Guide to the American Folk Music Photograph Collection

Arrangement and description by D. Tambo
Department of Special Collections
Davidson Library
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Phone: (805) 893-3062
Fax: (805) 893-5749
Email: special@library.ucsb.edu
URL: http://www.library.ucsb.edu/speccoll/speccoll.html
© 2010
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

Guide to the American Folk Music Photograph Collection

Collection number: Mss 229

Department of Special Collections

Davidson Library

University of California, Santa Barbara
Processed by:
D. Tambo
Date Completed:
Jan. 27, 2010
Encoded by:
A. Demeter
© 2010 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

Descriptive Summary

Title: American Folk Music Photograph Collection
Dates: 1930s
Collection number: Mss 229
Collection Size: 0.2 linear feet (1 half-size document box)
Repository: University of California, Santa Barbara. Library. Dept. of Special Collections
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Abstract: The collection contains 54 WPA related black and white photographs of musicians, singers, their homes and environs, from California and parts of the South, including Arkansas and North Carolina.
Physical location: Del Sur.
Languages: English

Access Restrictions

None.

Publication Rights

Copyright has not been assigned to the Department of Special Collections, UCSB. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Department of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which also must be obtained.

Preferred Citation

American Folk Music Photograph Collection. Mss 229. Department of Special Collections, Davidson Library, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Acquisition Information

Purchase, 2004.

Scope and Content of Collection

The collection contains 54 WPA related black and white photographs of musicians, singers, their homes and environs, from California and parts of the South, including Arkansas and North Carolina. Some are stamped “California Folk Music Recorded by the Music Dept. of the Univ. of California, in Cooperation with the Archives of American Folk Song of the Library of Congress under Works Progress Administration.”
Included are images connected with field recording projects, one with microphone visible. Southern subjects include old ballad singers and their homes, a man and his mules, small shots of a dowser, and a guitar player recording songs in the parlor. The California photos include a number of immigrant Eastern European musicians playing a variety of instruments.
Identified photographers include James L. Hall, Sidney Roberts and Dick Weston.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Folk music--United States.


Box 1: 1

Arkansas

Box 1: 2

California

Box 1: 3

North Carolina

Box 1: 4

Old Man Selleck – fiddle photos by Jim Hall

Box 1: 5

Unidentified