Woody Guthrie Papers Finding Aid ~ Introduction
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Pete Seegerhas Always Walked the Road Less Traveled. a Tall, Lean Fellow
Pete Seegerhas always walked the road less traveled. A tall, lean fellow with long arms and legs, high energy and a contagious joy of spjrit, he set everything in motion, singing in that magical voice, his head thrown back as though calling to the heavens, makingyou see that you can change the world, risk everything, do your best, cast away stones. “Bells of Rhymney,” “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?,” “ One Grain of Sand,” “ Oh, Had I a Golden Thread” ^ songs Right, from top: Seeger, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins and Arlo Guthrie (from left) at the Woody Guthrie Memorial Concert at Carnegie Hail, 1967; filming “Wasn’t That a Time?," a movie of the Weavers’ 19 8 0 reunion; Seeger with banjo; at Red Above: The Weavers in the early ’50s - Seeger, Lee Hays, Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman (from left). Left: Seeger singing on a Rocks, in hillside in El Colorado, 1983; Cerrito, C a l|p in singing for the early '60s. Eleanor Roosevelt, et al., at the opening of the Washington Labor Canteen, 1944; aboard the “Clearwater” on his beloved Hudson River; and a recent photo of Seeger sporting skimmer (above), Above: The Almanac Singers in 1 9 4 1 , with Woody Guthrie on the far left, and Seeger playing banjo. Left: Seeger with his mother, the late Constance Seeger. PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE COLLECTION OF HAROLD LEVENTHAL AND THE WOODY GUTHRIE ARCHIVES scattered along our path made with the Weavers - floor behind the couch as ever, while a retinue of like jewels, from the Ronnie Gilbert, Fred in the New York offices his friends performed present into the past, and Hellerman and Lee Hays - of Harold Leventhal, our “ Turn Turn Turn,” back, along the road to swept into listeners’ mutual manager. -
Dangerously Free: Outlaws and Nation-Making in Literature of the Indian Territory
DANGEROUSLY FREE: OUTLAWS AND NATION-MAKING IN LITERATURE OF THE INDIAN TERRITORY by Jenna Hunnef A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto © Copyright by Jenna Hunnef 2016 Dangerously Free: Outlaws and Nation-Making in Literature of the Indian Territory Jenna Hunnef Doctor of Philosophy Department of English University of Toronto 2016 Abstract In this dissertation, I examine how literary representations of outlaws and outlawry have contributed to the shaping of national identity in the United States. I analyze a series of texts set in the former Indian Territory (now part of the state of Oklahoma) for traces of what I call “outlaw rhetorics,” that is, the political expression in literature of marginalized realities and competing visions of nationhood. Outlaw rhetorics elicit new ways to think the nation differently—to imagine the nation otherwise; as such, I demonstrate that outlaw narratives are as capable of challenging the nation’s claims to territorial or imaginative title as they are of asserting them. Borrowing from Abenaki scholar Lisa Brooks’s definition of “nation” as “the multifaceted, lived experience of families who gather in particular places,” this dissertation draws an analogous relationship between outlaws and domestic spaces wherein they are both considered simultaneously exempt from and constitutive of civic life. In the same way that the outlaw’s alternately celebrated and marginal status endows him or her with the power to support and eschew the stories a nation tells about itself, so the liminality and centrality of domestic life have proven effective as a means of consolidating and dissenting from the status quo of the nation-state. -
Bob Dylan and the Reimagining of Woody Guthrie (January 1968)
Woody Guthrie Annual, 4 (2018): Carney, “With Electric Breath” “With Electric Breath”: Bob Dylan and the Reimagining of Woody Guthrie (January 1968) Court Carney In 1956, police in New Jersey apprehended Woody Guthrie on the presumption of vagrancy. Then in his mid-40s, Guthrie would spend the next (and last) eleven years of his life in various hospitals: Greystone Park in New Jersey, Brooklyn State Hospital, and, finally, the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, where he died. Woody suffered since the late 1940s when the symptoms of Huntington’s disease first appeared—symptoms that were often confused with alcoholism or mental instability. As Guthrie disappeared from public view in the late 1950s, 1,300 miles away, Bob Dylan was in Hibbing, Minnesota, learning to play doo-wop and Little Richard covers. 1 Young Dylan was about to have his career path illuminated after attending one of Buddy Holly’s final shows. By the time Dylan reached New York in 1961, heavily under the influence of Woody’s music, Guthrie had been hospitalized for almost five years and with his motor skills greatly deteriorated. This meeting between the still stylistically unformed Dylan and Woody—far removed from his 1940s heyday—had the makings of myth, regardless of the blurred details. Whatever transpired between them, the pilgrimage to Woody transfixed Dylan, and the young Minnesotan would go on to model his early career on the elder songwriter’s legacy. More than any other of Woody’s acolytes, Dylan grasped the totality of Guthrie’s vision. Beyond mimicry (and Dylan carefully emulated Woody’s accent, mannerisms, and poses), Dylan almost preternaturally understood the larger implication of Guthrie in ways that eluded other singers and writers at the time.2 As his career took off, however, Dylan began to slough off the more obvious Guthrieisms as he moved towards his electric-charged poetry of 1965-1966. -
Crime, Law Enforcement, and Punishment
Shirley Papers 48 Research Materials, Crime Series Inventory Box Folder Folder Title Research Materials Crime, Law Enforcement, and Punishment Capital Punishment 152 1 Newspaper clippings, 1951-1988 2 Newspaper clippings, 1891-1938 3 Newspaper clippings, 1990-1993 4 Newspaper clippings, 1994 5 Newspaper clippings, 1995 6 Newspaper clippings, 1996 7 Newspaper clippings, 1997 153 1 Newspaper clippings, 1998 2 Newspaper clippings, 1999 3 Newspaper clippings, 2000 4 Newspaper clippings, 2001-2002 Crime Cases Arizona 154 1 Cochise County 2 Coconino County 3 Gila County 4 Graham County 5-7 Maricopa County 8 Mohave County 9 Navajo County 10 Pima County 11 Pinal County 12 Santa Cruz County 13 Yavapai County 14 Yuma County Arkansas 155 1 Arkansas County 2 Ashley County 3 Baxter County 4 Benton County 5 Boone County 6 Calhoun County 7 Carroll County 8 Clark County 9 Clay County 10 Cleveland County 11 Columbia County 12 Conway County 13 Craighead County 14 Crawford County 15 Crittendon County 16 Cross County 17 Dallas County 18 Faulkner County 19 Franklin County Shirley Papers 49 Research Materials, Crime Series Inventory Box Folder Folder Title 20 Fulton County 21 Garland County 22 Grant County 23 Greene County 24 Hot Springs County 25 Howard County 26 Independence County 27 Izard County 28 Jackson County 29 Jefferson County 30 Johnson County 31 Lafayette County 32 Lincoln County 33 Little River County 34 Logan County 35 Lonoke County 36 Madison County 37 Marion County 156 1 Miller County 2 Mississippi County 3 Monroe County 4 Montgomery County -
Music for the People: the Folk Music Revival
MUSIC FOR THE PEOPLE: THE FOLK MUSIC REVIVAL AND AMERICAN IDENTITY, 1930-1970 By Rachel Clare Donaldson Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in History May, 2011 Nashville, Tennessee Approved Professor Gary Gerstle Professor Sarah Igo Professor David Carlton Professor Larry Isaac Professor Ronald D. Cohen Copyright© 2011 by Rachel Clare Donaldson All Rights Reserved For Mary, Laura, Gertrude, Elizabeth And Domenica ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would not have been able to complete this dissertation had not been for the support of many people. Historians David Carlton, Thomas Schwartz, William Caferro, and Yoshikuni Igarashi have helped me to grow academically since my first year of graduate school. From the beginning of my research through the final edits, Katherine Crawford and Sarah Igo have provided constant intellectual and professional support. Gary Gerstle has guided every stage of this project; the time and effort he devoted to reading and editing numerous drafts and his encouragement has made the project what it is today. Through his work and friendship, Ronald Cohen has been an inspiration. The intellectual and emotional help that he provided over dinners, phone calls, and email exchanges have been invaluable. I greatly appreciate Larry Isaac and Holly McCammon for their help with the sociological work in this project. I also thank Jane Anderson, Brenda Hummel, and Heidi Welch for all their help and patience over the years. I thank the staffs at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, the Kentucky Library and Museum, the Archives at the University of Indiana, and the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress (particularly Todd Harvey) for their research assistance. -
Ruination Day”
Woody Guthrie Annual, 4 (2018): Fernandez, “Ruination Day” “Ruination Day”: Gillian Welch, Woody Guthrie, and Disaster Balladry1 Mark F. Fernandez Disasters make great art. In Gillian Welch’s brilliant song cycle, “April the 14th (Part 1)” and “Ruination Day,” the Americana songwriter weaves together three historical disasters with the “tragedy” of a poorly attended punk rock concert. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, and the epic dust storm that took place on what Americans call “Black Sunday” in 1935 all serve as a backdrop to Welch’s ballad, which also revolves around the real scene of a failed punk show that she and musical partner David Rawlings had encountered on one of their earlier tours. The historical disasters in question all coincidentally occurred on the fourteenth day of April. Perhaps even more important, the history of Welch’s “Ruination Day” reveals the important relationship between history and art as well as the enduring relevance of Woody Guthrie’s influence on American songwriting.2 Welch’s ouevre, like Guthrie’s, often nods to history. From the very instruments that she and Rawlings play to the themes in her original songs to the tunes she covers, she displays a keen awareness and reverence for the past. The sonic quality of her recordings, along with her singing and musical style, also echo the past. This historical quality is quite deliberate. Welch and Rawlings play vintage instruments to achieve much of that sound. Welch’s axes are all antiques—her main guitar is a 1956 Gibson J-50. -
The Woody Guthrie Centennial Bibliography
LMU Librarian Publications & Presentations William H. Hannon Library 8-2014 The Woody Guthrie Centennial Bibliography Jeffrey Gatten Loyola Marymount University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/librarian_pubs Part of the Music Commons Repository Citation Gatten, Jeffrey, "The Woody Guthrie Centennial Bibliography" (2014). LMU Librarian Publications & Presentations. 91. https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/librarian_pubs/91 This Article - On Campus Only is brought to you for free and open access by the William H. Hannon Library at Digital Commons @ Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in LMU Librarian Publications & Presentations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Popular Music and Society, 2014 Vol. 37, No. 4, 464–475, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2013.834749 The Woody Guthrie Centennial Bibliography Jeffrey N. Gatten This bibliography updates two extensive works designed to include comprehensively all significant works by and about Woody Guthrie. Richard A. Reuss published A Woody Guthrie Bibliography, 1912–1967 in 1968 and Jeffrey N. Gatten’s article “Woody Guthrie: A Bibliographic Update, 1968–1986” appeared in 1988. With this current article, researchers need only utilize these three bibliographies to identify all English- language items of relevance related to, or written by, Guthrie. Introduction Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (1912–67) was a singer, musician, composer, author, artist, radio personality, columnist, activist, and philosopher. By now, most anyone with interest knows the shorthand version of his biography: refugee from the Oklahoma dust bowl, California radio show performer, New York City socialist, musical documentarian of the Northwest, merchant marine, and finally decline and death from Huntington’s chorea. -
LBJ in Rights Plea in Deep South Tour
DISTRIBUTION 7 un. temperature <t. Fair TODAY Mhy» toalght and tomorrow. BEDBANK High today and tomorrow 75 to 23,750 m. Urn tooijht in the Mi. Sun- day, partly cloudy and warm. See" weather, page 2. DIAL 741-0010 VOL.86 NO 223 VavnA *"Ujr. M°tt4»7 thraifh Friday. Second Clm Po»t»ct 7c PER COPY PAGE ONE 'V1* ""i ""• •iia paid at fted Bank «nd»t Additional Mailing Ofllcei. RED BANK, N. J., FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1964 LBJ in Rights Plea In Deep South Tour By FRANK CORMER ATLANTA, Ga. (AP)—Presi- ient Johnson, touring the Deep Jouth, called today for "justice imong the races." And he sug- ;ested that much of the South SEARS PROJECTS — This is architect's conception of the two new Sears 'Roebuck'and Co. stores being built in ill find racial peace "before he end of racial strife in the Middle+own and Neptune. Construction and layout in botfi stores will be identical. Each will have grow floor :ities of the North." area of 115,000 square feet, housing 50 departments. When completed, the stores will replace operations in Johnson made his dramatic Red Bank and Asbury Park. See story and other photo's on today's Section Page. ippeal for the civil rights cause in an address prepared for a breakfast meeting with mem- bers of the Georgia Legislature. His remarks, canvassing what he termed the "many troubles" >f the South, were certain to be regarded as unusually signifi :ant. Ta^Law Issue Remains Six-State Tour sets a 20 per cent floor on Winding up a six-state tour of TRENTON, (AP) - New Jer-original position that the in- Charles W. -
Resb.F:E:Ii9~Ncjl AGEND/\ to BE POSTED #S1f Woody Guthrie Day- --·- ~~~
.' _'';"'~·.•>'.;,_(.f_~""'-n.~~.-- .......,.,., ........... ~ _,,I · I ·~? pny CLtrxr< FOR P=-:-L-/{C_E_M_Er·~-r~o-N_N_o_o_·-r---.... REsb.f:e:ii9~NCJl AGEND/\ TO BE POSTED #S1f Woody Guthrie Day- --·- ~~~ .... -':...~~~ April12, 2012 WHEREAS, Woody Guthrie is a renowned singer-songwriter who stands as one of America's most important folk music artists of the first half of the 20th Century; and WHEREAS, Woody Guthrie stood out for his songwriting abilities and will best be remembered for his seminal folk music piece "This Land if Your Land" amongst many other hits like "Deportee," "Do Re Mi,'' ,.Grand Coulee Dam/' "Hard, Ain't It Hard,'' "Hard Travelin'," "I Ain't Got No Home," "1913 Massacre,'1 11 0klahoma Hills,~~ "Pastures ofPlenty,rr "Philadelphia Lawyer,'1 "Pretty Boy Floyd," 11 Ramblin1 Round," "So Long It'sBeen Good to Know You,t' "Talking Dust Bowl, '1 and 11 Vigilante Man" that have been covered by other artists throughout the century; and WHEREAS, Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was born in Okemah, Oklahoma learning folk songs from his mother as a child; and WHEREAS, in 1940, assembling works that were based on his experience as an "Okie" during the Dust Bowl era, in which many migrant workers suffered tremendous economic hardship on their way to California, he released the "Dust Bowl Ballads" that are renowned for their dramatic retelling of Great Depression era plight; and .i WHEREAS, A century after his birth in July of 1912, Woody Guthrie has acquired an iconic stature in American popular culture and music. Guthrie was known in the as a folksinger who in the 1930s and 1940s gave a voice to the working class, the mentor and musical image to Bob Dylan and other singer-songwriters in the 1950s and 1960s, and the author of great American songs like "This Land is Your Land." WHEREAS, In 193 7, when many dust bowl refugees were making a new life in California, Woody Guthrie lived in Los Angeles. -
The Pacific Coast and the Casual Labor Economy, 1919-1933
© Copyright 2015 Alexander James Morrow i Laboring for the Day: The Pacific Coast and the Casual Labor Economy, 1919-1933 Alexander James Morrow A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2015 Reading Committee: James N. Gregory, Chair Moon-Ho Jung Ileana Rodriguez Silva Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Department of History ii University of Washington Abstract Laboring for the Day: The Pacific Coast and the Casual Labor Economy, 1919-1933 Alexander James Morrow Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor James Gregory Department of History This dissertation explores the economic and cultural (re)definition of labor and laborers. It traces the growing reliance upon contingent work as the foundation for industrial capitalism along the Pacific Coast; the shaping of urban space according to the demands of workers and capital; the formation of a working class subject through the discourse and social practices of both laborers and intellectuals; and workers’ struggles to improve their circumstances in the face of coercive and onerous conditions. Woven together, these strands reveal the consequences of a regional economy built upon contingent and migratory forms of labor. This workforce was hardly new to the American West, but the Pacific Coast’s reliance upon contingent labor reached its apogee after World War I, drawing hundreds of thousands of young men through far flung circuits of migration that stretched across the Pacific and into Latin America, transforming its largest urban centers and working class demography in the process. The presence of this substantial workforce (itinerant, unattached, and racially heterogeneous) was out step with the expectations of the modern American worker (stable, married, and white), and became the warrant for social investigators, employers, the state, and other workers to sharpen the lines of solidarity and exclusion. -
“Talking Union”--The Almanac Singers (1941) Added to the National Registry: 2010 Essay by Cesare Civetta (Guest Post)*
“Talking Union”--The Almanac Singers (1941) Added to the National Registry: 2010 Essay by Cesare Civetta (guest post)* 78rpm album package Pete Seeger, known as the “Father of American Folk music,” had a difficult time of it as a young, budding singer. While serving in the US Army during World War II, he wrote to his wife, Toshi, “Every song I started to write and gave up was a failure. I started to paint because I failed to get a job as a journalist. I started singing and playing more because I was a failure as a painter. I went into the army because I was having more and more failure musically.” But he practiced his banjo for hours and hours each day, usually starting as soon as he woke in the morning, and became a virtuoso on the instrument, and even went on to invent the “long-neck banjo.” The origin of the Almanacs Singers’ name, according to Lee Hays, is that every farmer's home contains at least two books: the Bible, and the Almanac! The Almanacs Singers’ first job was a lunch performance at the Jade Mountain Restaurant in New York in December of 1940 where they were paid $2.50! The original members of the group were Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Millard Campbell, John Peter Hawes, and later Woody Guthrie. Initially, Seeger used the name Pete Bowers because his dad was then working for the US government and he could have lost his job due to his son’s left-leaning politically charged music. The Singers sang anti-war songs, songs about the draft, and songs about President Roosevelt, frequently attacking him. -
American Music Review the H
American Music Review The H. Wiley Hitchcock Institute for Studies in American Music Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York Volume XLII, Number 1 Fall 2012 Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan Hit Manhattan By Sean Wilentz, Princeton University Editors Note: This paper was delivered as the keynote address for the Woody Guthrie Centennial Conference held at Brooklyn College on 22 September, 2012. On February 16, 1940, a freezing blizzardy day, Woody Guthrie—short, intense, and aged twenty-seven—ended a long hitchhiking journey East and debarked in Manhattan, where he would quickly make a name for himself as a per- former and recording artist. Nearly twenty-one years later, on or about January 24, 1961, a cold and post-blizzardy day, Bob Dylan—short, intense, and aged nineteen—ended a briefer auto journey East and debarked in Manhattan, where he would quickly make a name for himself as a performer and recording artist—not as quickly as Guthrie had, but quickly. Dylan had turned himself into what he later described as “a Woody Guthrie jukebox,” and had come to New York in search of his idol. Guthrie had come to look up his friends the actors Will Geer and Herta Ware, who had introduced him to influential left-wing political and artistic circles out in Los Angeles and would do the same in Manhattan. Two different stories, obviously, of two very different young men a generation apart—yet, more than he might have realized, Dylan partly replayed his hero’s entrance to the city where both men would become legends.