On October 12th, our assignment was to have come to class having read Segregating Sound by Karl Miller and our class lecture related to the book. Segregating Sound discussed how successful the blues were to the music industry and how the blues introduced “folklore”. A white folklorist named Walter Webb was mentioned a handful of times in the book crediting him for introducing the blues as a new popular genre. The blues was an important genre as it connected the age of the Jim Crow Era as it was popular amongst blacks. On page 190, Karl Miller discussed and examined the politics of segregation and the emergence of folklore, which was often associated with blacks, into commercialized music industry. Miller discussed how whites and blacks shared this music genre and the shifting struggles over this shared genre and the classifications of constant black or white. This era we begin to see an emergence of whites and blacks sharing similar interests and the color divide lessens, but not entirely. My favorite part of Segregating Sound was that Race Records was mentioned and it excited me since we had previously touched base on it in a previous class. The interesting part with Race Records was it had genres that marketed to blacks such as blues, but that genre always marketed to white, since it was basically originated folklore. For this class, besides having read Segregating Sound and learning that John Lomax was one of the most important folklorists in American history, we also had a lecture on Forms of Nationalism. We discussed how the people that came to the United States shared similar aspirations, which could come from the iconic quote of how people came here to live out there “American Dream.” Specifically, 75% of Italian-Americans that immigrated returned and stayed in the United States. Although, whites were essentiality superior, theoretically speaking all citizens were equal because all agreed to be ruled by the same laws and follow them. We also touched base on The Enlightenment, which took place in the 1700s, which emphasized on rationality and individualism. We talked about The Enlightenment and how the Romanticism Era was a reaction to it. This was an interesting topic because we discussed how people in this era begin to be moved by greater things and argue for meaning and beauty found in emotion. The Era people truly connected to their inner self, which can be linked back to the emphasis on individualism that the Enlightenment Era gave the people.  What fascinated me the most was that our lecture concluded by connecting back to Segregating Sound by discussing the issues with “Romantic Nationalism” in the United States is nature of folk is non-white.