Covering a three-month period in 1939, the John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip documents a wide variety of musical styles from eight different states. This collection consists of approximately 25 hours of audio recordings on 267 acetate recording discs and 1 linear foot of print materials. The online presentation provides access to 686 audio titles, 381 graphic images from the Lomax Visual Image Collection in the Prints and Photographs Division, and page images as well as transcribed, searchable text for all the print material in the collection. This includes the 1939 Annual Report for the Archive of American Folk Song, a 4-page trip report, 307 pages of fieldnotes, 57 items of correspondence, 37 song text transcriptions, and the 104 extant dust jackets from the recording discs with handwritten notes.

For more information about related documentary projects undertaken by the Archive of American Folk Song in 1939, see the 1939 Annual Report.

For more information about the collectors, please refer to the biographical essays on John Avery Lomax and Ruby Terrill Lomax.