Beadle's Dime Song Book No. 3

This is Beadle's Dime Song Book No. 3 (1860), a collection of comic and sentimental songs. The volume contains approximately seventy songs across genres: romantic ballads ("Bonny Jean," "Darling Rosabel"), nostalgic emigrant songs ("My Heart's in Old Ireland," "I Think of Old Ireland Wherever I Go"), patriotic pieces ("Hail Columbia," "The American Girl"), occupational songs ("A Sailor's Life for Me," "The Fireman's Death"), and comic numbers ("Pop Goes the Weasel," "Yillikins and his Dinah"). Many songs address loss and separation—death of loved ones, wartime partings, emigration. Others celebrate working-class and frontier life: sailors, firemen, gold-diggers, and Indian hunters. The collection includes narrative songs like "The Yellow Rose of Texas" and period dialect pieces. Published by Beadle and Company at ten cents, it targets popular audiences seeking affordable entertainment through song lyrics.