Alice Morgan Person (1840-1913) fell into hardship after the Civil War but remarkably overcame by selling patent medicine and playing and sharing her arrangements of folk tunes. This title discusses her place in the histories of American patent medicine and southern folk music from an ethnomusicological perspective.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     
Introduction     

BOOK I: “The Chivalry of Man as Exemplified in the Life of Mrs. Joe Person”: Alice Morgan Person’s Story in Her Own Words, 1858–1892

Preface     
Foreword     

PART
1. The Origin of Mrs. Joe Person’s Remedy     
2. Castles in the Air     
3. The Development of the Remedy     
4. More Castles in the Air     
5. The Chivalry of Man     
6. More Chivalry     
7. Clouds—Sunshine: “After the Alps Comes Italy”     
8. I Go to Church     
9. More Chivalry     
10. Partner No. 2     
11. Tarboro and Tarboro Ways     
12. Partners, Adieu!     

PART II: NOTES BY THE WAYSIDE
Flowers Plucked from the Hedges and Thorns from the Briar-Bushes     
Poor John!     
“Sonny”     
Not My Daughter, Oh No!     
What Is Happiness?     
Big, Rich and a Strong Pillar     
An Honest Man Is the Noblest Work of God     
A Woman’s Opinion     
Finale     

BOOK II: A Life Out of the Ordinary: Alice’s Story in the Words of Others

PART I: THE WOMAN
1. Daughter and Sister     
2. Wife and Mother     
3. Medicine Maker and Musician     
4. Public and Private     

PART II: REFLECTIONS ON THE MEDICINE AND THE MUSIC
5. Snake Oil or Native American Medical Marvel?     
6. The Remedy and the Turn-of-the-Century Patent Medicine Trade     
7. Alice and Music in Fashion     
8. Popular Airs, Blue Alsatian Mountains, and Nostalgia     

Appendix: Timeline of Alice Morgan Person and Her Company     
Chapter Notes     
Bibliography     
Index