Joseph Rumshinsky was known as one of the founders of the American Yiddish musical stage. The collection predominantly consists of original and reproduced manuscripts of scores and parts of stage shows and operettas, songs, dance music, and religious pieces. Additionally there are clippings and typescript materials, including synopses, scripts, obituaries, and testimonials.

Joseph Rumshinsky was born in Vina, Luthuania in 1881. He was a child prodigy cantorial meshoyrer (apprentice) and by the age of 17 had conducted his first Yiddish theater production. He moved to America in 1904. After being invited to New York by the theater impresario and star Boris Thomashefsky in 1908, Rumshinsky helped upgrade the structure of Yiddish musical theater from a series of vaudeville-type skits linked by songs into a true operetta form. His first solo production, Dem Rebins Nigun (the rabbis melody), in 1920 established him as Yiddish Americas preeminent theater composer.

23.5 Linear Feet (47 boxes)

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