Hundreds of Hands Create A Portrait of a Nation The Archive of Folk Culture Celebrates 75 Years

摘要

In 1928 when Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam invited Robert W. Gordon to become "specialist and consultant in the field of Folk Song and Literature," Gordon had already conceived and launched his lifetime mission to collect the entire body of American folk music. He called it a "national project with many workers." Gordon attended Harvard University between 1906 and 1917 and then left in order to devote all his free time to this collecting enterprise. Supporting himself through teaching, writing and the occasional grant, Gordon traveled from the waterfronts of Oakland and San Francisco, Calif., to Asheville, N.C., and Darien, Ga., collecting and recording folk songs with his Edison wax-cylinder machine. He wrote a monthly column in Adventure magazine, "Old Songs That Men Have Sung," asking readers to send in copies of all the folk songs they could remember. And he contacted Carl Engel, chief of the Music Division at the Library of Congress, to discuss his dream and seek institutional support.