Collections

Start Over Subjects Folk music Level Collection

Arthurdale, West Virginia Scrapbooks, 1935/1975 0.15 Linear Feet Summary: 1 3/4 in. (1 reel of microfilm, 1.75 in.)

Hartsell, Sarah
Arthurdale, West Virginia, was the first Federal homestead community established under President Franklin Roosevelt during the New Deal. Two scrapbooks, available on microfilm only, document the history of Arthurdale, West Virginia, from 1935 to 1975. Photographs, newspaper clippings, fact sheets about the community, and event programs offer insight into the development of the town, the involvement of Eleanor Roosevelt, students, and reflections on life in Arthurdale. Photographs and clippings on Volume I are chiefly from the 1930s and 1940s. Event programs come from a Labor Day celebration in 1938 and the Mountain Choir Festival in 1946. Book II contains clippings and photographs from the 1940s to the mid-1970s. These chiefly pertain to the Arthurdale church and high school students.
  1. West Virginia and Regional History Center

Carey Woofter, Compiler, Folklore of West Virginia, 1920/1940 5.8 Linear Feet Summary: 5 ft. 10 in. (11 document cases, 5 in. each); (1 records carton, 15 in.)

Woofter, Carey.
Folklore of West Virginia collected by Woofter, who was a student of John Harrington Cox and Louis Watson Chappell. The collection consists of a card file of approximately 10,000 folklore items, including superstitions, sayings, riddles, remedies and tales, as well as a pair of unpublished bound volumes entitled FOLKLORE OF WEST VIRGINIA containing folklore and folksongs with musical notation by Woofter's protege Patrick Gainer. While Woofter never published his discoveries, he did supply materials to important publications by John Harrington Cox and Josiah Combs.
  1. West Virginia and Regional History Center

Carolyn Reyer, Musician, Papers, 1959/1982 0.1 Linear Feet Summary: 1/2 in. (1 folder)

Reyer, Carolyn, 1919-2009
Printed programs of musical presentations, letters, contracts, and musical scores related to the career of Morgantown resident Carolyn Reyer, who gained prominence as a mezzo-soprano and folk musician.
  1. West Virginia and Regional History Center

Folk Song Scrapbook, 1890/1920 0.1 Linear Feet Summary: 1 in. (1 unboxed ledger)

An 18 in. x 14.5 in. scrapbook of lyrics to American folksongs copied from turn of the century newspapers and magazines. Among the more than 1000 titles included are "Kentucky Belle", "Bonny Black Bess", "Life's Railway to Heaven", "The Blackberry Girl", "Robin Redbreast", and "Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder".
  1. West Virginia and Regional History Center

Friends of Old Time Music, Records, 1978/1983 0.2 Linear Feet Summary: 2 in.

Friends of Old Time Music (1978-1983)
Minutes, membership lists, newsletters, financial records, photos, clippings, pamphlets, and broadsides of an organization of students and appreciators of folk music who helped sponsor the local performances of musicians. Prominent names mentioned are Bryan Bowers, Martin Carthy, and John McCutcheon as well as the well known West Virginia band, trapezoid.
  1. West Virginia and Regional History Center

John Harrington Cox, Collector, Papers regarding West Virginia Folklore, 1915/1936 8.7 Linear Feet 8 ft. 8 in. (20 document cases, 5 in. each); (1 document case, 2 1/2 in.); (1 flat storage box, 1 1/2 in.)

Papers of John Harrington Cox, collector of West Virginia folklore material. Includes manuscripts, typescripts, printed material, sheet music, and newspaper clippings regarding folk songs and folk tales collected by John Harrington Cox and the West Virginia Folklore Society. Some of this material was used by Cox in his Harvard University dissertation of 1923, titled The Ballads and Songs of West Virginia, as well as in his book Folk-Songs of the South, published in 1925 by Harvard University Press. There are also book draft typescripts, dissertation typescripts, and correspondence pertaining to the collection of folklore material by Cox and the West Virginia Folklore Society. For more detail, see the Scope and Content note. For more information on John Harrington Cox and his work with the West Virginia Folklore Society, see the Historical note.
  1. West Virginia and Regional History Center

New River Symposiums Proceedings, 1982/1999 0.1 Linear Feet Summary: 1/2 in.

New River Gorge National River (Agency : U.S.)
Compact disc of a searchable database of 1200 facsimile pages of New River Symposium Proceedings dating from 1982-1999. Articles in the Proceedings discuss the natural and cultural features of the New River region of West Virginia, including the following topics: botany, Civil War, coal mining, environmentalism, folklore, folk music, geology, Green Sulphur Springs, historic preservation, iron industry, native Americans, railroads, rivers (Bluestone, Gauley, New), transportation, and Mary Draper Ingles.
  1. West Virginia and Regional History Center

Patrick Ward Gainer (1904-1981), Collector, Papers and Folk Music Recordings, 1890/1981 18.08 Linear Feet 39 document cases, 5 in. each; 1 records carton, 15 in.; 4 microfilm boxes, 1.75 in. each 25.4 Gigabytes 203 .wav files and 28 .mp3 files

Gainer, Patrick W.

Archives of an eminent folklorist and professor of English at West Virginia University. Manuscripts include field folklore collections, lecture notes, book manuscripts, correspondence, student papers, and folksong arrangements. There are also materials regarding Gainer's position as director of South Atlantic USO activities during World War II and a journal of a folksong collecting trip to Ireland in 1961. Also two hundred and ninety-three audio tapes containing vocal and instrumental folk music, folklore and oral history, recorded in West Virginia and in Scotland and Ireland. Nearly half of the material is performed by Gainer himself. The collection also includes news clippings relating to folklore and Gainer's career, as well as a variety of photographs, film clips, and personal awards and memorabilia.

  1. West Virginia and Regional History Center

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