As part of the New Deal, the U.S. government took a leading
role in documenting the music, speech, and artistic efforts
of ordinary Americans. In doing so, it generated rich
and extensive collections for the Archive of American Folk-Song. The
Archive, which was established in 1928 as part of the Library’s
Music Division, is now part of the American Folklife Center.
Throughout the South, the Midwest, and the Southwest, as
well as in New York City and California, New Deal workers
collected songs, tunes, and spoken materials. These
collections made their way to the archive in Washington,
D.C. For the most part, the materials comprise field recordings
of African American and Anglo-American traditional music,
but they also include the first substantial folk music collections
from numerous other American ethnic groups. In addition,
many of the collections include photographs, drawings, fieldnotes,
field reports, and correspondence.
Many New Deal agencies and programs contributed materials
to the Archive, including the Resettlement Administration
(RA), the Farm Security Administration (FSA), and a wide
range of Works Progress Administration and Work Projects
Administration (WPA) programs, such as the Federal Writers’ Project
(FWP), the Federal Theater Project (FTP), the National Youth
Administration (NYA), and the Joint Committee on Folk Arts.
There are many New Deal materials in other divisions of
the Library of Congress.
Consult with individual reading
rooms for more information.
AFS 2086-2089: Resettlement Administration Recordings
Four 8-inch discs of instrumentals and songs performed by
Rebecca and Penelope Tarwater of Rockwood, Tennessee. Recorded
in Washington, D.C., by Charles Seeger for the Special
Skills Division of the Resettlement Administration, June
1936.
AFS 3155-3313: Sidney Robertson Cowell and Charles Seeger
Resettlement Administration and 1937 National Folk Festival
Recordings
One hundred fifty-nine 12-inch discs of instrumentals and
songs recorded in Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri,
North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington,
D.C., West Virginia, and Wisconsin by Sidney Robertson Cowell,
Charles Seeger, and Margaret Valiant for the Special Skills
Division of the Resettlement Administration, 1936-37.
AFS 3314-3334; 3558-3570: Margaret Valiant Farm Security
Administration Recordings
Thirty-three 12-inch discs of music recorded in Coolidge
and Phoenix, Arizona, including Apache, Hopi, Mojave, Pima,
Papago, and Yuma music; and songs recorded in Brawley, Calipatria,
Indio, Shafter, and Visalia migratory camps in California,
by Margaret Valiant for the Farm Security Administration,
February and March 1939.
AFS 3521-3536: Stetson Kennedy and
Robert Cook WPA Florida Recordings
Sixteen 12-inch discs of conversations, games, interviews,
riddles, songs, and stories recorded in Cross City, Jacksonville,
and Ybor City (Tampa), Florida, by Robert Cook and Stetson
Kennedy for the Florida Music and Writers Projects of the
WPA, August, 1939. The collection includes 3/8 linear inches
of correspondence, explanations, song texts, and translations.
(Includes AFS 3521-3536.) Online
presentation.
AFS 3538-3550: Alton C. Morris WPA Florida Recordings
Fourteen 12-inch discs of Czech American, Slovak American,
Greek American, and Minorcan American music recorded in Jacksonville,
Masaryktown, St. Augustine, Slavia, and Tarpon Springs, Florida,
by Alton Chester Morris, assisted by Florida Federal Writers’ Project
workers, 1939-40. Online
presentation.
AFS 3571-3575: Gordon Barnes Tygart Valley Homesteads Recordings,
1939
Five 12-inch discs of instrumentals and songs performed by
Adalena, Addison, and Kathlene Boserman; Joe Haddix; Bob,
Dewey, and Myrlo Hamrick; the Happy Mountaineers; Ted Henderson;
Cathaline, Geraldine, and Wilma Leigh (Wilma Lee Cooper)
Leary; Mr. and Mrs. Orris Poling; Willie Sigler; and Junior
Thompson. Recorded at the Tygart Valley Homesteads, Elkins,
West Virginia, by Gordon Barnes for the Farm Security Administration,
April 4-5, 1939.
AFS 3589-3623: Margaret Valiant Southern States 1939 Collection
Thirty-four 12-inch discs recorded in Forsyth, McIntosh,
Georgia, recorded by Margaret Valiant for the National
Youth Administration, 1939.
AFS 3673-3683: Nicholas Ray Collection of South Dakota Recordings
Eleven 12-inch discs of folk songs, miners' songs, cowboy
songs, army songs, fiddle tunes, spoken stories of Deadwood,
and stories and poems about sheep herding. Recorded in
Mitchell, South Dakota, by Nicholas Ray, October 1939,
for the WPA Recreation Project.
AFS 3789-3795: Charles Seeger WPA South Carolina Recordings,
1939
Seven 12-inch discs of songs and spirituals, including several
accompanied on banjo and bones. Recorded on Brevard Plantation,
Adams Mill, near Columbia, South Carolina, by Charles Seeger,
March 1939.
AFS 3881-3902: Florida WPA Recordings, 1940
Twenty-two 12-inch acetate records made in Florida for the
Florida WPA Writers' and Music Projects, and for the Archive
of American Folk Song, by Carita Doggett Corse, Robert
Cornwall, John Corse, and John Filareton in Glades County,
Jacksonville, Kenansville, Mayport, Sebring, and Tarpon
Springs, Florida, and at sea, off the Georgia coast, March-July
1940. Online
presentation.
AFC 1938/002: Herbert Halpert New York City Collection
Forty-four 12-inch discs of folk songs including spirituals,
farming and labor songs, war songs, drinking songs, children’s
songs, taunts, lullabies, and love songs, recorded in New
York, Ramapo, and Sloatsburg, New York, by Herbert Halpert
for the Federal Theatre Project, January 1938 - November
1939. The collection includes 3/8 of a linear inch of correspondence,
13 pages of recording logs and notes, and 25 pages of transcripts.
(Includes AFS 3624-3672)
AFC 1939/003: Fletcher Collins, Jr. Collection
Thirty-four 12-inch discs recorded in North Carolina, Virginia,
and West Virginia, by Fletcher Collins, Jr. under the auspices
of the WPA Joint Committee on Folk Arts, and the Library
of Congress, 1935 - 1942. The collection includes indexes,
transcriptions, and correspondence. (Includes AFS 2235;
3769-3788; and 6482-6495). Finding
aid. Library
of Congress catalog.
AFC 1939/004: Rae Korson Collection of WPA Folklore Publications
Three copies of Folk Tunes from Mississippi collected by
Arthur Palmer Hudson, edited by George Herzog, National
Play Bureau of the Federal Theatre Project, publication
no. 25, July 1937; forty copies of Nebraska Folklore, Nebraska
Writers' Project, May 1940; one copy of Folk-Songs of America
by Robert Winslow Gordon, publication no. 73-S, December
1938; Two copies of Traditional Ballads Mainly from West
Virginia by John Harrington Cox, publication no. 75-S,
March 1939; one copy of Tennessee Folklore Society, Volume
III, No. 2, September 1937; one copy of Publication #81-S
from the National Service Bureau, Federal Theatre Project,
Works Projects Administration, compiled by John Harrington
Cox, introduction by Herbert Halpert.
AFC 1939/005: Herbert Halpert 1939 Southern States Recording
Expedition
Four hundred nineteen 12-inch discs of instrumentals, monologs,
prayers, sermons, songs, and stories recorded in Alabama,
Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Tennessee, and Virginia, by Herbert Halpert, March - June,
1939, for the Folk Arts Committee of the WPA and the Library
of Congress. The collection includes 1 1/4 linear inches
of articles, contact sheets, correspondence, descriptions,
interviews, lists, photographs, reports, and song texts.
(Includes AFS 2735-3153)
AFC 1939/013: Stetson Kennedy WPA Florida Recordings
Eighteen 12-inch discs of imitations, instrumentals, riddles,
songs, street cries, and tales of African American, Arabic,
Bahamian, British American, Cuban, Greek, Italian, Minorcan,
Seminole, and Slavic cultures throughout Florida. Recorded
in Key West, Riviera, and Ybor City, Florida, by Robert
Cook and Stetson Kennedy for the Florida Music and Writers
Projects of the WPA, January 15-31, 1940. The collection
includes 1/2 linear inch of descriptions, lists, and song
lyrics. (Includes AFS 3378-3395)
Online Presentation.
AFC 1940/001: WPA California Folk Music Project Collection,
1938-1940
Two hundred thirty-nine discs and numerous photographs, drawings,
transcriptions, correspondence, and manuscripts documenting
seventeen ethnic groups recorded in northern California by
Sidney Robertson Cowell for the Northern California WPA as
part of the WPA California Folk Music Project, 1938-1940.
The project was sponsored by the University of California,
Berkeley, and co-sponsored by Library's Archive of American
Folk Song. (Includes AFS 3342-3377; 3809-3880; and 4194-4325.) Online
presentation.
AFC 1941/018: Robert Sonkin Alabama and New Jersey Collection
Sixty-four 12-inch discs of conversations, interviews, prayer
meetings, rhymes, and songs recorded at various locations
in Bessemer, Camden, Gee's Bend, Greensboro, Palmerdale,
Rehoboth, and Selma, Alabama, and Port Norris and Shell
Pile, New Jersey, by Robert Sonkin, June 25-July 25, 1941.
The collection includes one inch of content lists and textual
transcriptions, including Farm Security Administration
reports about Gee's Bend, 1937-1939 and undated. (Includes
AFS 5035-5098.)
Finding
aid.
AFC Hampton Institute
Duplication Project
One hundred 12-inch discs of Negro religious songs, sermons,
ex-slave narratives, Joe Louis fights, Eleanor Roosevelt
speech, etc., from Hampton, Virginia, recorded by Prof. Roscoe
Lewis of Hampton Institute, 1937-1940 [?]. Three discs of
ex-slave narratives were made for the Commonwealth of Virginia
between 1937 and 1940 by Roscoe E. Lewis in affiliation with
Federal Writers' Project of the WPA. (Includes AFS 8222-8321.) Online
presentation.
AFC 1985/001: Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant
Workers Collection
One hundred twenty-two discs, 27 graphic images (prints and
negatives), and 1.5 linear feet of print materials including
administrative correspondence, fieldnotes, recording logs,
song text transcriptions, dust jackets from the recording
discs with handwritten notes, news clippings, publications,
and ephemera documenting Farm Security Administration migrant
work camps in Arvin, Shafter, Visalia, Firebaugh, Westley,
Thornton, and Yuba, California. Recorded by Charles Todd
and Robert Sonkin, 1940-41. The collection includes one box
of typescripts, newspaper articles and clippings, scrapbook
and memorabilia. (Includes AFS 4088-4158; 5099-5146; and
6314-6316.) Online
presentation. Library
of Congress catalog.
Index of American Design
303 microfiches of the consolidated catalog to the Index
of American Design, Federal Art Project. Microform number
(w)86/3. Library
of Congress catalog. Accompanied by The consolidated
catalog to the Index of American Design / edited by Sandra
Shaffer Tinkham (NK805.I5 1980).
Corporate Subject File materials
Ten linear inches of miscellaneous materials related to
folklore and the WPA. Includes bibliographies, clippings,
correspondence, memos, reference guides, general information
on various agencies, collection surveys, WPA manuals,
and folksong questionnaires used by WPA workers.
Archive of Folk Song card catalog
A joint project of several sections of the WPA created
an item-level card index for more than 4,000 recordings accessioned
into the collections of the Archive during 1933-1940 and
resulted in the 1942 publication by the Library of Congress
Music Division of the Check-List of Recorded Songs in the
English Language in the Library of Congress Archive of Folk
Song to July, 1940. The card index and checklist are housed
in the Folklife Reading Room. A digitized version of the
card index is now available online: Traditional
Music and Spoken Word Catalog.
In addition to these materials generated by various agencies
of the New Deal, the Archive includes many materials about
the New Deal, such as songs by Woody Guthrie, interviews
with fieldworkers (such as Herbert Halpert and Charles L.
Todd), and many others. Contact
the Folklife Reading Room for more information.
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