The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress
Presents
SOUTHERN MOSAIC:
THE JOHN AND RUBY LOMAX 1939 SOUTHERN STATES
RECORDING TRIP
The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip Collection is now available online through the Library of Congress American Memory Web site at the following URL:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/lohtml/lohome.html
The presentation is made possible by the generous support of The Texaco Foundation.
This multiformat ethnographic field collection includes 686 sound recordings, as well as photographic prints, fieldnotes, dust jackets, and other manuscripts documenting folksingers and folksongs during a three-month, 6,502-mile trip through eight Southern states: Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia.
Beginning in Port Aransas, Texas, on March 31, 1939, and ending at the Library of Congress on June 14, 1939, John Avery Lomax, Honorary Consultant and Curator of the Archive of American Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center), and his wife, Ruby Terrill Lomax, recorded approximately 25 hours of music from more than 300 performers. The recordings represent a broad spectrum of musical styles, including ballads, blues, children's songs, cowboy songs, fiddle tunes, field hollers, lullabies, play-party songs, religious dramas, spirituals, and work songs. Over 100 of these songs are sung in Spanish.
A special presentation on the collection provides a state-by-state snapshot of the Lomaxes' expedition, highlighting the diverse musical styles of each region and the variety of documentation archived by the collectors.
Other folklife-related online collections, selected publications of the American Folklife Center, and information about products and services are available from the Center's homepage:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/folklifeAmerican Memory is a project of the National Digital Library Program ofthe Library of Congress, which, in collaboration with other institutions,is bringing important American historical materials to citizens everywhere. Through American Memory, fifty-nine multimedia collections of digitized documents, photographs, recorded sound, motion pictures, and text are now available online, free to the public for educational purposes. This collection is the fifth American Folklife Center contribution to the American Memory Web site. All American Memory collections can be accessed through http://www.memory.loc.gov. ____________________________________________________ Stephanie A. Hall, shal@loc.gov
American Folklife Center
101 Independence Ave SE
Washington DC 20540-4610
http://lcweb.loc.gov/folklife/