific collection.

Highlighted Special Collections for Silent Film Music

The following collections include materials relevant to research in music for silent film. Provided links are for finding aids (descriptive documents of collection contents) or collection-level catalog records if finding aids are not yet completed. Both finding aids and catalog records contain collection content summaries.

Geraldine Farrar Papers [finding aid]
Opera singer Geraldine Farrar became a silent film star in the 1910s. The collection includes three albums of stills from 1915-1916 from the films Maria Rosa, Carmen, and The Temptation. Also included are a considerable amount of film contracts with Goldwyn Pictures Corporation.
Jack Butterworth collection of silent film cues, 1917-1929 [finding aid]
All cue sheets have been scanned and made available in the Silent Film Scores and Arrangements digital collection.
Journalist, comic art enthusiast, and collector Jack Butterworth donated this collection of cue sheets for silent films produced between 1917 and 1929. Of special note are the cue sheets for the lost comedy Excess Baggage (1927) and the lost horror film London After Midnight (1927).
Maurice Baron collection, 1920-1960 [catalog record]
The collection includes five silent film scores Baron composed in the late 1920s: The Baron collections includes the following film scores, for piano: Fazil, Four Devils, Four Sons, The River, and Sunrise.
Mayhew Lake music manuscripts, 1912-1955 [finding aid]
The collection contains music composed or transcribed by Lake and includes marches, a concerto, a rhapsody, songs, ensemble exercises, and two operas. Although the collection contains no silent film score manuscripts, the contents may prove useful for studying Lake's compositional style.
Rudolph and Joseph Schildkraut Scrapbooks [finding aid]
Rudolph Schildkraut (1862-1930) and his son, Joseph Schildkraut (1895-1964), were Austrian-American stage and film actors. The collection documents their personal and professional lives - including as silent film actors - through photographs, clippings, programs, and iconography mounted in four scrapbooks.
Victor Herbert collection, 1880-1939 [finding aid]
Included in the collection are Herbert's manuscript for the film The Fall of a Nation as well as several other film overtures.

Music for Silent Film: A Guide to Resources at the Library of Congress

Ask a Librarian: Music Division

Performing Arts: Ask a Librarian

Music Division

Special Collections Overview

Highlighted Special Collections for Silent Film Music