Author's note: An earlier version of this paper was given at the American Studies Association meetings in Minneapolis in 1979. I am grateful to Archie Green, Richard D. McKinzie, and David E. Whisnant for help and suggestions.

1. Green, Archie, “A Resettlement Administration Song Sheet,” John Edwards Memorial Foundation Quarterly [UCLA] 11, No. 2 (Summer 1975), 80–7.Google Scholar

2. For a view of Seeger's musicological and ethnomusicological explorations, see Reuss, Richard, “Folk Music and Social Conscience: The Musical Odyssey of Charles Seeger,” Western Folklore, 38 (10 1979), 221–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the relevant portions of Dunaway, David King, How Can I Keep From Singing: Pete Seeger (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981).Google Scholar

3. Denisoff, R. Serge, Great Day Coming: Folk Music and the American Left (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971), pp. 18–76Google Scholar; see also Reuss, Richard A., “American Folklore and Left-Wing Politics, 1927–1957,” unpublished doctoral dissertation, Indiana University 1971.Google Scholar

4. See Wilgus, D. K., Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship Since 1898 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1959)Google Scholar; see also Reuss, , “American Folklore”; and Whisnant, David E., All That Is Native and Fine: The Politics of Culture in an American Region (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983).Google Scholar

5. Whisnant, , “This Folk Work and the ‘Holy Folk’Google Scholar: The White Top Folk Festival, 1931–1939,” in Native and Fine.

6. A number of books cover the history of the Resettlement Administration. See Baldwin, Sidney, Poverty and Politics: The Rise and Decline of the Farm Security Administration (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968)Google Scholar; Banfield, Edward C., Government Project (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1951)Google Scholar; Conkin, Paul K., Tomorrow a New World: The New Deal Community Program (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1959)Google Scholar; Kirkendall, Richard S., Social Scientists and Farm Politics in the Age of Roosevelt (Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 1966)Google Scholar; and Holley, Donald, Uncle Sam's Farmers: The New Deal Communities in the Lower Mississippi Valley (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975).Google Scholar For agricultural history during the period, see Saloutos, Theodore, The American Farmer and the New Deal (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1982).Google Scholar See also Conkin, Paul, “It All Happened in Pine Mountain Valley,” Georgia Historical Quarterly (03 1963) pp. 1–42Google Scholar; and Pittman, Dan W., “The Founding of Dyess Colony,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 29 (Winter 1970), 313–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Kirkendall, , Social Scientists, pp.106–7Google Scholar; Baldwin, , Poverty and Politics, pp. 18–46, 65Google Scholar; Conkin, , New World, pp. 11–72Google Scholar; and Holley, , Uncle Sam's Farmers, pp. 18–23.Google Scholar

8. Baldwin, , Poverty and Politics, pp. 22–24.Google Scholar

9. Conkin, , New World, pp. 149–151Google Scholar; see Baldwin, , Poverty and Politics, pp. 113–115Google Scholar for political reactions. On Tugwell's views, see Sternsher, Bernard, Rexford Tugwell and the New Deal (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1964)Google Scholar; on Tugwell's role in the Special Skills Division, see Adrian Dornbush interview, June 15, 1965, Archives of American Art (hereafter cited as AAA), National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C. I am indebted to Roy Rosenzweig for locating this interview.

10. Confidential report, Kellock to Adrian Dornbush, Oct. 10, 1935, p. 12, U.S. Farm Security Administration, Special Skills Division, Music Unit, Miscellaneous, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C; hereafter referred to as FSA/MDLC. Mrs. Kellock, a trained nurse who worked at Henry Street Settlement House in New York City, was sent from Washington to do the surveys. Kellock later served as tours editor for the Federal Writers' Project. See McKinzie, Kathleen O., “Writers on Relief, 1935–1942,” unpublished doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, 1970, 25–6, and passim.Google Scholar

11. For the history and tenets of the recreation movement, see among others, Kraus, Richard, Recreation and Leisure in Modern Society (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1971)Google Scholar; Cheek, Neil H. Jr. and Burch, William R. Jr., The Social Organization of Leisure in Human Society (New York: Harper and Row, 1976)Google Scholar; Rapoport, Rhona and Rapoport, Robert N., Leisure and the Family Life Cycle (London: Rootledge and Kegan Paul, 1975)Google Scholar; and Schwartzman, Helen, ed., Play and Culture (West Point, N.Y.: Leisure Press, 1980).Google Scholar The records of the music program of the Resettlement Administration are located at the National Archives and Records Administration and the Music Division of the Library of Congress (see note 10), both in Washington, D.C. At the Archives, memos, letters, and reports concerning musical activities of the Special Skills Division are located in Record Group 96, Records of the Farmers' Home Administration, Resettlement Division, General Correspondence, 1935–1942. Within RG 96, Entry 984–07 SPECIAL SKILLS (MUSIC) (hereafter known as 984–07/96/NARA) and Entry 986 Correspondence by Name (hereafter known as 986/96/NARA) both contain scattered materials. Seeger took a good deal of correspondence and other materials when he left the RA. In 1967, he presented these papers to the Music Division of the Library of Congress where they can be found in FSA/MDLC. Most of the important documentation pertaining to the RA music program is contained in the latter collection. Additional materials pertaining to the music program can be found in the Margaret Valiant Collection at Mitchell Memorial Library, Mississippi State University, and in the Kenneth S. Goldstein Folklore Collection at the University of Mississippi Library, Oxford. On the RA music program, see Warren-Findley, Jannelle, “Musicians and Mountaineers: The Resettlement Administration's Music Program in Appalachia, 1935–1937,” Appalachian Journal, Vol.7, Nos. 1–2 (Autumn/Winter 1979–1780), 105–23Google Scholar; and Seeger, Charles and Valiant, Margaret, “Journal of a Field Representative”Google Scholar with an introduction by Warren-Findley, Jannelle, Ethnomusicology 24, No. 2 (05 1980), 169–210.Google Scholar

12. Reuss, , “Folk Music,” pp. 227–31.Google Scholar

13. Seeger, Charles, “On Proletarian Music,” Modern Music, 11 (03–04 1934) 121–2Google Scholar; see Denisoff, , Great Day, pp. 14–17Google Scholar; Reuss, , “American Folklore,” pp. 50–96Google Scholar, for information about the Composers' Collective; Dunaway, David, “Unsung Songs of Protest: The Composers' Collective of New York,” New York Folklore 5, No. 1 (1979), 1–19Google Scholar; and relevant portions of Dunaway, How Can I Keep From Singing; Alexander, Charles C., Here the Country Lies: Nationalism and the Arts in Twentieth Century America (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press 1980), pp. 171–2Google Scholar; and Achter, Barbara Z., “Americanism and American Art Music, 1929–1945,” unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, 1978.Google Scholar

14. Achter, , “Americanism” pp. 274–5Google Scholar; Reuss, , “Folk Music,” pp. 229–30Google Scholar; Sandburg, Carl, The American Songbag (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1927), p. xv.Google Scholar

15. Seeger, Charles, interview with JW-F, 06 11, 1973Google Scholar, Bridgewater, Conn. Seeger used precisely the same phraseology to Archie Green; see Green, , “Song Sheet,” 81.Google Scholar

16. Seeger-Kellock, policy memo, 12 12, 1935Google Scholar, FSA/MDLC. The following quotes and materials come from this memo except where noted.

17. Seeger, , “On Proletarian Music,” pp. 121–2 and passim.Google Scholar

18. Alexander, , Here the Country Lies, p. 179.Google Scholar

19. Seeger, Charles, An American MusicologistGoogle Scholar, Oral History Program, University of California at Los Angeles (typescript, 1972), pp. 290–1.

20. Professor George List, a retired faculty member from Indiana University, remembered that a performance of “From These Hills” was given by the Federal Music Project after Haufrecht left Resettlement and joined the FMP in New York City. George, List, Interview with JW-F, 02 27, 1982Google Scholar, Bloomington, Indiana.

21. This is Barbara Achter's definition. See Achter, , “Americanism,” p. 179.Google Scholar

22. The original text can be found in the Margaret Valiant Collection, Mississippi State University; the story of its composition is told in Margaret Valiant, Interview with JW-F and Cheryl Evans, April 14, 1979, Memphis, Tennessee; and Lord, Russell quoted it in The Wallaces of Iowa (1947; New York: DeCappo Press, 1972) pp. 424–5.Google Scholar

23. Kellock to Seeger, Confidential Report concerning Westmoreland, Cumberland, Tygart, Red House, Dyess, Cherry Lake, Pine Mountain Valley, November 15, 1935, 7 pp., FSA/MDLC.

24. Seeger tried but failed to recruit Marc Blitzstein. See telegrams Blitzstein to Seeger, , 01, 30 and May 13, 1936Google Scholar; both in 984–07/96/NARA. For information on the field representatives, see Margaret Valiant, Interview with JW-F and Cheryl Evans; Dornbush, to Shouw, Vander, 12 26, 1935Google Scholar, in 986/96/NARA; Seeger, to Fridenhagen, , 02 8, 1936, 2 p.Google Scholar, in 984–07/96/NARA; Seeger, , An American Musicologist, pp. 242, 244–7Google Scholar; Seeger, to Dornbush, , Report No. 8, 03 25, 1936Google Scholar; Report No. 16, March–April 1936; Dornbush, to Seeger, , 03 23, 1936Google Scholar; all in 984–07/96/NARA; Dornbush, to Powell, , 12 19, 1936, 1–2Google Scholar, 986/96/NARA; Confidential report Kellock, to Seeger, , 11 15, 1935, 4 and 7Google Scholar, Seeger, to Dornbush, , 12 10, 1935, 3 pp.Google Scholar, both in FSA/MDLC.

25. To Lester, Robert M. from Dornbush, , 01 16, 1937, 2 pp. 984–07/96/NARA.Google Scholar

26. Green, , “RA Song Sheet,” p. 82.Google Scholar

27. To Inglis from Dornbush, , 11 23, 1936, 1–2, 984–07/96/NARA.Google Scholar

28. Dornbush, to Bosworth, , 05 13, 1937Google Scholar, FSA/MDLC; memo, Ward, to Dornbush, , 04 28, 1936Google Scholar; draft memo, Seeger, to Cline, , 05 7, 1936Google Scholar; memo, Van Hyning, to Ward, , 05 7, 1936Google Scholar; memo, Thatcher, to Dornbush, , 12 29, 1936Google Scholar; all in 984–07/96/NARA. The songs Seeger intended to add to the series included “Cindy,” “Careless Love,” “Solidarity,” “Phoebe (Old Grumbler),” “Hog Drovers,” “John Henry,” and a skit built around “The Rich Man and the Poor Man.”

29. Seeger, to Barker, , 03 31, 1937, 2Google Scholar, 984–07/96/NARA. On Pollock and Shahn, see Seeger, to Dornbush, , 05 18, 1936Google Scholar, FSA/MDLC. See also Marling, Karal Ann, “A Note on New Deal Iconography: Futurology and the Historical Myth,” Prospects IV (1978) 421/39Google Scholar, and Wall to Wall America (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982).Google Scholar

30. Dornbush, to Inglis, , 12 23, 1936, 2, 984–07/96/NARA.Google Scholar

31. For the history of the photography branch, see Hurley, F. Jack, Portrait of a Decade: Roy Stryker and the Development of Documentary Photography in the Thirties (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Press, 1972)Google Scholar; for the role of the Information Division in terms of the agency's mission, see Baldwin, , Poverty and Politics, pp. 117–19.Google Scholar William Stott discussed the concept of the documentary during the period in Documentary Expression and Thirties America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973).Google Scholar Maren Stange takes an important critical approach to the FSA photographers. See, for example, “Transcript of Papers Delivered at the Conference on New Deal Culture, October 15–17, 1981” in the collection of the Institute on the Federal Theatre Project and New Deal Culture, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, pp. 84–97.

32. “Harmonica notes for musical illiterates - Benton group 8th Street N.Y. early 30's” n.p., Pollock notebook, AAA reel 1097, National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; Steffan, Bernard, Interview with JW-F, Shady, New York, 08 11, 1979Google Scholar; LaFollette, to Shaw, , 12 26, 1935Google Scholar, among others; Seeger to Ashland Folk School, May 23, 1936; Seeger, to Tobey, , 03 30, 1936Google Scholar; all in 986/96/NARA. On Highlander Folk School, see Thomas, H. Glyn, “The Highlander Folk School,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, 23:4 (1964), 358–71Google Scholar and Adams, Frank, Unearthing Seeds of Fire: The Idea of Highlander (Winston-Salem, N.C.: J. F. Blair, 1975).Google Scholar

33. Seeger, to Tobey, , 03 30, 1936, 986/96/NARA.Google Scholar

34. Seeger, to Dornbush, , 05 18, 1836, FSA/MDLC.Google Scholar

35. Baldwin, , Poverty and Politics, 111–20.Google Scholar

36. Seeger, Charles, letter to Warren-Findley, Jannelle, 02 14, 1977.Google Scholar

37. Archie Green, in “RA Song Sheet,” questions the anonymity of the song sheets and asks (p. 87) “Was there any behind-the-scenes manoeuvering, which hid larger questions such as using tax funds for cultural work to help poor people?” The reason given by RA staff members for no agency attribution was that they were intended to be “in-house” publications. (Dornbush to Frederickson, March 22, 1937, 984–07/96/NARA). Seeger said later, “We omitted mention of the fact that the song sheets were government publications for the same reason that we omitted anything like scholarly documentation for we had at least that amount of political sense: the program would have been stopped sooner and the people would have cared less for the sheets” (Seeger, to JW-F, 02 14, 1977, p.2).Google Scholar Politics undoubtedly dictated such an approach, as did the problems of convincing RA staff and the GAO that expenditures on moralebuilding materials for poor people were at least as justifiable as those funds spent for income-producing training.

38. In Lomax, Alan, ed., Folk Song U.S.A. (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1947), p. 160.Google Scholar

39. See, for example, the account of singer Johnny Cash's experiences as a child at Dyess Colony, Arkansas, in Wren, Christopher, Winners Got Scars, Too: The Life of Johnny Cash (New York: Dial Press, 1971), pp. 34–57.Google Scholar

40. Lomax, , Folk Song U.S.A., p. 39.Google Scholar

41. Cowell, Sidney Robertson to JW-F, 06 11, 1979, 2.Google Scholar

42. Lomax, , Folk Song U.S.A., p. 330.Google Scholar For another view of these groups, see Mathews, Donald G., Religion in the Old South (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977).Google Scholar

43. Seeger, Charles to JW-F, 02 14, 1977.Google Scholar

44. Seeger, , An American Musicologist, p. 255.Google Scholar

45. Ibid., p. 256.

46. See Powell, to Dornbush, , 08 23, 1937, 4 pp., 984–07/96/NARA.Google Scholar

47. Pollock notebook, AAA reel 1097, National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.

48. Cowell, Sidney Robertson to JW-F, 07 9, 1979. 49Google Scholar. Ibid.

50. Alexander, , Here the Country Lies, pp. 193–9Google Scholar; for music, see pp. 205–10; Denisoff, , Great Day, pp. 47–76Google Scholar; Marling, , “A Note on New Deal Iconography,” pp. 427Google Scholar; Seeger, Charles, “American Music for American Children,” Music Educators Journal, 29, No. 2 (11–12 1942), 11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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52. Seeger, to Barker, , 03 31, 1937, 2, 984–07/96/NARA.Google Scholar

53. Valiant, Interview with JW-F and Cheryl Evans.

54. Cowell, Sidney Robertson to JW-F, 06 11, 1979, 2.Google Scholar

55. Ibid., Powell, to Dornbush, , 08 23, 1937Google Scholar, 984–07/96/NARA; confidential report, Kellock to Seeger, November 15, 1935, 7 pp., FSA/MDLC.

56. Bowden, Ruth to Dornbush, , 08 24, 1936Google Scholar, 984–07/96/NARA.

57. Conkin, , Tomorrow a New World, pp. 211–13, 289Google Scholar; Banfield, , Government Project, pp. 222–60Google Scholar; for an illustration, see Dr. Will Alexander story quoted in Daniels, Jonathan, White House Witness, 1942–1945 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975), p. 130.Google Scholar

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59. Ibid., pp. 254–5; Alexander, , Here the Country Lies, pp. 207–16.Google Scholar

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62. Seeger, to Dornbush, , 03 29, 1936Google Scholar, FSA/MDLC.

63. Seeger, to Van Hyning, , 05 22, 1936, 2Google Scholar p., FSA/MDLC; see Seeger, and Valiant, , “Journal of a Field Representative,” pp. 169–210.Google Scholar

64. Seeger, , “Music in America,” Magazine of Art (Washington, D.C: 1938), pp. 411–13 and 435–6Google Scholar; Seeger continued to work along these lines in “Grass Roots for American Composers,” Modern Music, 16, 3 (03–04 1939), 143–9Google Scholar, and later pieces. Seeger put together a complete bibliography of his works for the “Charles Seeger Celebration” in 1977 at the University of California at Berkeley. For an assessment of Seeger's contribution, see Hitchcock, H. Wiley, “Sources for the Study of American Music,” American Studies International, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Winter 1975), 3.Google Scholar