Table Of Content

Depression Folk Depression Folk Grassroots Music and Left- Wing Politics in 1930s Amer i ca Ronald D. Cohen The University of North Carolina Press chapel h ill This book was published with the assistance of the Anniversary Fund of the University of North Carolina Press. © 2016 The University of North Carolina Press All rights reserved Set in Miller and Clarendon types by Westchester Publishing Services Manufactured in the United States of Amer i ca The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003. Cover illustration: From the cover of Red Song Book: Prepared in Collaboration with the Workers Music League (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1932). Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Cohen, Ronald D., 1940– author. Title: Depression folk : grassroots music and left- wing politics in 1930s Amer i ca / Ronald D. Cohen. Description: Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2015039988| isbn 9781469630465 (hardback: alk. paper) | isbn 9781469628813 (pbk : alk. paper) | isbn 9781469628820 (ebook) Subjects: lcsh: Folk music— Political aspects— United States. | Folk m usic—U nited States—H istory and criticism. | Popul ar music— United States—1931–1940 x History and criticism. | Politics and culture— United States— History—20th century. Classification: lcc ml3917.u6 c63 2916 | ddc 781.62/ 13009043— dc23 lc rec ord available at http:// lccn . loc . gov /2 015039988 Contents Introduction, 1 1 On the Trail of Folk Songs, 7 2 Depression’s Beginnings and L abor Songs, 22 3 The Early Roo se velt Years, 39 4 Heart of the Depression, 56 5 Woody Guthrie Emerges, 75 6 The New Deal Survives, 96 7 De cade Ends, 118 Epilogue, 152 Notes, 159 Index, 185 A Gallery of Illustrations Follows p. 74 This page intentionally left blank Depression Folk This page intentionally left blank Introduction My agenda will be the role of folk music, broadly defined, during the trying years of the Great Depression in the United States, 1929–40. I w ill particularly focus on the role of left-w ing pol itic al groups and individuals. “Folk m usic” is a slippery term includ- ing older rural, vernacular songs and styles, mostly derived from British and African roots, as well as more modern personal, topi- cal, and event songs played on acoustic instruments. Commer- cial compositions from the nineteenth c entury, such as the songs of Stephen Foster, could even be considered folk songs within a few de cades.1 Historians have interpreted the vibrant and complex Depres- sion years in vario us and conflicting ways. Michael Denning’s influential book The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth C entury begins with the question, “Why did the left have a power ful, indeed an unprec ed ented, impact on US culture in the 1930s?” In response, he asserts, “The broad cultural social movement known as the Popul ar Front was the ground on which the workers theaters, proletarian literary maga- zines, and film u nions stood; it was . . . a radical social-d emocratic movement forged around anti- fascism, anti-l ynching, and the industrial unionism of the CIO.”2 This radical pol iti cal and cultural shift has been explored by numerous scholars, such as Morris Dickstein in Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression: “Surprisingly, the Depression was also the scene of a g reat cultural spectacle against the unlikely backdrop of economic misery. The crisis kindled Amer i ca’s social imagination, firing enormous interest in how ordinary people lived, how they suffered, interacted, took 1