The Boys from U.S.A

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The arrival of American sailors to New Zealand transfixed the popular imagination not only through cigarettes, silk stockings, and fresh flowers, but through songs like The Boys from USA, set to popular dance forms like the fox-trot. The photolith cover includes portrait half tones, but also hand-rendered calligraphy in the title banner which evokes heavy uniform twill, the precursor of denim. The Wellington Piano Agency, like many musical instrument importers of the time, both sold and published sheet music.