Here is an extract from an article that I wrote about Cecil Sharp:

"It is interesting that (in 1915) Sharp appeared to be unaware of (folksongs in America), especially as there were already other collectors apart from Mrs Campbell working in the Appalachians. State Folklore Societies had been founded in North Carolina and Kentucky in 1912, in Virginia in 1913 and in West Virginia in 1915. New York collector Josephine McGill spent the summer of 1914 searching for songs in Knott and Letcher Counties, Kentucky; although she did not publish the results of her work until 1917. In 1916 Sharp was probably aware that Loraine Wyman and Howard Brockway were also collecting in several Kentucky Counties."

Mrs Campbell had already collected some 200 songs from Appalachian singers before she met Cecil Sharp in 1915.