Week of April 15

I plan to transition from Union Protest Music to the songs contributed by Woody Guthrie.

Ii you have not done so 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. You will remember from the video last week a very brief view of the dustbowl, I'm going to show a more extended view this afternoon, including interviews with survivors, who were little kids during that particlar catastrophe. If this looks familiar it is because of the special class last Thursday. Thanks to those who showed up. Dr. Bonder made some interesting comments about the purpose of memorials of disasters as places to help us contemplate changing future behavior for the better. There's a connection to the purpose of Protest and Praise songs, there.

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. We just might have some time, assuming I get the equipment working quickly, to listen to remarks by Bill Moyers about the contemporary importance of Woody Guthrie--published last year, his centeniary.

Thuirsday we'll get to looking 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

Probably the most famous photographer working in this era and on this subject was Dorothea Lange. Find out about her by clicking on her name. More of her famous work can be found on the SHORPY page.

INTERNET EXERCISE (This should look even more familiar)

Go Online to YouTube and/or Google, and plug in the name of one or more of the persons or groups mentioned in the Assignemnt above. Find some whose song or music you like, and cut and past the URL (universal resource locator) into your resource file, using the add link button. Google will require an extra step, clicking on the video button, but there are videos on such sites as hulu which aren’t on YouTube. Then see if you can find the lyrics to the song, and plug them into your resources, as well. We’ll do a “show and tell” session this material, carrying over to next Monday as necessary.

We're getting close enough to the modern era so that we can hear originals....but many younger singers have "covered" these songs right down to the present. You might enjoy, (and I'd enjoy hearing the differences...I hope other members of the class would too, hint, hint).

Read. in Weismann, the sections

Protest Music and Audiences (remember our first book). p. 196

World War II and the Almanacs 197

Pete Seeger amd People's Music 198-99

Josh White 199-100

The Red Scares, the Elections of 1948, and the End of People's Music 200 - 202

The Weavers, 204 (including the Blacklist sub-section)

The Effects of the Blacklist on Political Music 204