Still Bravely Singing: 'In Flanders Fields,' Composers, and American culture during the Great War

In the decade following 1915, John McCrae's celebrated poem 'In Flanders Fields' became an icon of the Great War in the US and Canada. Widely reprinted, it inspired Remembrance Day and appeared in over fifty-eight musical settings by composers ranging from the famous (John Philip Sousa) to the obscure (Edith Neumann). This study examines the poem, the compositions, the composers and the social and political context of their music. It finds resemblances and differences not only in the responses to the poem but in the pieces themselves and their reception in America's multivalent musical communities.