Music was an immensely popular form of entertainment in America in the first decade of the century, though not in the same way it is today. Americans did not buy prerecorded records or CDs and play them on stereo equipment. Instead, most American popular music was produced in the home, most likely on a piano, from sheet music purchased from one of many sheet music companies.

Most music was produced by amateurs for small audiences of family and friends, but music was also a developing form in this decade. In fact, this was a decade of vibrant musical production. The sheet music publishing industry was centered in a district of New York City known as Tin Pan Alley, where skilled musicians composed popular music to sell to the masses. Between 1900 and 1909, nearly one hundred of the Tin Pan Alley songs had sold more than...