The American Heritage Songs Project
Site in Progress
WELCOME
Share in our
American Heritage
Children's Songs!
This online resource site is in its beginning phases of development.
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Please view & download the list of songs that are a part of our American Heritage
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Music & materials for teaching American Heritage Songs are just beginning to be added, so check back often!
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Your feedback and requests for specific teaching resources
are welcomed and encouraged!
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Want to share your teaching materials, activities, or performances of American heritage songs here?
American Heritage Songs
About
American Heritage Songs
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Few 21st century American school children can sing by heart, let alone, recognize, traditional American children's songs. Why? Because fewer teachers are teaching the songs of our American heritage in school. In 2003, Dr. Marilyn Ward addressed the problem by identifying the 84 songs most regularly taught in American schools, and most well known by our, 19th-20th century, populous. [1]
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The purpose of The American Heritage Songs Project is to provide parents and teachers with the songs and tools for passing on our national treasure to our children. Folk songs of America are a large part of our children's birthright. By knowing American Heritage Songs, we can better understand who we are, where we are, and from whom and whence we came. "Music is a symbolic means of expression woven through the strands of human experience we label as history" (Barret, McCoy, and Veblen. 1997).
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[1] Ward, M. (2003). The extent to which American children’s folk songs are taught by general music teachers throughout the United States at the beginning of the 21st century. In The extent to which American children’s folk songs are taught by general music teachers throughout the United States at the beginning of the 21st century.​​​​
The List
84 American Heritage Songs
Download your copy
84 American Heritage Songs
It is hoped . . .
our children will be taught to sing - the songs sung by Americans and their children for centuries - the songs of our heritage. These are songs that can provide our children a sense of who they are as American citizens, because they give us insight into our past and help us look to our future.
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The 84 Songs identified as core to our American Heritage are given that status because they have continued to be part of the memory and knowledge of our people, and also, because they have been taught in our schools for centuries
(until the most recent decades). American Heritage songs are such because through them we can connect with what is praiseworthy in our tradition. These songs have been instrumental in shaping the good women and men of our country for years.
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As we repair, maintain, and preserve our constitutional republic, it behooves us to provide our children with their cultural heritage.
The good music of our heritage gives us
a deeper understanding of
what it means to be citizens of
The United States of America.
The goodness in American culture is our birthright.
