I plan to transition from Union Protest Music to the songs contributed by Woody Guthrie.
I would also like to have you go to the Woody Guthrie exhibit at the Library of Congress American Memory Website. Read the Biographical Section and take a look at the timeline. I'll be playing some Guthrie and we'll look at what the thirties brought to this country....including lots of dust.
For Monday, April 8
Read, in Weissman
Changes in American Life and the Labor Movement 182
The Almanac Singers 184
Alan Lomax and Woody Guthrie 189
From the page:
The images in the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Collection are among the most famous documentary photographs ever produced. Created by a group of U.S. government photographers, the images show Americans in every part of the nation. In the early years, the project emphasized rural life and the negative impact of the Great Depression, farm mechanization, and the Dust Bowl. In later years, the photographers turned their attention to the mobilization effort for World War II. The core of the collection consists of about 164,000 black-and-white photographs. This release provides access to over 160,000 of these images; future additions will expand the black-and-white offering. The FSA-OWI photographers also produced about 1600 color photographs during the latter days of the project. Below are some examples of the pictures in the collection.
I would also like to have you take some time to look at some incredible photographs--also from the Library of congress. If any of you are thinking of making a video, some of these might be just the thing to illustrate your music.
Though we may not get to them until next Tuesday, I'd also like to have you take a look at Voices from the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection is an online presentation of a multi-format ethnographic field collection documenting the everyday life of residents of Farm Security Administration (FSA) migrant work camps in central California in 1940 and 1941. This collection consists of audio recordings, photographs, manuscript materials, publications, and ephemera generated during two separate documentation trips supported by the Archive of American Folk Song
See you This Afternoon. Happy Looking and Listening, and sorry for the delay.
For Thursday, April 8
Keep a watch on this space. There is a special event being presented in the Mary Tefft White Center to which we've been invited. I'll post details as soon as I have them.
Changes in American Life and the Labor Movement 182
