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Vintage sheet music booklet for “God Bless America by Irving Berlin,” five pages, 9 x 12, signed on the front cover in fountain pen by Irving Berlin, who adds the date, “July 21, 1941.” The cover is also signed by actor Paul Muni, actress Jane Froman, impersonator Laurance H. Hart, and others. The cover also bears a trio of U.S. Defense postage stamps, postmarked "Grand Central Annex" in 1941. In very good to fine condition, with staining to the left border.
Originally written by Irving Berlin in 1918 for the wartime musical Yip, Yip, Yaphank but ultimately set aside, God Bless America was extensively revised two decades later and first performed by Kate Smith during her nationally broadcast Armistice Day program in November 1938. The song quickly became one of America's most enduring patriotic anthems, assuming even greater significance as global conflict intensified in the years leading up to U.S. entry into World War II. In 1940, Berlin established the God Bless America Fund, dedicating all royalties from the song to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America, a charitable legacy that continues to this day. Signed by Berlin on July 21, 1941, just months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the booklet captures God Bless America at a pivotal moment in American history, when the song had already become a symbol of national unity amid growing international uncertainty.
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