Guide to the Robert W. Gordon Collection ca. 1906-1939.

19 containers. University of Oregon Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives.
htt://libweb.uoregon.edu/speccoll/index.html

His "Old Songs Men Have Sung" department of the pulp Adventure Magazine has been called the finest work of American folk song of the time. Included are war, camp, soldier, minstrel, Negro and White spirituals, murder ballads, sea songs, Irish ballads, cowboy songs, etc. Some of this appeared in the New York Times.

The University of Oregon collection contains ca. 4000 song texts and fragments, 2250 privately collected and 1700 transcribed from published sources.

Manuscript collections (not found in Library of Congress) include Songs of the Dogwatch by Joseph McGinnis (songs of the sea including chanteys, Canal and Great Lakes songs).
Mary Newcomb, photostat of MS Songs My Mother Sang (wide-ranging from Child ballads to Negro and play-party songs).
Papers and notes from Joanna Colcords's Roll and Go. Includes variants not published.
Gordon's class notes, lectures at Harvard University.

Gordon's important book, Folksongs of America; notes.