The Howard W. Wildin American Popular Sheet Music Collection, totaling more than 20,000 pieces, dates from 1835-1980, reflecting the unique attitudes, tastes, and biases of bygone eras. In addition to their value as historical artifacts, many titles have covers that are considered works of art.
Howard W. and Nancy A. Wildin donated this significant collection of American sheet music in the summer of 2012. A scanning project to make this collection available to students, scholars, singers, and musicians was completed in August of 2017. Any items created before 1922 were old enough to be exempt from copyright laws and were added the Gonzaga University Digital Archive. Items still restricted by copyright law could not be made available online.
As of January 1, 2019, because of changes in US copyright law, published works from 1923 have now entered the public domain. Therefore, the full version of about 270 additional titles from The Howard W. Wildin Sheet Music Collection will be available for viewing online soon at the Gonzaga University Digital Archives site. Please click on the following link to see the list of titles that will become free to use.
