Table of Contents

Acknowledgments      vii
Prelude      1

Part I—Breaking All the Rules: The 1890s      3
1. A Medley for the Fair: A Time to Start Raggin’ It      6
2. My Kind of Town: Hot Nights in the City      16
3. The Making of the Legend: A Boy and a Banjo      26
4. Marching to a Ragtime Tune      38

Part II—The Music Makers Play Main Street: The 1900s      49
5. Writing in Ragtime      51
6. Tin Pan Alley and All That Jazz: Footloose in “Black Bohemia”      65
7. They All Played Ragtime: Scott Joplin and Irving Berlin—A Case of Plagiarism?      79
8. The Girls of Ragtime and the Cult of Celebrity: Murder, Passion and Honor      87

Part III—The Dream That Wouldn’t Die: The 1910s      99
9. Dancing in Ragtime      101
10. The Censors and the Erotic Life      112
11. Reporting in Ragtime      124
12. Dreaming of Treemonisha      137

Part IV—After the Rag: The Finale      147
13. Little Mary and the Little Tramp: Ragtime Partners of the Silent Screen      149
14. The Rites of Spring: The Martyred Saint of the Ragtime Era      159
15. Ragtime in Revival      169
16. Echoes of the Music: We’re All Still Playing Ragtime      179

The Life and Times of Scott Joplin      187
Scott Joplin’s Compositions      189
Sources of Quotations      193
Appendix: Ragtime in the Newspapers      201
Bibliography      215
Index      219