Folksongs of Another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937-1946

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• published: 04 Dec 2013
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America's Upper Midwest is a distinctive region wherein a staggering array of indigenous, immigrant, and enslaved peoples have collectively maintained, merged, and modified their folk song traditions for more than two centuries. During the 1930s and 1940s, Sidney Robertson Cowell, Alan Lomax, and Helene Stratman Thomas set up field studios in homes, hotels, community halls, church basements, and parks throughout Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin to record roughly 2000 folksongs and tunes. Since the late 1970s, working incrementally with many generous individuals, partners, and organizations, folklorist Jim Leary has been part of a movement bent on bringing this body of extraordinary folk music of the Upper Midwest to the attention of the larger public. Speaker Biography: Jim Leary is the Birgit Baldwin Professor of Scandinavian Studies, a professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and Folklore Studies, and a co-founder of the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is also a fellow of the American Folklore Society, co-editor of Journal of American Folklore, and a recipient of the Chicago Folklore Prize and the American Folklife Center’s Archie Green Fellowship. Born in Rice Lake, Wisconsin in 1950, Leary grew up fascinated by the dialects, stories, music, and customs of his culturally diverse neighbors. Leary has done research since the 1970s on the cultural traditions of workers, Native peoples, European Americans, and new immigrants in the Upper Midwest, contributing to numerous folklife festivals, museum exhibits, films, public radio programs, documentary sound recordings, and accessible archival collections. Since the 1970s, he has been part of a movement bent on bringing this body of extraordinary folk music from the Upper Midwest to the attention of the larger public. For captions, transcript, and more information visithttp://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5979