The Charles Seeger papers consist primarily of publications about music theory, history, and research (not by Seeger); programs for various concerts and performances; and some correspondence and manuscripts sent to Seeger.

Composer, musicologist and critic Charles Seeger was born December 14, 1886, in Mexico City. He graduated from Harvard University in 1908 and taught at University of California, Berkeley from 1912 to 1919. Seeger then moved to New York, teaching at the Institute of Musical Arts (now Julliard) and the New School for Social Research in the 1920s and 1930s. While in New York, he developed an interest in American folk music and was a member of the Composers' Collective, which published The New Workers' Song Book in 1934. Seeger held a series of government jobs during the Depression, including work collecting folk music for the Federal Music Project of the WPA. Seeger was a founder and president of the American Musicological Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology. He was a professor, researcher, and musicologist at University of California, Los Angeles from 1958 to 1971. In addition, Seeger wrote numerous articles, papers, and books, and also developed the melograph, an electronic device for transcribing music. He died February 7, 1979 in Bridgewater, Connecticut.

1.5 Linear Feet (3 boxes)

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