Folk music

Overview 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...

Overview 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10,000 folklore items, including superstitions, sayings, riddles, remedies and tales, as well as a pair of unpublished bound volumes entitled FOLKLORE OF WEST VIRGINIA containing folklore and folksongs with musical notation by Woofter's protege Patrick Gainer.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...

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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.

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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".

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Learning units compiled by students of Professor Maurer, West Virginia University (1975-1982), in eighteen volumes. Refer to the inventory for details.

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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.

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A collection of nineteen banjo songs composed by Jerry L. Boggess (1882-1948), a native of Tyler County, West Virginia.

Overview 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 ...

Overview 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...

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Photographs of Appalachian folk music festivals, including the Ivydale (in Clay County) and John Henry festivals. Also included are digital files which are scans by the donor of the original prints in this collection. Many of the musicians have been identified by the titles of the digital files.