ContentsContainer List Collection Concordance by Format Appendix A: Performers' Names and Locations where Recordings were Made |
Fletcher Collins Jr. CollectionAFC 1939/003Prepared by Todd HarveyApril 2004
Biographical HistoryFletcher Collins Jr. was born on November 19, 1906, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Yale University (Ph.B. 1928, Ph.D. 1934) and was a professor of English at Elon College in North Carolina (1936-42). Collins founded the drama department at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia, where he was professor emeritus (1946-77). He is the author of Alamance Play-Party Songs and Singing Games (1940, reprint 1973), Medieval Church Music-Dramas (1976), Troubadour and Trouvère Songs in Singable English (2 vols. 2000-2001), and numerous other books and articles. He died in 2005. Return to the Table of Contents Scope and ContentThe manuscript materials in this collection reflect Collins's Anglo-American folk music collecting activities from 1935 to 1944. Collins undertook numerous projects, including a proposed song book titled A Southern Songster and a radio series on WBIG, Greensboro, N.C. Administrative papers and correspondence for these and other projects are included among the manuscript materials. The song and tune transcriptions reflect, for the most part, Collins's collecting in North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia from 1935 to 1941. Many are the result of Collins's fieldwork, while others were mailed to him or transcribed from printed sources. Contextual information (performer, date, place) is provided for about two-thirds of the songs. Some of the disc recordings were transcribed and transcriptions are included among the manuscripts. Collins made twenty-one disc recordings of folk songs and ballads at Elon College in March 1939, under the auspices of the WPA Joint Committee on Folk Arts. These field recordings (AFS 2235, AFS 3769-3788) are on aluminum-base lacquer discs. Field recordings were made in November and December 1941 on glass-base lacquer discs with a Library of Congress Presto recording machine in Brown Summit (AFS 6491), Burlington (AFS 6365-6366, perhaps 6494), Elon College (AFS 6492-6493), and Greensboro (AFS 6482-6486), North Carolina; and in Fancy Gap, Virginia (AFS 6487-6490). Two discs made by Fletcher Collins Jr. in Burlington, N.C., Dec. 8, 1941, were in response to Alan Lomax’s call for "man-on-the-street" reactions to the Pearl Harbor attacks the day prior. They are included in a separate American Folklife Center collection, AFC 1941/004 Man-on-the-Street Interviews Collection. Return to the Table of Contents Selected Search TermsPeople
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Return to the Table of Contents Container ListSeries I: ManuscriptsCollection GuideCorrespondenceCorrespondence-General, 1936-44Correspondence-Library of Congress Recording Project, 1941-43Collecting and Recording ProjectsIndexes-Library of Congress Recording Project, 1939-42"The Wreck of Old '97" Project, 1939WBIG Radio Programs, 1940"A Southern Songster" Project, 1940-44Song Indexes and TranscriptionsSongs-Original Folders, PhotocopiesSongs-CollectionsSongs-Collections, Spiral NotebooksSongs-Collections, Arthurdale Fiddle TunesSongs: A-BSongs: C-DSongs: E-FSongs: G-HSongs: I-JSongs: K-LSongs: M-NSongs: O-PSongs: Q-RSongs: S-TSongs: U-ZSeries II: Sound RecordingsSound DiscsOriginal DiscsTwenty-one 12-inch aluminum based original analog discs (preservation tapes: LWO 4872, reels 142B, 245B-246). Original DiscsTwelve 12-inch glass based original analog discs (preservation tapes: LWO 4872, reels 413B-414A) Collection Concordance by FormatAppendix A: Performers' Names and Locations where Recordings were MadeNorth Carolina
Virginia
West Virginia
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