The Contributions of Collectors to the Flanders Collection- Quinn 1982
[This is the first part with the introduction of this publication. To see the original document:
http://sites.middlebury.edu/flanders/files/2013/09/Index_to_the_Field_recordings_in_the_Flanders_
Ballad_Collection_at_Middlebury_College_Middlebury_Vermont_OCR1.pdf]
An Index to the Field Recordings in the Flanders Ballad Collection at Middlebucy College Middlebury, Vermont
Compiled by Jennifer Post Quinn with computer assistance by James Krupp
© Middlebury College, 1983
"Folk-song collecting is like a continued story of which you do not know the beginning. You drop into a situation or experience that has been going on without you."
Helen Hartness Flanders ("The Unexpected in Folk Song Collecting")
CONTENTS
Introduction: The Contributions of Collectors to the
Flanders Ballad Collection, 1930-1958 ••••• 7
Notes ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 28
Bibliography •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 31
Directions for Use of the Index ••••••••••••••••••••••• 33
This index represents the work and support of a number of individuals
who have come into contact with the Flanders Ballad Collection during the last
four years. The compilation of information for the index began in November
1979 when I undertook the task of indexing eighty-eight tapes of sound recordings
in the Collection which had recently been dubbed by personnel at the
Archive of Folk Song in Washington, D.C. in 1978 and 1979. These taped copies
of cylinders, discs and original tapes made by Helen Hartness Flanders and
others affiliated with the Collection over the years represented about 80% of
the sound recordings made between 1930 and 1958. The remainder have more
recently been dubbed at Middlebury College. My task was complicated by the
poor sound quality of the original sound recordings, mislabeling of many items,
and the limited funds available for this work. Many clues relating to performers'
names, recording dates and song titles were found in typewritten texts
stored in notebooks in the Collection. These texts, like the sound recordings,
had suffered from nearly twenty years of poor storage conditions. It was
largely from the text organization that identification and classification of
the materials on the sound recordings was accomplished.
The following people were especially helpful in the preparation of this index:
Priscilla and Stannard Baker of Ferrisburg, Vermont, assisted with text
organization and song classification between July 1981 and June 1982.
Stephen Green of Brattleboro, Vermont, in conjunction with a National
Endowment for the Arts fellowship and for the purpose of a Marlboro College
senior thesis, provided an index of the fiddle tunes in the Collection. It
is hoped that this work will soon be published and will complement this index.
Stephen Green also made contact with George Brown, one of the early collectors
for the archive, and donated Brown's materials to the Collection.
At Middlebury College, James Krupp assisted with computer programming
and on-line data manipulation of.the materials (using Digital Equipment Corporation's
'Datatrieve' software). Raymond Denney helped with layout and printing.
During the project I received help with typing and organization of
materials from several Middlebury College students including Leigh Klein, Judy
Carlhian and Debra Conroy.
Jeffrey Rehbach, Music Librarian, Middlebury College, assisted with
editing the text and introductory materials. His support of the project and
the Collection at Middlebury College has greatly contributed to the completion
of this index.
Financial support for this project was provided by Middlebury College.
THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF COLLECTORS TO THE FLANDERS BALLAD COLLECTION 1930 - 1958
This index records the song collecting efforts of several individuals
affiliated with an archive of New England folk song established in 1930 by
Helen Hartness Flanders. Between 1930 and 1940 the archive was known as the
Archive of Vermont Folk-Song and was housed in Flanders' home in Springfield,
Vermont. After 1940 the archive became known as the Flanders Ballad Collection
and was housed at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont. In addition to
the work of the primary collectors, the collection reflects the influence of
other scholars and collectors whose involvement was essential for its growth
and development.
Several names of collectors who contributed to the archive are noted
in the transcriptions of song texts published by Flanders between 1931 and
1965, and in files of texts available in the Flanders Ballad Collection currently
housed at Middlebury College. Those songs collected between 1930 and
1931 are attributed primarily to the work of George Brown and Helen Flanders.
The majority of songs found between 1932 and 1940 were collected solely by
Helen Flanders. Between 1940 and 1958, songs were collected by Marguerite
Olney and Helen Flanders. Names of other collectors also appear in the records
of the Collection. The roles of all these individuals in the growth of the
archive is described below.
1930 - 1938
The Committee on Traditions and Ideals of the Vermont Commission on
Country Life consisted of a group of eleven Vermont writers who were interested
in rejuvinating some of Vermont's 18th and 19th century heritage in the 20th
century. Among them was Helen Hartness Flanders, who had written poetry and
short stories and was especially interested in music. Her major activity in
this regard was her sponsorship of summer orchestral concerts in Springfield,
Vermont.
When the Committee divided the tasks of researching various disciplines
among the members, there was among them a mixture of opinion as to
whether music in Vermont, especially among "native Vermonters", was worth pursuing.
Professor A. w. Peach, the chairman of the Committee, encouraged the
search for traditional songs and asked Flanders to do the collecting.
He was sure there was much singing that we never knew
about, in homes where very old songs which told old
legends and stories, yere preserved by word of mouth
for many generations.
They felt they had a responsibility to seek out these old songs that were once
commonly sung in New England and make them available again to Vermonters.
Helen Flanders accepted the challenge. In order to find initial contacts
she placed an open letter in newspapers throughout Vermont requesting
folk ;ongs. In her letter to the editor of the Rutland Herald, in Vermont,
she gives additional information on the goals of the Vermont Commission as well
as on her early goals in song collecting.
Do you know of any music--old songs or dances specially grown
in Vermont?
I am serving with Governor Weeks' Commission on Vermont Country
Life or which 16 different committees respectively are informing
themselves on Vermont's present status--religious, educational,
eugenic, economic, social, medical, etc.
The survey will end in May, 1931. At that time four writers
hope to present a play and a pageant or two which will "energize
with emotion" for a statewide gathering of Vermonters,
in Burlington, the findings of the different committees of
the survey.
My part, as a member of their committee ••• is to seek out all
unrecorded native music and make available in book form what
should be handed down from singing schools, through fiddlers,
out of travel diaries, biographies and town histories.
I must assemble, as well, for the use of the playwrights all
other native music which may be in manuscript form, in case
they wish to bind their scenes with such traditional Vermont
expression.
I welcome material, or clues or suggestions from any friend of
Vermont, and, in making use of it, I will, of course, credit
the correspondent as my source of information.
For instance, the song "Fair Charlotte" written in Benson,
Rutland County, is recorded with some variants in states
halfway across the continent ••••
Certainly there are others which grew into the story form of
songs. There must be Come-all-ye•s and Shanties and Frenchcanadian
dialect songs, Nursery Songs and altered Welsh, English
and Scottish Ballads. Please try to remember where you have
heard them and write me. Even fragments of this type will mean
much to me. Please communicate with
Yours truly,
--Helen Hartness Flanders
3-Mile Manse, Springfield, Vermont
June 14th, 1930.
The Commission's invitation prompted Flanders to involve two other
people in her work. One, George Brown, did the first intensive field collecting
in Vermont, and the other, Phillips Barry, taught her concepts which became the
driving force behind her own efforts and those of her colleagues for the next
three decades.
Flanders invited George Brown to help with her song collecting primarily
because of his musical skills. She knew him through her sponsorship of
the Springfield summer orchestra, which he conducted. As a conductor and a
cellist, he was well able to take melodic transcription in the field. He had,
though, no previous contact with ballads or other folk songs and hesitated to
get involved for this reason. In addition he too was skeptical about the
existence of traditional songs in Vermont.~ Yet he accepted her invitation.
When responses to her newspaper letters began to arrive in Springfield,
Flanders compiled notebooks of respondents' names and addresses. Flanders also
bought a dictaphone cylinder machine to be used for recording songs. At first
Brown did not use the dictaphone, but preferred to keep notebooks with musical
notation and text transcriptions. In fact, the majority of his contributions
to the archive were in this format. Between August and late October, Brown
travelled throughout southern Vermont, beginning first with Chester, Grafton
and Townshend.
It was decided that the region of the West River (which
empties into the Connecticut just above Brattleboro} would
be a good starting ground since it was the part of the
State that had been the longest settled and a section in
which man* farms were still in the hands of the original
families.
In Chester and Grafton, Brown had discouraging experiences in his
initial attempt to find older ballads. However, in Townshend, in August 1930,
he met a 68 year old man named Josiah Kennison, who sang for him a version of
"Lord Bakeman" which, it appears from Brown's notes, greatly al~ered his attitude
toward balladry and gave him impetus to continue his work.
In addition to "Lord Bakeman", Kennison sang several other well-known
British and American ballads. Brown and Flanders returned to him again in
October and November of that year and Flanders also later recorded his songs
in 1931, 1932, 1937, 1939, 1942 and 1945. She took Kennison with her when she
lectured in New England during the 1930s so that he could illustrate her talks
with his songs. Altogether, Kennison contributed more than forty titles to the
archive.
Other Vermont singers whose songs were transcribed by Brown during
those early months included Fred Ballard of Jamaica and George Farnham of
Wardsboro. In September, Brown recorded in his notebooks songs from three
generations of the Sharon Harrington family. Paul Lorette of Manchester Center,
Vermont, also made several contributions at that time. Many of these songs
were taken down by Brown in musical notation and were not recorded on cylinders.
Some, though, were later printed in publications from the archive.
During the summer and early fall of 1930, George Brown's mother, Alice
Brown, also did some field collecting. Her contributions to the archive are
found in early publications. Some of the songs Alice Brown notated by hand
from the singing of Mrs. George Tatro in July 1930, Flanders recorded on
dictaphone in November of that year.
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While George and Alice Brown were collecting songs in southern Vermont,
Flanders remained primarily in Springfield, contacting respondents to her advertisements
and trying to identify materials sent to her by George Brown.
When Flanders began collecting songs in the summer of 1930, she had
little kngwledge in the field of folklore or folk song, nor was she a trained
musician. She had no library of materials which might have helped her to
identifY the sources of the songs that she was receiving in the mail and that
she and the Browns were collecting. She therefore needed to take periodic
trips to nearby libraries to consult available literature on folk song. In
additiont Flanders began to correspond with Phillips Barry during the summer
of 1930. Phillips Barry was a scholar from cambridge, Massachusetts whose
undergraduate and graduate work at Harvard University had developed an interes
in the Anglo-American ballad tradition in New England. He contributed to folk
song and folklore journals more than thirty articles about individual ballads,
folk melody, folk music in America and on theoretical concepts relating to
folklore. This contact provided Flanders with her most valuable education in
the field of folklore. She was concerned with the integrity of the Vermont
archive which she had begun, and greatly respected Mr. Barry's wisdom regarding
performers to contact, methodology in collecting, information on song origins
and future direction for song collecting efforts. Their correspondence makes
clear that Barry acted as teacher, mentor and generous donor of materials to
Flanders.
In his early correspondence with Flanders, Barry stressed the importance
of the interrelationship of text and tune in folk song study.
The text and air of a folk-song form together, one organic
whole,that it is a false method of approach any longer to
deal with ballads ~nd folk-songs simply as literature. They
are music as well.
Barry also developed, with folklorist Louise Pound, a theory of "communal
re-creation" in folk song. Their belief was tha~ traditional songs were remodeled
by individuals as they were handed down. They stressed the importance
of collecting and recording each song with all its variations from verse
to verse and singer to singer. His somewhat progressive ideas were quickly
integrated into the goals of Flanders and her colleagues.
Phillips Barry gave his greatest encouragement to Flanders for her
Child recoveries. In the 19th century, Francis James Child, a Harvard professor,
had established a collection of 305 ballads, and their variants, from the
British Isles which he felt were the oldest narrative songs with an anonymous
origin. Many of these songs were brought to the United States by settlers
between the 16th and the 19th centuries. Barry quickly drew Flanders into his
efforts to disprove theories that the Child ballad tradition was dead in New
England in the 20th century and that the South was the last location where
these songs still lived. During the next several years she became involved in
his race to find more Child ballads in New England, and even in Vermont, than
other collectors were finding in the Southern states, particularly Virginia
By 1933 Flanders and Barry had reached a milestone in this effort: •
With Edward, Child 270 will bring Vermont's total t~ 48-LITTLE
VERMONT TIES BIG VIRGINIA: score 48 to 48111 O
Flanders shared Barry's excitement and recovering ballads became her
obsession. Her letters and attention to specific types of songs while collecting
make clear that her original goal of 1930, to create an overview of traditional
songs and music in Vermont, quickly changed to a desire to produce a
collection of older British ballads brought to New England by early settlers
as well as certain tradition al American ballads such as
1
;Fair Charlotte" and
"Springfield Mountain" which Barry considered important.
The members of the Vermont Commission in 1930 had planned to sponsor
a volume of folk songs found in Vermont, compiled from Flanders' and Brown's
collection. After September, when no more funds were available for field work,
their efforts turned to this task. The information on ballads which Flanders
received from Barry, especially his opinion that Child ballads were the songs
to value and that the more popular stage songs and broadsides were well left
alone, conflicted with the goal of the Commission members. It had been their
plan to produce a more "popular" volume of songs which could be appreciated
and sung by all Vermonters. Although Flanders had to comply with their wishes,
she be~~n also to plan a more "scholarly" volume to be co-authored by Phillips
Barry.
In 1931 the collection of songs based on the previous year's efforts
of Helen Flanders and George Brown, sponsored by the Vermont Commission, was
published by the Stephen Daye Press. This volume, Vermont Folk-Songs and
Ballads, included both texts and musical transcriptions of songs, although
many of the transcriptions were based not on dictaphone recordings, but on
songs taken down in musical notation by Brown during his early weeks of collecting
in southern Vermont. Flanders was responsible for notes and the general
organization of the materials, while Brown, Elizabeth Flanders Ballard
(Flanders' daughter) and Alice Brown did the musical transcription.
Between 1931 and 1938 Helen Flanders worked largely on her own as a
collector. In the Spring of 1931 she began her first intensive collecting,
using a dictaphone cylinder cutting machine. George Brown's association with
the archive soon diminished greatly. After 1931 he only occasionally provided
musical transcriptions for publication. Although the Commission was no longer
supporting Flanders' work, and efforts to find other sources of support ~ad
failed, she was able to provide her own financial support for her work. 1
In fact, throughout the active life of the Collection, it was Flanders who
provided the primary financial support.
Flanders began her work in the Spring of 1931 by sending form letters
and articles to 1 ~early every newspaper in the state, requesting information
on old ballads. She also proposed to several newspapers a series of articles
in which there would be an "open house" to folk songs whereby she could
share songs she had collected with readers who might, in turn, pass songs they
knew back to her. It appears that the only newspaper willing to print her
series at that time was the Springfield Republican in Massachusetts. This
series began on June 14, 1931 and continued for four years on a weekly basis,
acting as an important source for contacts in New England. Information provided
in the series, including texts for Vermont songs, was used by both Phillips
Barry and his colleague Fannie Eckstorm to compare to songs they had found in
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Maine. In 1933 Fannie Eckstorm arranged to have a portion of this series reprinted
in the Bangor Daily News, in Maine, in an attempt to solicit fUrther
contacts in Maine. This twenty part series continued in Bangor until 1934.
In addition to newspaper solicitations for songs, Flanders was also
able to expand her list of contacts with names of relatives of singers from
whom she had already collected. Often, when calling upon a singer, she was
able to record songs of relatives or friends of her original contact. On many
occasions, a singer sent her to another portion of the state to record songs
from a brother, sister or another relation. Elmer Barton, who contributed many
fiddle tunes and songs to the archive, sent Flanders to his cousin, Jonathan
Moses, in Orford, New Hampshire. Moses recorded altogether over 100 songs between
1939 and 1951. When Flanders travelled to northern Vermont in 1935 to
record songs of MYra Daniels, her brother, Elmer George, also offered to sing
songs he and his sister had learned when children as well as songs he had
learned in the woods while working as a lumberman. Elmer George became one of
Flanders' most favored singers with a wide repertoire and an appealing voice.
Together, George and Daniels added 90 titles to the Collection between 1935
and 1954.
In 1932 and 1933 Flanders travelled to the Shrewsbury Mountain region
of Vermont where she recorded songs by Mr. and Mrs. Elwin Burditt, Herbert
Haley, Eugene Hall and Mrs. w. E. Pierce. These singers especially remembered
songs which were known when a large lumbering industry existed in that region.
Flanders noted that they, and others in the farming community of that region,
passed among the f~ilies a single treasured copy of her book Vermont FolkSongs
and Ballads
Flanders' collecting efforts in Vermont and New Hampshire were aided
by Philips Barry, who provided small lists of names of singers from whom he had
collected during his own travels in the region earlier in the century. Among
these singers was Orlon Merrill, who was highly regarded by Barry. Between
February 1931 and September 1932, Flanders recorded Mr. Merrill in Charlestown,
New Hampshire, singing well-known British and American ballads, including
twenty-five verses of the American ballad, "Margaret Grey".
Every year Barry travelled to Vermont to spend several days collecting
songs with Flanders. He was especially interested in those singers who knew
seldom heard versions of older Child ballads. Barry's own collection of
cylinders, eventually housed at Harvard, included recordings of some of these
ballads. These include E. c. Green of Springfield singing "King Henry the
Fifth's Conquest of France" in October 1931, Josiah Kennison singing "The Twa
Brothers" in 1932, Mrs. E. M. Sullivan singing "Lord of Ludderdale" and "The
Banks of Claudy" in 1933, Susan Montague of Woodstock singing "The Twa ~6sters"
and Myra Daniels of E. Galais singing a version of "Lizie Wan" in 1934.
Among these singers, Mrs. Ellen M. Sullivan was a special friend or
Flanders. In a 1957 lecture she recalled her early meetings with her in 1932:
In 1934 sic in my home town of Springfield, Vermont, I
discovered Mrs. Sullivan, a bedridden woman whose Irish
memories were pure poetry when recounted in prose, even
more so when in the form of old ballads.
She could slightly keep a tune and the tune she most clung
to was used for many different ballads. Her di~7essions
were as important as background to her singing.
Mrs. Sullivan sang or recited over fifty-five songs and told several stories
between 1932 and 1940.
Another singer with whom Flanders and Barry worked was George Edwards
of Burlington, Vermont. In 1933 and 1934, he contributed rarely heard versions
of British ballads including "The Bonny Earl of Murray" and "Edward Ballad"
("The Twa Brothers"). It was Phillips Barry's practice to send copies of
British and Maine song texts to Mr. Edwards, hoping to help him remember other
songs. Helen Flanders in her own field work later used this method of jogging
a singer's memory.
In addition to Phillips Barry, Flanders' relationship with Fannie Hardy
Eckstorm of Brewer, Maine, had an impact on the development of the collection
in its early years. They began corresponding after Flanders published Vermont
Folk-Songs and Ballads in 1931. Eckstorm wrote to express her support of
Flanders' work in Vermont, and the two women soon developed a relationship
which linked song collecting in the two regions, Vermont and Maine. Eckstorm
had spent a number of years collecting ballads in Maine and had worked with
Phillips Barry and Mary Smythe on two anthologies of Maine ballads. British
Ballads From Maine (New Haven: Yale University Press), a collection of Child
recoveries, was published in 1929. The second volume, non-Child recoveries
from Maine, re~ans unpublished. At the time Flanders and Eckstorm began their
correspondence, Mrs. Eckstorm was no longer willing or able to do extensive
field work in Maine because of her age. In her letters to Flanders she
spoke about the importance of sharing work among trusted colleagues. After
Phillips Barry's death, Flanders turned to Eckstorm for help with ballad
identification. Their relationship continued until Eckstorm's death in 1946.
Eckstorm's enthusiasm, encouragement and contacts helped collectors associated
with the Vermont Archive to move outside of the state and record songs in other
states, especially Maine, during the 1940s and 1950s.
In 1934 and 1937 two more publications based on songs collected in
Vermont and New Hampshire for the Archive were made available. The first,
! Garland of Green Mountain Song, was a publication of the Committee for
the Conservation of Vermont Traditions and Ideals of the Vermont Commission on
Country Life. The song book format of this volume was the type of publication
the Vermont Commission had had in mind in 1930. It consisted of twenty-four
ballads chosen by music and recreation educators with piano accompaniment provided
by Helen Norfleet. The second publication, Country Songs of Vermont,
was part of an American Folk Song Series published by G. Schirmer. This
collection also consisted of twenty-four ballads with piano accompaniment by
Helen Norfleet.
During the mid-1930s Helen Flanders' collecting diminished and her
energy went toward preparing a publication which was jointly edited by Flanders
and Barry. This would be the "scholarly" volume they had spoken of in
their correspondence in the early 1930s. During the early 1930s Flanders had
discovered, in the Baker Library at Dartmouth College, an early 19th century
collection of ball1~s compiled by "an unknown soldier", entitled The Green
Mountain Songster. They decided to use the concept of a collection of ballads
from the Green Mountain State, (i.e., Vermont) but to include scholarly
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commentary on the songs. By 1936 the manuscript for ~ New ~ Moun~~in
Songster was nearly complete, although it was not published until 1939.
Following Barry's death in 1937, Flanders became ill and spent little
time collecting in 1938, although in that year the Vermont Federal Music Project
provided a clerical assistant for her during the summer.
1939
In 1939 Flanders's energies were renewed and a new decade of collecting
began. During that year she contacted organizations which she thought might
help her in her efforts to find old ballads. In addition, Alan Lomax made the
first discs to be deposited in the archive, and it was during this year that
Flanders met Marguerite Olney, who later became her associate and long-time
curator of the collection.
As she had done in 1931, Flanders began the year in 1939 by contacting
several organizations whose members she envisioned being trained to collect
songs to contribute to her archive. First, she contacted a Mrs. Schrader of
the Fine Arts Department in the Federation on Women's Clubs, a national organzation.
She proposed that its members become involved in collecting, and
published two articles on the subject in The Clubwoman, the organization's
publication. The articles, entitled "Prospecting for Folk Music"~ 1were published
in February 1939 and in the same month the following year. The
1939 article gave detailed instructions for song collecting and encouraging
folk music in communities. She ended her article by giving a sample "open
letter" requesting old songs in print or those that had been passed orally.
She suggested that members could arrange to have this published in a newspaper
or club magazine. At approximately the same time she announced the availability
of two $50 prizes to the Home Demonstration Group and the Grange which
could contribute "the greatest number of traditional songs of the following
three classifications:
1. The loan of early American hymnals previous to
1820, containing music;
2. Copies of early American songs exclusive of hymns
as they have been taken down from the memories
of persons ••• ;
3. British -- Scotch, ~2ish, and English -- folk
songs and ballads."
This contest was sponsored by Flanders and the Breadloaf School of English at
Middlebury College. This ~y have been the earliest contact between the Vermont
Archive and ~iddlebury College. In July of that year (1939) there was to be an
all-day Festival of Folk ~sic which would be "an Old Home Day to very old
songs and their singers."
By the Fall of 1939 the vast majority of songs collected for the
Archive were froo Vermont. There were over 160 cylinders with more than 500
songs recorded. 24 In addition, George Brown had provided musical transcriptions
of at least 140 songs many of which are not found on the sound recordings.
By 1939, though, the sound quality of the cylinders had deteriorated.
Many were broken and no longer playable. In the mean time, Alan Lomax,
affiliated with the Library of Congress, was interested in Flanders' findings
in Vermont and made arrangements to travel to the state to collect songs from
some of the singers whom Flanders and Brown had recorded during the earlier
years of the decade. The recordings he could make on the Library of Congress
Archive of Folk Song disc recorder were better than those made on Flanders'
dictaphone machine. In November, 1939, Lomax spent nine days travelling
throughout Vermont and recording a total of seventy-seven twelve inch discs.
Altogether ninety-one songs, ten stories and forty-nine fiddle tunes were
recorded. Copies of these discs were deposited in the Vermont archive and at
Library of Congress. Because all the singers and many of the songs recorded
by Lomax had been previously recorded by Flanders, collectors of the materials
were listed as Alan Lomax and Helen Hartness Flanders.
After November 1939, all recordings were made for the Vermont Archive
on a disc machine. Flanders must have been impressed with the superiority of
this type of recording medium over the cylinder.
There is little information on the earliest contact between Flanders
and Olney. The two women probably met for the first time in 1939, possibly as
a result of Flanders' contact with Olney's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Olney
of Springfield, both of whom contributed songs to the Archive. Marguerite
Olney was a 1928 graduate of the Eastman School of Music (Rochester, NY). She
could offer to the Archive an aspect of research with which Flanders had the
greatest difficulty: musical transcription and analysis. Olney's earliest
recordings for the Archive were made in Spring 1940 when the two women apparently
travelled together briefly to collect songs in New Hampshire. Between
1940 and 1958, the bulk of the collecting was done by Olney. Olney's collecting
efforts and her musical, organizational and research skills, combined with
Flanders' administrative capabilities, led to further development of the
Archive during the 1940s, its period of greatest growth.
1940 - 1950
Beginning in 1940 the scope of the Archive broadened considerably. It
was during this year that Flanders changed its name from the Vermont Archive
of Folk-Song to the Helen Hartness Flanders Ballad Collection. She greatly
widened the geographic range of the Collection beginning in that year. With
Olney's help, the Collection began its growth toward becoming a major research
archive.
Flanders' contact with the Federation of Women's Clubs helped her to
expand her collecting region, which before 1940 had been almost exclusively
within the state of Vermont. In early 1940, Mrs. Schrader, a leader in that
organization, contacted her about a singer from E. Jaffrey, New Hampshire naned
Lena Bourne {5] Fish. Other collectors in that region may have already known about
Mrs. Fish but upon Mrs. Schrader's recommendation, Flanders went to Mrs.
Fish's home to record her songs in the Spring of 1940. Between June and September
Olney returned to Mrs. Fish several times to record additional songs.
In that one year she contributed more than 80 songs to the Collection. Many of
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these songs were later "retaken" (re-recorded) by Olney in 1943 and 1945.
The scope of the Collection was fUrther expanded by Flanders' first
collecting trip to Maine in July 1940. Arranged by Fannie Eckstorm, this experience
made a lasting impression on her. Flanders recounted the story of her
experiences with the singers she recorded in Maine over and over again in her
lectures, in articles and even in one story (unpublished) in ~~ich she changed
the names of the "characters" with whom she had made contact. During this
one week stay she spent most of her time in the Island Falls area, and recorded
the songs of Rev. Perley Quigg, Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Desmond, Jack MCNally and
others. Flanders used the contacts she made during that first field trip during
a second trip to Maine later that year in September. At that time she made
contact with Hanford Hayes, a singer who contributed many valuable British and
American songs to the Collection during the following two years.
Although Marguerite Olney did some field collecting with Flanders
during 1940, her first archival work in Anglo-American ballad traditions was
only indirectly related to the Collection itself. Eckstorm and Flanders
arranged for Olney to spend time organizing the Phillips Barry papers which
were given to the Houghton Library at Harvard University after his death in
1937. Beginning in September, 1940, Olney spent more than three months sorting
papers and index2~ his collection as well as transcribing songs from his
cylinder collection. During December, Eckstorm also spent several weeks
with her on this task. Olney's work at Harvard provided an opportunity to
study and learn from Barry's work and methodology before assuming her position
at Middlebury.
In May 1941 the Collection was donated to Middlebury College and
Marguerite Olney was designated curator. The College agreed to house the Collection
in a "fireproof environment", a major consideration in Flanders' decision
to donate her valuable Collection which had remained in her own home for
eleven years. Another factor in her decision was ghat the Collection would be
accessible to students and scholars for research.2 The gift, at that time,
included 357 cylinders and discs, and collecting equipment (Dictaphone and
Speak-o-phone). Her gift also included a yearly amount of money to cover maintenance
and gas for a car, to purchase discs and other collecting equipment,
and to fUnd a large portion of the curator's salary. The College's mon~~ry
contribution covered part of the curator's salary and library supplies.
After the Collection was moved from Springfield to Middlebury, its
growth and development was noticeably influenced by the efforts of its new
curator, Marguerite Olney. Field work became a major portion of her responsibility.
My appointment as curator was made with the intention
that I should spend the major part of my time in field
collecting throughout the entire New England area, so
that the repertoires of the older folk-singers might be
recorded before their decease and, with whatever might
be added from other sources, the Collection might then
be made thorou§aly representative of the folk tradition
of the region.
17
Josiah Kennison, Townshend, Vermont Jonathan Moses, Orford. New Hampshire
Myra Daniels, E. Calais, Vermont Elmer George, North Montpelier. Vermont
18
Ellen M. Sullivan, Springfield, Vermont
Lena Bourne Fish, East Jaffrey, New Hampshire
Belle Richards, Colebrook, New Hampshire
Charles Flnnemore and Hanford Hayes,
Stacyville. Maine
Frank Richards, Colebrook, New Hampshire
Hanford Hayes, Stacyville, Maine
and Lennie Gllks, Bridgewater, Maine
19
20
Lecture Hall, Boston Public Library
Thursday, November 8, 1945
at 8.oo p.m.
Lecture-Recital
Traditional Songs of Vermont
by
Helen Hartness Flanders
assisted by
Asa Davis, Folk Singer
Programme
The Farmer's Curst Wife
Lord Bateman
Lady Margaret and Sweet William
Green Willow Tree
Yorkshire Bite
Brennan on the Moor
Noble Lads of Canada
The Backwoodsman
BIBLIOGRAPHY
-Child .:;8
Child 53
Child 74
Child 286
Vermont Folk Songs and Ballads, edited by Helen Hartness
Flanders and George Brown. Stephen Daye Press,
Brattleboro, Vt. 8o57-486
A Garland of Green Mountain Song, edited by Helen Hartness
Flanders with piano settings by Helen Norfleet. Vermont
Commission. ~orthfield, Vt. 8o57-491
Country Songs of Vermont, compiled by Helen Hartness
Flanders with piano accompaniments by Helen Norfleet.
G. Schirmer, ~ew York, N. Y. MI62g.Fs8C5
The New Green Mountain Songster. edited by Helen Hartness
Flanders and others. Yale University Press, New Haven,
Conn. 8oS7-S8I
Vermont Chap Book. Bread Loaf School of English Press.
!-.1iddlebury, Vt. M476.**M476-492
**********
A loan exhibition of selections from the "Helen
Hartness Flanders Collection of Folk Music of
the Northeast," in the possession of Middlebury
College, will be on view in the Chavannes
Gallery from November 1-15.
Singers at Bread Loaf in the 1940s
1. to r., Lena Bourne Fish, Elmer George, Daniel
Dragon, Myra Daniels, Asa Davis
21
22
· SUNDAY STANDARD-TIMES, NEW BEDFORD, MASS., 'JUNE 25, 1950
ISONGS LEARNED BY EAR
Love-lor Devonshire Servant
Girl Is Burden of Old Ballad
By HELEN HARTNESS FLANDERS
(Mn. Hdea HartaeiS Flaoden Ia &he •lfe ar Senator Ralph E. Flaaden
(Jl.-l·umonU aacl slla baa loaf been lahreded Ia writlac. &!UI patt.Jeularly In
hUa.... JB 1927. she wrote a •••k ei' elllldrea'a nrsea, wblcb waa publbbed.
She linea baa -.rUtea mucb ma&crta.l an earlY .4.mericaa soars. lD:elud.lnr U1a
"alam.et "Vcrm.oat fallr. Saac• aa.cl B&ll•da .. atul .. /\. Gadaad. a( GrHil M.aa11.l&la.
san1." Mere reeeat arUdn on tbe •••Jeet are eatlilcd, ''Mirraal BaUatla J'aatul
)ft Masaacll•MUa." lhth Mr. aad Mrs. f'laadert farmniJ &peat lll&nJ Saauaera
a1 Sahen Po\at aa.4 in nceat. Jll011thw. Mrs. F\aa1ltn haa beea st•d.JhiiJ ballad
material. af par&inlu ID.krnt to New Be4fard and delai&y.)
Several years ago I W<l5 listening to a radio program given by our
local station in Springfield. Vt. ..-1. man was singing one hymn after
another. without accompaniment ·vith a camp-meeting fervor easily
recognized. To me also was easily recogmzed a .manner of singing
!common in lumbercamps. 'lhere. too, there was no accompamment.
Songs telling lo~g stories were the more vivid because a singer would / ~ ;, 1 ~0o%eo~~~e~~e o?~~e e~t~~~-: each line, as continuity
j · As socn a!: that radio hymn-singing was over
· I phoned uur sration and learned the name of the
singer. Grass c.id not grow under my feet. I went
immediately to call on "Uncle Tom" Armstrong
where he was visiting in town. I set out to get
from his lumbercamp songs. I was right. He had
them.
But I was completely dashed when he told me 1
he had not sun~ a "'\VOrldly" song for many years.
That ''-·as an impasse. But eventually in our giveand
·take I heard a· wonderful Irish horse race as
_:.. supposedly tok: hy the harse. "Sku-ball," and an- I Mrs. Flanden other aoout "Betsey, the Waiting Maid."
I :;)Ublish here not tits ''-·ords, 'c.ut the same song as known to Mis3
!\.Iary E. Burt of Fall River. Her text was shared \Vith me by the
-:oHectcr, Phillips Barry.
BETSEY
Oh. Betsey dear was a lady fair.
She's lately come from Devonshire:
Though a serYant girl. she pro,,.ed to be
)lore fitted for some rich lady.
Her mistrrss had an only son.
She shone to him like the gliUerinc moon,
And unto Betsey he did ~ay.
"I love you. dear, and. well I may."
His mother being in the Pther room,
She chanced to overhear her son.
And she resolved within her mind
To break them both of their design.
So in the mornin::. when Betsey arose,
She said to her. ''Slip on ~-our clothes.
For to the city You shall to
To wait on me a day or two."
So she dressed herself ritht straight awa.y;
She dress~d herself in rirh array;
A ship lies waiting right in the town,
fair Betsey's to Virginia bound.
Soon after this she returned home
.\nd she returned home to her son:
.. \\,.elcome. welrome. my lb." he said.
"But where is Betsey. your \vaitinc·maid'!'t
.. 0 son. 0 son. I plainly see
That Your true love is for Betsey,
0 son. 0 son. it is all in vain
For Betsey is crossinc the rarinr main."
Soon after this he v.-as taken sad:
:Sothinc on earth could make him glad:
In slumberinc dreams he wou.ld often sirh.
"Oh. Betsey dear. for you I die."
DMton were sent for in great speed,
.. 0 dO(:ton, 0 docton. )·ou're all in vain,
"0 dO<'tor. 0 doctors. you're all in ''ain,
For Betuy is crossing- thf' racing main/•
.\nd when ~he saw that h~r son was dead.
She wrunc her hands anC si,ched and sa.id.
"Could I see life in my son a~ain
1 would ~nd for Betsey from the ralinc- main:'
A portion of an article published in the StandardTimes,
New Bedford, Mass., June 25, 1950.
During the academic year Olney worked on the maintenance and development
of the Flanders Collection at the College. During her tenure she developed
a book collection to support her own research on the ballads as well
as to create a research library for scholars. She established text files and
card catalogues of the songs and fiddle tunes on field recordings and she also
organized and indexed other valuable materials in the Collection, including
the growing collection of British and American broadsides.
On occasion Olney also assumed other responsibilities toward the
Collection and the College. For example, in summer 1949 Professor Donald
Davidson taught a course on "American Ballads, Folk Songs, and Folk Tales" at
the Middlebury College Breadloaf School of English. Olney acted as librarian
of a collection of materials drawn from the Flanders Ballad Collection which
were kept on the Breadloaf Campus for that summer session. As librarian she
also advised students doing projects in folk song and folklore and presented
sound recordings of materials relating to Prof. Davidson's lectures.
As early as April each year, Olney began her travels connected with
field collecting which lasted through the summer. In summer 1941, she made her
first collecting trip to Maine and northern New Hampshire, accompanied during
part of the trip by Flanders. During the next few years, Olney recorded hundreds
of songs from singers in these regions as well as in New York State and
in Vermont. In June 1941, she travelled to Maine and spent about a month
collecting along the coast, south of Brewer, in Ellsworth Falls and Searsport,
then later in the northern region of the state near Houlton, in Island Falls
and Stacyville. She returned to Maine again in mid-August after spending
several days in northern New Hampshire in the towns of Pittsburg and Colebrook.
Between mid-June and early November, Olney collected over 200 songs. Among the
singers were Hanford Hayes, Jack McNally and Charles Finnemore, who sang scores
of Irish ballads and songs popular in American lumbercamps during the 19th century.
In the Colebrook region were Belle Luther Richards, her husband Frank
Richards and her brother Sidney Luther, as well as others, who also sang songs
which were popular in the lumbercamps.
In 1942 Olney travelled back and forth across northern New England
several times to gather field recordings. She arrived in Colebrook, New Hampshire
on April 15. Before the end of the month she had recorded nearly one
hundred songs from Maynard Reynolds, Edwin Day, Mrs. Alice Robie, Mrs. Richards
Mr. Luther and others. In a single day (on April 22) Mrs. Richards sang
thirty-seven songs for her. Olney travelled from northern New Hampshire over
to Maine and spent May and part of June in both the northern and southern
regions of Maine. In that year, Olney also recorded songs during June in
New York State. In addition to songs of Tom Armstrong of Mooer's Forks, New
York, she recorded songs of Lily Delorme of Cadyville, New York. Olney again
recorded her on at least seven trips to that region between December 1941 and
August 1944. Delorme contributed more than eighty titles to the Collection.
In July 1942 Olney recorded songs in New Hampshire and northern Vermont. She
travelled back to Maine in August and to Colebrook and Pittsburg, New Hampshire
in September. In October and November she made recordings primarily in Vermont.
Despite gas rationing during the early 1940s, Olney repeated this type
of travel pattern in 1943 and 1945 and to a more limited degree in 1944, 1947
and 1948.
As Olney's collecting efforts continued, records indicate that Flanders
spent less time in the field. on a number of occasions during the decade from
1940 to 1950 Flanders indicated in her letters that her health was poor.
This was undoubtedly a major factor in her diminished collecting efforts.
Nevertheless, she continued her administrative duties throughout the period,
overseeing Olney's work in the Collection, supplying more than two-thirds of
the financial support and providing additional contact through her newspaper
articles and extensive lecture programs. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s
Flanders also maintained contact by letter with many of the singers whom Olney
travelled into the field to record.
Throughout the active life of the Collection, while field recordings
were being added to the archive, Flanders always made the initial contact with
singers in a given area, but Olney, in her valuable role as collector, also
greatly expanded the region and scope of the archive. By 1950 she had contributed
materials recorded in Maine (in 1941, 1942, 1945, 1947 and .1948) which
resulted from Flanders' initial contact with Fannie Eckstorm, but also from
Olney's maintenance of that contact. Many of the contacts Flanders made in
Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut were followed up by Olney who
travelled to make recordings. Areas of collecting in Vermont and New Hampshire
also expanded due to Olney's willingness to travel extensively.
Between 1941 and 1948, the number of "mechanical recordings" {cylinder
and disc items) in the Collection expanded more than three-fold, from 857 to
3051. By 1958 there were 4800 items. Not only the size but the scope of
the Collection also changed as a result of Olney's research and interest in
folklore. While in the 1930s an effort had been made to exclude all but British
and older American ballads, during the 1940s a greater variety of materials
was recorded. These included stories, stage songs and other popular American
songs of the nineteenth century, hymns and other religious songs, Polish and
Russian ballads and songs, and French-Canadian ballads from northern Vermont,
New Hampshire and Maine.
In the 1940s Flanders published articles on a weekly basis in the ~
ragansett Times, in Rhode Island, between December 22, 1944 and October 12,
1945 (37 articles); in the Westerly Sun, in Rhode Island, between April 1,
1945 and December 10, 1945 {6 articles); in the Springfield Reporter, in
Vermont, in 1946; in the Waterbury Republican, in Connecticut, between February
6, 1949 and Hay 15, 1949; and in the Bridgeport Post, in Connecticut,
between July 3, 1949 and July 24, 1949 (4 articles). She also published articles
briefly in the New Bedford Sunday Standard-Times, in Massachusetts, in
June 1950. Like those printed in the Springfield Republican, in Massachusetts,
between 1931 and 1935, these articles contained song texts, anecdotes
about collecting and some historical information on the ballads. As with her
earlier articles their purpose was to solicit additional songs from readers who
might contribute written texts or be willing to be recorded. While the articles
in the 1930s had been quite successful in swelling Flanders' roster of
singers, the articles in the 1940s yielded much less response. Response to the
Rhode Island articles though, encouraged both Flanders and Olney to travel to
the Providence region where they collected about 200 songs between October 1944
and November 1945. Among the towns represented were Providence, Westerly,
Wakefield, Lafayette, and Kingston. William webster, of Wakefield, provided
over forty valuable songs and fiddle tunes in 1944, 1945 and 1952.
By 1950 Flanders was disappointed with the lack of response to her
newspaper articles. Fewer singers appeared to be available who remembered
the old songs. The New Bedford, Connecticut newspaper articles were the last
of this type that she published.
Flanders' lectures played an important role in making contact with
singers. Her earliest talks took place in Vermont towns at historical
societies, women's groups and folklore organizations. Flanders' later lectures,
which continued even into the late 1960s, took place at poetry meetings, meetings
of Anthropological Societies, at Women's Clubs, on College campuses and
at historical societies. She donated all remuneration given to her for her
lectures to the Flanders Collection. They were short talks which contained
appeals to members of the community to offer songs or information on singers.
In the 1940s and 1950s she presented in her lectures historical information
on the songs and also anecdotes relating to the singers from whom she collected.
During this period of time she also brought singers with her to her
lectures, including Lena Bourne Fish, Asa Davis, Elmer George, MYra Daniels and
Charles Finnemore, as she had brought Josiah Kennison with her during the
1930s. This proved to be very popular with both the audience, who enjoyed the
singers' freshness and wit, as well as with the singers, who had brief opportunities
to travel to various parts of New England. By the late 1940s, though,
many of the singers had passed away or were ailing, making such presentations
more difficult to organize.
1950 - 1958
While the decade from 1940 to 1950 was a period of concentration on
expansion of materials, both through collecting as well as the development of
the library at Middlebury College, during the 1950s efforts were again made
to produce publications from the materials. Flanders' deteriorating health
and her husband's 1946 appointment and later election to the U. s. Senate,
did not allow her as much time to devote to the Collection. Olney's responsibilities
as curator of the Collection, which had grown significantly in size,
did not allow her much time for field work. It was therefore not as active a
period for collecting as the 1940s had been. In 1958 the last tapes were made
for the Collection and by 1960 there were no longer any additions of field
recordings to the once very active Collection.
In the early 1950s Olney and Flanders gathered the results of their
work throughout New England in a volume entitled Ballads Migrant in New England
(New York: Farrar, Strauss and Young). In the same year they published
an LP recording from the Collection ~ Traditional British-American
Ballads (Middlebury College, 1953) containing Child ballads sung by Edith
Ballinger Price, Elmer Barton, Elmer George, Phyllis Burditt, Asa Davis and
Charles Finnemore. Even before these materials were published, though, they
had begun to work on a collection which became their final work. It was the
culmination of all Flanders' work during her three decades of involvement as
a collector of songs. Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press) was a four-volume collection
of Child ballads published between 1961 and 1965. Although the editor of the
collection is listed as Helen Hartness Flanders with analyses and annotation
by folklorist Tristram P. Coffin and musicologist Bruno Nettl, Olney played a
major role in the preparation of these volumes through her collecting, transcription
and research efforts.
26
Shortly before 1950 the disc recorder which had been used for nearly
ten years, was retired in favor of a tape-recorder. Approximately fifty-five
tapes were made for the archive in the 1950s. Recordings in the 1950s are
fewer in number, but were made in all the New England states. Because of
greater limitations on time, extensive travel within the states did not take
place. In 1950 recordings were made in Massachusetts and Vermont, in 1951 in
New Hampshire and Maine, in 1952 in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, in 1954 in
all the states, in 1955 in Vermont, and in 1958 in New Hampshire and Vermont.
The superior sound quality of the tapes over the discs encouraged
Flanders and Olney to re-record songs from some of the singers of the 1940s.
In 1951, Jonathan Moses, of Orford, New Hampshire, who was first recorded by
Flanders in 1939, recorded fifteen songs on tape. Also in that year, Oliver
Jenness of York, Maine, who had contributed over forty titles in the 1940s,
sang several songs for Olney when he was ninety-four. William Webster of Wakefield,
Rhode Island, re-recorded songs in 1952. Myra Daniels then living in
Hardwick, Vermont, sang a number of songs for Olney in 1954, just before Mrs.
Daniels' death. It was a discouraging experience for the women, though, since
many of the singers they had recorded during the previous decades were no
longer alive. The ages of the performers, throughout the collecting period
{1930-1958) was generally between sixty and eighty. It was among these individuals
that the old song traditions were still carried. As these older singers
passed away, there were considerably fewer traditional ballads and songs
available to Flanders and Olney.
In the 1950s new contacts were made, especially in northern Vermont
in Hardwick, Belvidere, Eden and Johnson. Beatrice LaDuke and Harriet Eldred
sang at least twenty-five songs among them in October 1958, including several
Child ballads, British broadside ballads, and versions of the regional songs
"Josie Langmaid" and "Henry Green". In 1958, Lester (Jack) Hoadley of Johnson,
Vermont, sang both British and American ballads. In Vergennes Flanders recorded
songs and stories of the oldest singer represented in the Collection,
Joseph Griffis. In 1950 she attended Mr. Griffis' one-hundredth birthday
party and was entertained with songs in Kiowa and English as well as stories
and tales of Mr. Griffis' youth.
In the 1950s an effort was also made to expand the linguistic
the Collection to include French-canadian songs found in New England.
recorded over forty French ballads and folk songs from the Renaud and
families in Hardwick and Salisbury, Vermont and the Bartley family in
Maine between 1954 and 1958.
scope of
Olney
LeCours
Jaclanan,
The tape recorder also provided an opportunity for Flanders and Olney
to attempt to preserve their Collection by transferring songs from the disc and
cylinder medium to reel-to-reel tape. Some of the final tapes deposited in the
Collection contain duplications of a limited number of disc and cylinder recordings.
During the 1950s severe difficulties between Flanders and Olney developed.
Although the project to produce a collection of Child ballads in New
England was still in progress, Flanders withdrew her funding for the Collection
in the late 1950s. Since she had provided at least two-thirds of the funding
since its arrival on the Middlebury College campus in 1941, the College apparently
did not feel they could provide fUll support of the Collection. Olney's
position at the College was therefore eliminated in Spring 1960. With her
departure, the field collecting ceased. She had to abandon plans she had made
for cataloging and copying to magnetic tape the large collection of songs.
For many years little attention and care were given to the materials
in the Flanders Ballad Collection at Middlebury. Irreplaceable dictaphone
cylinders, discs and tapes were stored fo~ eighteen years in an environment
which was not temperature or humidity controlled. Little effort was made to
preserve or develop further the resources of the song collection.
In 1978, nearly all of the sound recordings were taken to the Library
of Congress Archive of Folk Song for dubbing. Using tape copies of the recordings
provided by Library of Congress efforts were begun at Middlebury College
in 1979 to preserve and index the contributions of collectors: George Brown,
Helen Hartness Flanders, Phillips Barry, Alan Lomax and Marguerite Olney.
27
28
1. Helen Hartness Flanders, Lecture notes, Sheldon, Vermont, TS, 1936 ' P• 1.
2. Helen Hartness Flanders, Letter, Rutland Herald, 17 June 1930, P• 4.
3. George Brown, Field notes, MS, (n.d.). I am indebted to Stephen Green of
Brattleboro, Vermont, for detailed information on George Brown and his field
work. Mr. Brown's notebooks were donated to the Flanders Ballad Collection by
Mr. Brown as the result of Stephen Green's contact with him in 1982.
4. George Brown, Field notes.
5. George Brown, Field notes.
6. Flanders repeatedly stressed her lack of experience in folklore and folk
song in letters and lectures. An example of the statements she made can be
found in her "Folk-Songs and Ballads of Northern New England," TS, 1943 ,
p. 1.
7. The correspondence between Helen Flanders and Phillips Barry is found in
part among the Phillips Barry papers in storage at Houghton Library, Harvard
University and in part among the Helen Hartness Flanders papers in the Flanders
Ballad Collection at Middlebury College. The following information on the relationship
between Flanders and Barry is largely drawn from this correspondence
which is dated between 21 August 1931 and 23 June 1937.
8. Phillips Barry, Letter to Helen Hartness Flanders, 30 January 1931,
Flanders Ballad Collection, Middlebury College.
9. An article by Barry on this theory, entitled "Communal Re-creation", was
printed in the Bulletin of the Folk-Song Society of the Northeast, 5, 1933,
4-6.
10. Phillips Barry, Letter to Helen Hartness Flanders, 14 December 1933,
Flanders Ballad COllection, Middlebury College.
11. COmpare the statement in her 17 June 1930 letter to the editor in the
Rutland Herald to statements she makes in her letters to Barry.
12. Helen Hartness Flanders, Letter to Phillips Barry, 5 January 1931, 28 January
1931, Flanders Ballad Collection, Middlebury College.
13. Helen Hartness Flanders, Letter to Phillips Barry, 22 September 1931, Phillips
Barry Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University. Flanders' lectures
throughout Vermont were a source or financial support for her collecting even
as early as 1931.
14. Helen Hartness Flanders, Letter to Phillips Barry, 22 April 1931, Phillips
Barry Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
15. Helen Hartness Flanders, "When I Think of the Songs I Also Remember," TS,
(n.d.), p. 3.
16. This information is found in worksheet prepared by the Library of Congress
Federal Cylinder Project for the "Phillips Barry Collection of New England
Folksong and Ballad", (LWO 12,980; R 50-65, AFS 20,239-20,254), pp. 1-14.
17. Helen Hartness Flanders, "On Knowing the Right People," Lecture notes for
the Literary Society of Washington, TS, 3 March 1957, P• 10.
18. Correspondence between Fannie Hardy Eckstorm and Helen Flanders, dated between
3 September 1931 and 14 April 1943, is found in the Flanders Ballad Collection,
Middlebury College.
19. The full title of this volume is "The Green Mountain Songster, Being a
Collection of Songs on Various Subjects, Principally Tending to Expel Melancholy
and Cheer the Drooping Mind", 1823.
20. Helen Hartness Flanders, Elizabeth Flanders Ballard, George Brown, Phillips
Barry, The New Green Mountain Songster, New Haven: lale University Press,
1939.
21. Helen Hartness Flanders, "Prospecting for Folk Music," The Clubwoman,
(General Federation of Women's Clubs), February 1939, February 1940.
22. Helen Hartness Flanders, "Announcement of Prizes Offered to Granges and
Home Demonstration Groups," TS, 1939 •
23. It doesn't appear that this event ever took place at Breadloaf School of
English.
24. Helen Hartness Flanders, "Index of Ballads and Folk-Songs in the Archive of
Vermont Folk-Songs at Smiley Manse, Springfield, Vermont," Proceedings of~
Vermont Historical Society, NS 7, No. 2, June 1939, pp. 73-97.
25. Noted in worksheets (p. 7) prepared by the Federal Cylinder Project,
Library of Congress for the Phillips Barry Collection is a recording of a "Mrs.
Fish" dated probably in 1931 or 1932 Frank Warner of New York may also have had
contact with Lena Bourne Fish before his first recordings of her songs in July
1940.
26. For example, see Helen Hartness Flanders, "Ballad Round Up,n TS, (n.d.).
See also, Flanders' "Collector's Luck," TS, (n.d.). Both of these typescripts
are found in the Flanders Ballad Collection, Middlebury College.
27. It is clear, upon inspecting the organization of the Phillips Barry Papers
at Houghton Library, that there is a strong organizational relationship between
the files in these and those found in the Flanders Ballad Collection. Olney
may have been largely responsible for this relationship, although other factors
such as the correspondence between Barry and Flanders in the 1930s as well as
Olney's first-hand observation of Barry's own methodology while working with
his papers should be considered.
28. Helen Hartness Flanders, "The Ballad as a Living Science," TS, (n.d.),
p. 9.
29
29. Marguerite Olney, "Ballads and Folk-Songs in New England," TS, 1943 ,
p. 4.
30. Marguerite Olney, "Statement or Plans," TS, 1955 , P• 1.
31. Copies or letters to Olney and singers with whom she maintained contact
are found in the files in the Flanders Ballad Collection, Middlebury College.
32. Marguerite Olney, "List of All Items in the Collection," TS, 1955, p. 1.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barry, Phillips. "Communal Re-creation." Bulletin of the Folk-Song
Society of the Northeast. 5 (1933), 4-6.
----------. Letters to Helen Hartness Flanders. 10 January 1931 to 17 May
1937. Flanders Ballad Collection, Middlebury College.
Barry, Phillips, Fannie Hardy Eckstorm, Mary Smyth. British Ballads From
Maine. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929.
Child, Frances James. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. 5 v.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1882-1898.
Eckstorm, Fannie Hardy.
to 14 April 1943.
Letters to Helen Hartness Flanders. 3 September 1931
Flanders Ballad Collection, Middlebury College.
Federal Cylinder Project, Library of Congress. "Phillips Barry Collection of
New England Folksong and Ballad." 1980.
Flanders, Helen Hartness. Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England.
4 v. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1960-1965.
----------. "Announcement of Prizes Offered to Granges and Home Demonstration
Groups." TS, 1939 •
----------. "The Ballad As a Living Science." TS, (n.d.).
----------. "Ballad Round Up. n TS, (n.d. ).
----------. Country Songs of Vermont. New York: G. Schirmer, 1937.
----------. "Folk-Songs and Ballads of Northern New England. n TS, 1943 •
----------. ! Garland of Green Mountain Song. Northfield, Vermont: Green
Mountain Pamphlets, 1934.
----------. "Index to the Ballads and Folk-Songs in the Archive of Vermont
Folk-Songs at Smiley Manse, Springfield, Vermont." Proceedings of the
Vermont Historical Society, NS 7, No. 2, June 1939, 73-97·
----------. Lecture notes. 1936 - 22 April 1967. Flanders Ballad Collection,
Middlebury College.
----------. Letter. Rutland Herald, 17 June 1930, 4.
----------. Letters to Phillips Barry. 21 August 1930 to 21 February 1935.
Phillips Barry Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
---------- Letters to Fannie Hardy Eckstorm. 29 November 1938 to 14 September
1942. Flanders Ballad Collection, Middlebury College.
31
32
----------· "On Knowing the Right People." TS, 3 March 1957 •
----------· "Prospecting for Folk Music." ~Clubwoman (General Federation
of Women's Clubs), February 1939, February 1940.
---------· "The Quest for Vermont Ballads." Proceedings of the Vermont
Historical Society, NS 7, No. 2, June 1939, 53-72.
----------· "The Unexpected in Folk Song Collecting." Paper read before the
Literary Society of Washington, 22 April 1967.
----------· "When I Think of the Songs I Also Remember." TS, (n.d.).
Flanders, Helen Hartness, Elizabeth Flanders Ballard, George Brown, Phillips
Barry. The New Green Mountain Songster. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1939.---
Flanders, Helen Hartness, George Brown. Vermont Folk-Songs and Ballads.
Brattleboro: Stephen Daye Press, 1931.
Flanders, Helen Hartness, Marguerite Olney. ~ Traditional British-American
Ballads. Middlebury, Vermont: Middlebury College Recording, 1953.
---------. Ballads Migrant ill New England. New York: Farrar Strauss and
Young, 1953
Green, Stephen B. "Fiddle and Fife Music in the Helen Hartness Flanders Ballad
Collection." Unpub. ms., 1982.
Herzog, George. "Phillips Barry." Journal of~ American Folklore Societl•
51 No. 202 (1938), 439-441.
Laws, G. Malcolm. American Ballads From British Broadsides. Philadelphia:
American Folklore Society, 1957-.-
----------. Native American Balladry. Philadelphia: American Folklore
Society, 1964.
Olney, Marguerite. "Ballads and Folk-Songs in New England." TS, 1943 •
----------. Letter to Helen Hartness Flanders. 8 February 1951. Flanders
Ballad Collection, Middlebury College.
----------. "List of All Items tn the Collection." TS, 1955.
----------. "Statement of Plans." TS, 1955 •
DIRECTIONS FOR USE OF !!!! INDEX
-Titl-e In-dex
The main index has numbered entries listed alphabetically by title.
Information on each entry includes the entry number, title, uniform title,
performer, performer's location, recording date, medium, tape number, text
availability and classification number.
Below is a diagram of a sample entry followed by a detailed explanation
or each entry.
ENTRY NO. TITLE FRAGMENT
\ I / PERFORMER'S LOCATION
3949 WILLIE*
UNIFORM TITLE---- Earl Brand /~
PERFORMER Mulcahy Michael Mrs
551020 a (T07B07) T
RECORDING "TE I
MEDIUM TAPE NO.
Rutland
\
TEXT
VT
CH007
I CLASSIFICATION NO.
Entry number: The entry number is a reference number for each work listed
in the title index. Both performer and uniform title indexes
refer to the entry numbers.
Title: In the title field is the song, tune or story title as given
by the performer at the time of the recording, or as found
in texts transcribed from the sound recordings of the songs.
These texts are filed in the Flanders Ballad Collection.
Pieces and fragments of songs whose titles could not be determined
are interfiled in the index, beginning with the word
"Unidentified", e.g. "Unidentified fiddle tune", "Unidentified
fragment", etc.
Fragment: An asterisk {*) immediately following the title indicates that
the recording is of a fragment of a ballad or song. Generally
a songs is labelled as a fragment is it is fewer than three
stanzas long, when the known text is considerably longer.
Uniform title: The uniform title is the commonly known title of a song or
tune. These entries include titles assigned by Child or Laws
in their works (See Frances J. Child, The English and Scottish
Popular Ballads (cambridge, 1882-1898), G. Malcolm Laws,
American Ballads From British Broadsides and Native
33
American Balladry (Philadelphia, 1957 and 196~)), given
titles to composed songs and most commonly used titles of
songs and tunes in all other categories. In some cases, when
uniform titles could not be determined, performers' titles
were left as uniform titles. In the main index, the uniform
title is not repeated if it is identical to the given title.
Performer: The performers' names are entered in the index with the last
name first. An attempt was made to include full names of
performers, especially of women whose names may include their
given name and their husband's name. When a woman was referred
to on a recording as Mrs. ----, "Mrs." was inserted in the
name field following her surname or first name, if given. "Ms"
is used in this field if no family relationship was determined.
If a performer's name could not be determined from
the recordings or text transcriptions, this field will be
blank.
Location: This field gives the town and state designated by the collectors
as the performer's home. Detailed information on the
performance location, as opposed to the performer's home, was
seldom given on the sound recordings or in notes. In general,
locations are in New England and New York State, although a
few locations outside of the region are represented. These
recordings were probably made when Flanders was travelling or
in residence in Washington, D.C. No information in this field
indicates that the performer's home could not be identified
the available information.
Recording date: The recording date is entered with the year first, followed
by month and day (i.e., 400509 stands for 1940 May 9). Before
1941 recording dates were seldom announced on the cylinders
and discs; after this date, the information was included with
more frequency. Dates for the entries were drawn from the
sound recordings and from dates found on typescript texts in
files of the Flanders Ballad Collection (e.g. "On July 11,
1932 Mr. ----sang for the Vermont Archive ••• "). An attempt
was made to insert at least a year date for every item. When
notes make it clear that a performance took place in a given
year, but the month and day are not specified, the year is
followed by zeros (400000). Approximate dates of recording
(32?) were determined by the recording medium (cylinder, disc
or tape, and specifically the type of material from which the
disc and tapes were made), numbering or the recordings, or
from the context relating to information given on the recording
or notes in the files of the Flanders Collection.
Medium: The medium is represented by one or more of the following
letters which indicate instrument or vocal form represented
on the recordings:
Tape number:
Text:
Classification
number:
c: caller p: piano
f: fiddle r: recitation
g: guitar s: song
i: fife t: trumpet
The tape number refers to the reel-to-reel tape on which
the item can be found in the Flanders Ballad Collection
at Middlebury College. There are currently ninety-eight
tapes (recorded at 3 3/4 ips) of which thirteen are of
cylinder recordings, seventy-one of disc recordings and
fourteen of original tape recordings. In this six character
field, the first refers to the original medium:
C = cylinder, D = disc and T = tape. The following five
characters refer to the tape number, tape side and item
number on the side.
DISC #21 SIDE A ITEM #3
""-\!/ D 21 A 03
There are, in addition to the sound recordings, 143 entries
prefixed with "Ms" which refer to George Brown's manuscript
manuscript books. These items are not on tape, but are only
available in musical notation. The first two characters
designate that it is a manuscript (Ms), the third (a letter)
identifies the manuscript book as shelved in the Collection,
and the last three numerals indicate the item number in the
book.
MANUSCRIPT BOOK B TRANSCRIPTION #21
~I~
Ms B 021
If an entry has a "T" in this position it indicates that
there is a typescript text of the song in the text files
in the Flanders Ballad Collection at Middlebury College.
The typescripts of the texts were apparently done between
1930 and 1960 by various people working in the Collection,
including Marguerite Olney.
The classification number refers to the number given by
Child (CH) or Laws (LA) in their publications. Only Child
and Laws numbers are found in this field.
35
36
Uniform Title Index
~=----
All titles in the main index are regrouped in this index under their
uniform titles. The uniform title permits all songs with closely related
text:~ to be placed under a unique (uniform) title. This index does not include
cross-references from all given titles to their uniform title. The
user should consult the main title index as well as this index for all possible
appearances of a song or tune name. Information in this index includes
the uniform title, classification number (as assigned by Child or Laws) if
there is one, an alphabetic listing of performers' titles under each uniform
title and corresponding entry numbers in the main title index.
UNIFORM TITLE CLASSIFICATION NO.
\ I
Silvery Tide (Laws 037)
PERFORMER'S ....;::::::-Mary of the Silvery Tide
TITLE ~One Day Mary Was Absent
Silvery Tide
2lJ15-2416~ ENTRY NO.
2818~(in the main
3336 index)
In this index if a song or tune title given by a performer is the same as the
uniform title, the title appears as the unform title and is repeated in the
listing of performer's titles. Sometimes, though, the uniform title, given by
Child or Laws or published in early sheet music, was not used by any performer.
In this case, the uniform title is not be repeated in the performer's title
listing.
The Performer ~
'I'he performer index is an alphabetical listing by performer's last name
containing location, song title(s) and entry number(s) from the main title
index.
PERFORMER LOCATION
I I
FINNEMORE, STANLEY (Bridgewater, ME)
PERFOJ!MER 'S -c::::::::::::. Bold Jack Donahue
TITLE Guy Reed
In some cases the same song may be entered under two separate titles. This
is because the performer may have given a different title when singing the
same song on a different date.
Location Listing
This list containing names of performers, their towns and states, is
organized by state. Towns represented in the Collection are listed in alphabetical
order with performers recorded in each town beneath. The New England
states and New York, are listed first. Performers whose towns could not be
determined and locations outside of New England are then listed. Within each
state, performers whose towns could not be determined are listed last. For
works performed in a location, refer back to the performer's index and to the
main index for further information.