fall-2019 – Page 2 – The Digital Past Course Blog

Sunny California

Does politically influenced music polarize or unite? More specifically, was the impact of politically influenced folk music in the 1930’s a polarizing or uniting factor? From slave songs sang in the fields to politically influenced raps heard on the radio, music has been and remained a prevalent form of expression used to convey personal struggles in a way that others can relate to. Mary Sullivan’s “Sunny California” is a story of a migrant worker leaving Texas to find work in California, a story many Americans found solidarity in at the time. It shares the struggles of homeless dust bowl migrants left out in the rain, their optimism washed away with their“rag houses”

“Sunny California” shares a perspective not uncommon to the many destitute migrant workers suffering the economic effects of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. Music like Mary’s was a way to relate to another, to share in their struggles and try to find relief through community. Mary’s experience was collected as a field recording at the Shafter FSA Camp in 1941. She shares in the recording that she wrote the song four years prior, when she arrived in California. The Federal Music Project did the important work of collecting these narratives through the form of folk music, to preserve traditional music, and unintentionally stirring a pot of controversy when music was composed for the purpose of expressing political dissent.¹ Like today, the country was politically polarized, and was brought together through music that spoke to common experiences.²

Musicians in the 1930’s sought to create ways that they could express their experiences in the changing times, in a way that the masses experiencing the same struggles could identify with and come together either for relief or for change. This hope perseveres today for modern musicians who strive to create music that people can find refuge in and be encouraged to action together. In regards to his most recent album, artist Hozier says, “I wanted to write a song that was hopeful and grounded in solidarity, grounded in love, in what can be achieved though organization, through the common respect of the dignity of people. It was the decision to write something that was not cynical, when it was so easy to write something that kind of rolled its eyes at global politics.”³

This perspective, in conjunction with Mary Sullivan’s, shows that even without placing blame or cynicism, and perhaps most effectively when done this way, politically influenced music can unite people through the expression of shared experiences and struggles. In this way, music can help work towards healing a nation.

Skill 7, Blog 9: Voices From the Dust Bowl

I chose to look into the the Voices from the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker collection, which was compiled between the years 1940-1941 to document the daily life and culture of Farm Security Administration migrant work camp residents in California

. While going through the collections audio recordings, it struck me that so many of the migrants they interviewed were from far off. At the end of her rendition of “The Old Apple Tree in the Orchard

,” Ruth Elliot is asked listen. Others like her came all the way from Oklahoma, Arkansas, and other regions in the southern and midwestern United States in order to flee the Dust Bowl, and they brought elements of their regional culture with them. At the time of this project, there was an increase of interest in American folklife, which drove many of the projects that were created by FDR. In 1935, Roosevelt budgeted over $27 million dollars for the purpose of “rediscovering and defining American culture” through his federal work projects, and that work continues in this initiative³. Furthermore, there was a public desire for the collection of folk culture, such as folk music, as it became a patriotic rallying point for Americans, and being government sanctioned, was able to flourish

⁴

Ruth’s song listen is a prime example of the types of folklore sought after by federal archivists at this time. Narrated by a girl reminiscing about an apple tree, which her father planted. When he takes a local girl out for a jamboree

⁵

, and brings her home in the morning, listen. The neighbors found him there and hanged him to death, and so ends the folk song. The light melody of the song is playful, like a nursery rhyme, and it broaches a dark topic in a jaunty manner token to American balladry. Similar themes are seen in the Appalachian ballads collected by folk singer Jean Ritchie only a decade later, with the help of Alan Lomax—particularly “The Hangman Song” or “Hangman”

⁶ ⁷

. These common themes in folk songs grappled with the hardships of daily life in rural America, engaging with the cultural values of the society—such as proper conduct with the opposite sex, in the case of “The Old Apple Tree In The Orchard,” or loyalty to one’s romantic partner, as seen in “Hangman.” It makes sense that these songs were brought with the migrants to the Californian camps, as they provided a sense of home for those who came halfway across the country in search of work, as well as an entertaining escape from the harsh realities faced by poor Americans during the Depression.

The ability to embed audio into this blog offers a seamless way to incorporate the quotation of lyrics and brief quotes, as well as the incorporation of full song-length clips, in a way that does not disrupt the reader’s experience, but rather enriches it. In terms of historical analysis, it is especially useful for providing perspective as to the melody and inflection of the music, which would be lost in a transcription of the song’s lyrics, as well as providing necessary context for the tone of the speakers, and other vocal nuances that rarely make it onto the page. On a sentimental note, I believe that one of the great things about 20th century history is how we are able to engage with audio, video, and photographic resources in a way no historians were ever capable of doing before. Through audio, we can hear history with our own ears, and immerse ourselves in it. This not only humanizes the subjects whom we study, but also brings the era itself to life in a unique and vital way.

The Core of the Hispanic Community through Music

The Hispanic community makes up the second largest demographic in the United States

. The community makes up significant cultural and economic influence not only on society but on politics as well. The US is often described using the “Melting Pot” analogy which shows the large number of different cultures. So, the fact that there is a large Hispanic community is not at all surprising. However, this was not always the case in the US. At some point this vast amount of people needed to leave somewhere and immigrate into the US. Most of this happened during the 19^th century but the base for the cultural fusion we have today can be traced back to the 1930’s. Many of the “classic” Hispanic signs, art, and music was first documented in the 1930’s. Using this documentation of music one can see why much of what is considered Hispanic today exists.

When talking about the effect and power of music Alan Lomax describes it perfectly as something that “honors the traditions of all people and enriches us as individuals”

. Alan Lomax was talking about The Global Jukebox, a website that preserves music in order to enrich later generations. The Hispanic music of the 1930’s can do exactly what the Global Jukebox sets out to do. In the Hispanic community, Religion is a very well-known staple with Catholicism being its biggest. This is represented in its music today and in the 1930’s. Jesus and religion being such a central figure in songs listen ³ shows its impact on the Hispanic Community. Like many other Hispanic songs from the 1930’s they have a religious aspect as their center point. This goes back to the core idea of the Hispanic culture in the US starting in the 1930’s. The music that is preserved helps show in what ways the developing Hispanic community expressed itself. The songs were made in order to bring together people from vastly different countries with two of the things they had in common: language and religion.

Often time the Hispanic people migrating moved through very distant lands in order to get to the US or even places of work. As mentioned before the Hispanic people were from vastly different places only really connected by their language. An Argentine could have incredibly different beliefs than a Venezuelan. The songs of this era also needed to bring people together in the US. The American Ballad being a primary example of this. Many parts of the Us were highly disconnected and a song that united all the places under one sound is incredible ⁴. In many ways for Hispanics the places they have gone through to get to the US unites them. Crossing rivers, hills, and mountains listen ⁵ in order to find jobs is common ground among many of its Hispanic listeners.

The Hispanic community being such a large part of the US can be traced all the way back to the 19th century. But, it was not until the 1930’s that its true culture began to take shape. Today we can analyze much of it using preserved songs in the Library of Congress. They show some of the common ground that was found during the time of migration and job search in the 1930’s. Also with religion being a such a staple in the community, the songs reflect this idea. In the future, as more songs are analyzed and songs from today are easily preserved the future generations will be able to see our culture through music.

Blog Post #9: Mexican American Folk Music Representation in Northern California

I chose to focus on the Library of Congress collection, California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties. I was shocked to see how many folks songs were available in the collection from so many different countries including Russia, Hungary, Finland, and Italy. I decided to hone in on Mexican American folk music because I wanted to create an expanded discussion on Mexican immigration to the United States, this time relating to the music. My historical question morphed into considering how Mexican American folk music in Mexican cultural settings on American soil is represented in the 1930s and 40s.

Sidney Robertson Cowell, a folk music collector in Northern California, partnered with the University of California, Berkeley and what is now the Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center, to comprise “35 hours worth of folk music recorded in 12 languages representing numerous ethnic groups and 185 musicians” from Northern California. ¹ This collection of recordings is a continuation of the themes we’ve talked about in class, such as the recording of narratives from those who were once enslaved, accounts from migrant workers, and southern music being documented by the Lomax family. In creating these recordings, ethnographers of the 30s and 40s have made history readily available to future generations, while also using technology that was new for their time to further spread traditions to those unfamiliar.

As a part of music collected at the wedding of Ben and Rosa Figueroa on February 18, 1939 in Carmel, California, Cowell recorded a song performed by Mr. Figueroa, “Yo ando passando trabajo.” Cowell wrote in the dust jacket that Mr. Figueroa “didn’t want to sing this, but the Irish contractor for whom he works for was drunkenly insistent.” ² In the recording, it seems like he’s is bothered by the fact that he’s performing a song at his own wedding that when translated from yo ando posando trabajo to English means, “I’m going to work.” You can hear his discomfort in what seems to be Mr. Figueroa’s choppy chords and unenthused singing.³. I think this situation is interesting to think about in terms of the BackStory podcast we listened to, “Border Controls: Policing Immigration in America.” Francisco Balderrama says that Mexicans and those of Mexican descent were expelled from America because of “the argument there’s not enough jobs, that jobs were for real Americans.” Additionally, with the hit of the Great Depression, Mexicans were seen as “foreign” and “unwanted” (Balderrama, 2018). ⁴ The fact that Mr. Figueroa is still in America celebrating his wedding means that some Mexican Americans were still able to make a living throughout the era of Mexican repatriation. However, it doesn’t seem as if he had much agency within his situation, especially if his employer was intoxicated and encouraging him to sing a song about work. It shows that despite being in America, some Mexican Americans still were beneath Americans of European descent.

Throughout this time, it also seems as if Mexican American musicians adopted European musical styles and performed them at Mexican celebrations. With the close proximity of various ethnic groups living together in Northern California, this mixing of cultures and traditions would’ve been easy. At the Figueroa wedding, the Anna Magdalena Waltz ⁵ was performed, which is named after Johann Sebastian Bach’s second wife. This, at the very least, shows German influences on Mexican folk music. Cowell wrote in the dust jacket that the orchestra was pleased with their performance because they were used to Mexican waltzes, which went “faster” than European ones ⁶. This diversity in music is referenced in Benjamin Filene’s Romancing the Folk: Public Memory and American Roots Music. In the chapter “Searching for Folk Music’s Institutional Niche,” Filene says that folk music became the “embodiments of America’s strength through diversity” (Filene, 2000, p. 133) ⁷. Thanks to new recording technology, Mexican Americans and those of Mexican descent were able to expose themselves to new genres of music while also having their own music shared within the United States, and beyond. Yet, it only seemed like their music was of concern, oppose to their actual livelihoods.

African American Inequality during the 1930’s

Throughout the semester an ongoing topic that continued to catch my attention was African Americans during the Great Depression. In class we discussed their unequal rights, listened to slave narratives as well as explored the Green book which mapped out safe travels for them. A lot of these resources have come from a caucasian perspective or produced by one. I was curious to explore more of the African Americans perspective of life back in the 1930’s.

From a previous reading from the American YAWP it was said that ¹ and some of those difficulties included unemployment, unequal rights, programs excluding African Americans etc. Roosevelt at the time “… not only rejected such proposals as abolishing the poll tax and declaring lynching a federal crime, he refused to specifically target African American needs in any of his larger relief and reform packages”. African Americans attempted to take matters into their own hands by directly speaking to the president through recordings in hope it would get him to listen. There is a bundle of recordings from a variety of different ages, genders and situations but they all told their story and asked for the same thing. They wanted the president to try and help themachieve equal opprotunity. Hearing the recordings of people asking the president for help and knowing now that he did little to help them in the time affects us different. You can hear in their voices the hope they have for him to help and it is saddening that his helping hand was not extended to them.

Earlier this semester we looked into how people were mapping racism over the years. The article Mapping Racism and Assessing the Effect of Digital Humanities explained that ². African Americans were trying to do all that they could in order to reach the people and the president. Sound recordings, interviews and maps were brought to life to explain their struggles. Digital humanities have helped embody the emotions and hardships African Americans faced during this time period.

Bond, Sarah Emily. “Mapping Racism And Assessing the Success of the Digital Humanities”, History from Below. Retrieved from https://sarahemilybond.com/2017/10/20/mapping-racism-and-assessing-the-success-of-the-digital-humanities/

“The Great Depression”, The American Yawp. Retrieved from http://www.americanyawp.com/text/23-the-great-depression/

“Dear Mr. President”,Dear Mr. President collection (AFC 1942/003), Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1942003_sr39/

Thinking about Mobility and Music

A lot of the music written during this time of the 1930s was gathered together from differing cultures. Together, these songs would come to make up the conception of the American folk tradition. These songs (passed down or home-grown) were sought after by the Federal Music Project’s Alan Lomax in order to not only preserve the culture, but its relevance as well as the songs could find new meaning in the future. ¹

What most interested me about these times is the focus on mobility which seems to become greatly apparent. People moving West for better lives, or people traveling the states in order to see what America has to offer in the form of scenery. Immediately, my mind went to the songs collected about travelling. The collecting of these audio clips makes these songs easier to access as well as make them live on through a digital world, making them accessible in the future.

“I’m Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad” ² is a song that focuses on this kind of movement in the states. The narrator mentions going to where the climate suits her clothes, bringing to mind the idea of travelling in loose-fitting clothes that someone might have to wear back then thanks to the Depression. Having to wander around in those clothes would not be great, especially in inclement weather. The narrator’s repetition of this notion in the song plays into that “bad feeling” that they have, not only having to walk around in poor clothes, but also having been pent up in prison for some reason.

A favorite of mine is “Back to Arkansas” recorded in the Arvin FSA camp in California. ³ The themes of the poem line up well with the idea of travelling West back in the thirties. ⁴ Many people were uprooted thanks in part to the Depression. Tag teaming with the Dust Bowl, it really hit the farmers hard. People from Oklahoma and Kansas and many other places packed up and started migrating around to find land suitable to work as well as good paying jobs. These same details can be found wrapped in the words of “Back to Arkansas.”

Themes of mobility being found within and around these songs and poems really shows how it played such a role at the time. People going out and looking for something new, be it because of their clothing or because of their lifestyle or someone going somewhere, be it for travel and touring or finding a better life.

Decolonizing our Discipline

Historical discourse includes and excludes events, people, and concepts very deliberately, especially in neocolonial societies. But it’s important to be aware of that there is the ability and responsibility to reconstruct the narrative. One method of decolonization is the prioritization of the voices of the colonized and oppressed. Through the recording of the first-hand experiences that marginalized people face, there lies an ability to prevent the erasure of the history that those in power were willing to hide.

Archival sources include letters, photos, memos, manuscripts, and more. But, often, the written records in an archive cannot emphasize the emotion or significance of an event the way that an audio source can. ¹ The “Voices Remembering Slavery” collection in the Library of Congress could be very resourceful to someone analyzing memory, emotion, or how people remembered traumatic events from their own past. In addition, using oral histories as legitimate sources plays a larger role of helping shift away from archaic structures of oppression.

It is important to note that oral historical records aren’t meaningful in their nature, they can be highly problematic as well. In the Slave Narrative Collection, the interviewers were primarily white and that led to a perpetuation of stereotyping the informants, who were all Black. But as the Library of Congress notes, “the representations of speech in the narratives are a pervasive and forceful reminder that these documents are not only a record of a time that was already history when they were created: they are themselves irreducibly historical, the products of a particular time and particular places in the long and troubled mediation of African-American culture by other Americans.”²

The perspective through which the marginalized are analyzed and understood in academia has historically been that of white men. But by privileging oral history, there is an acceleration of the process of changing the rigid metanarrative that has been consuming our society for decades. In 1940, Juan Bautista Rael documented the Hispanic music and culture of the Northern Rio Grande.³ The documentation of Mexican wedding songs, alabados (hymns), and other forms of music provide proof that American culture has been created and shifted by various groups of people.⁴

Decolonizing the archives and history as a discipline means accepting oral histories as legitimate and useful sources. Although, because technology has made it so easy for everyday people to be a part of this archival process, I wonder how historians’ perspectives on the validity of oral histories will shift in the next decade. Just as the 1970s propelled a “new social history,” or a history that is written from the bottom up, the upcoming decades also have potential to facilitate collaborative collecting and further democratize the archive. ⁵

Music and the Depression

Music connects cultures. Music builds emotion. Music creates beauty.

It is only obvious that the Cultural New Deal would use music to grow a national identity and urge depression relief. Unlike other projects the Music Project was well received, and while it was in operation received very little opposition. But not long after the Federal Music Project became wide spread in it’s influence some of it’s popularity was torn out of History. How could something so widely accepted as AMERICAN be just as quickly torn out of societal norms?

Unlike the controversial disbandment of the Federal Theatre Project the Cultural New Deal created the Federal Music Project. This project focused on education and national identity. Through the efforts of this project the glorious world of American Music was discovered. Folk music became distinctly American, and people found the new trend highly agreeable. the Federal Theatre Project did not present to the people a viable reason for it’s funding and distribution. It had educational programs and catered to a wide American audience.

The most widely accepted piece to come out of the Federal Music Project, accepted by the Republican Party, The Democrats, and even the Communist Party was the Ballad for Americans. ¹

This incredibly unique piece gave America an image of their reviving country to grasp onto. Written by a gay man and sung by a black man it’s surprising that it was so widely accepted in an age when the people who created it weren’t accepted. The project included other pieces that built a more regional perception of American and cultural identity. The same broadcast that presented The Ballad for Americans presented an exotic image of Hawaii through The Hawaiian Pursuit of Happiness. ²

This music presents a picturesque image of America, and appeals to all who have fallen prey to the Great Depression. Several years later that all changes. Once anti-Communist sentiments settled in The Ballad for Americans legacy, and it was torn from the music books. The songs of the Federal Music Project, whether regional or wide spread, have the people of the 30’s a means form of art all could grab onto as their own, but the 30’s had to end some time. These overarching themes of a need for an identity shows the 30’s was a time of great rebuilding, and the Federal One Projects used all they had to rebuild the culture.

The WPA Documenting the American Folk

The Works Progress Administration, founded in 1935 as part of FDR’s New Deal, set out to document American culture. The methods that they used to record the folk vary from spoken interviews, songs, photographs, written interviews, and state guides.

As part of the Federal One project the Federal Writers Project was tasked with reaching out and recording the stories of the American people.

The FWP was managed at both the state and federal levels. John Lomax was a folklore editor and in March 1939, he and his wife Ruby set out on a journey that would traverse 6500 miles across the southern states. ¹

They made recordings of folksong of all kinds, ballads, cowboy songs, fiddle tunes, lullabies, and many more. In all there were more than 25 hours from over 300 different performers, all with their own unique story to tell and culture to represent. ³

In addition to folksongs they recorded sermons like the one in Houston, Texas, April 12, 1939 by John Lowry Goree. ⁴

John Lomax was not the only FWP contributor to take to the open road. In the 1930’s Sidney Robertson Cowell was one of the folk music collectors associated with the Northern California WPA. She was perhaps the greatest activist in California when it came to collecting and documents the migrant experience. She interviewed and recorded the culture and songs of immigrants and their families. ⁵

As part of her collection Cowell also took still photographs of the people she chronicled. Her endeavor was “ one of the earliest ethnographic field projects to document European, Slavic, Middle Eastern, and English- and Spanish-language folk music in one region of the United States”. ⁶

“Less than a quarter of the total adult group.” Forms part of a group of field materials documenting unaccompanied singing and preaching in the Russian language performed during services of the Russian Molokan Church, Potrero Hill, San Francisco on September 14, 1938, collected by Sidney Robertson Cowell. ⁷

In addition to the FWP other Federal One Projects documented the American folk. The Federal Music Project and Farm Security Administration also fell under the Works Progress Administration. ⁸

The Federal Music Project was regionally managed and really showed the distinctiveness of the different parts of the US. This was vital, the southern hymnals were very different from the migrant songs of the people in Northern California. Just as the people were distinct so too was their music. ⁹

One project took place in the Federal Music Project Office, Jacksonville, Florida. The performer, Zora Neale Hurston sang a number of songs that helped to document the way that music featured in the culture and work of slaves. ¹⁰ Many of them are “work” songs, their beats keep time for the task they are doing. The music that the FMP recorded is a treasury of folklore, some telling stories and others long traditions from generations past.

The Farm Security Administration took more than 270,000 photographs during its effort to document the trials and tribulations of the American people across the country. The famous Migrant Mother image taken by Dorothea Lange is part of this collection. It shows the lives of the people displaced by the Dust Bowl and downtrodden from the Great Depression. It documents the many camps that sprung up and the people that lived there. The very people that the New Deal set out to help. These photos are perhaps the best record of how the New Deal was helping people.

Throughout the New Deal era the Works Progress Administration sought to define the American people. What they did was document just how much of a “melting pot” the United States really is. Through the recording of local music, written interviews, and thousands of photographs the Federal One project illustrated the unique and engaging American Folk.

Trevor Owens reflection

I attended Trevor Owens talk and found it more interesting than I had intended. At the beginning he was talking about all the thousands of different files, documents, pictures etc that was being stored and saved at the Library of Congress. He actually lost me there for a while when he was discussing all of the numbers and different types of files because it was hard for me to grasp the information. This class has been my first technology class so the numbers and the idea of a software program crawling websites was hard for me to grasp.

Whenever I thought about an archive, I honestly only thought of items like letters, books, interviews and pictures. I never thought that the Library of Congress saves modern information such as gifs, funny internet accounts, comics and stuff along those lines. I remember him pulling up some of the images they have saved and there was a cartoon block of cheese. Trevor described memes and internet culture as the “folk of our time”. We have learned a lot about folklore this semester and Filene states that it embodies America’s “strength through diversity”(Filene, 133). I feel that that is the same now and the diversity scale is huge now compared to in the 1930s. Filene also states that “Many people within the official culture began to train folk as part of a resilient cultural core, they hoped, would see the country through the depths of the depression…”(Filene 134). This is also true in modern day America. Gifs and memes are made to take something serious and turn it into a comedy. I feel like in years from now when memes are no more, people will look back on them and be able to tell a lot about how society was when they were created.

Filene, Benjamin. Romancing the Folk:Public Memory and American Roots Music. pg 133-134