'I saw America changed through music': An examination of the American collecting tradition

Crutchfield, Rory (2012) 'I saw America changed through music': An examination of the American collecting tradition. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the history of folk music collecting in America and seeks to demonstrate the overriding importance of the political, socio – cultural, intellectual, and technological contexts on this work of folk music collecting. It does so via an examination the work of five of the principal folk music collectors in America in the 19th and 20th centuries: Francis Child, Cecil Sharp, John Lomax, Alan Lomax, and Harry Smith, arguing that the work of each of them was impacted by various contexts which were central to their theories of folk music, their collecting methodologies, and what they did with the material they collected. Each of these collectors, whose work was governed by the context in which they were working, introduced transformations in the theory, practice, and output of folk music collecting. These transformations are held to represent the American collecting tradition, and are in fact what define the American collecting tradition and allow it to continue developing as a discipline from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Keywords: American folk music, ethnomusicology, American history
• Subjects: E History America > E151 United States (General); M Music and Books on Music > M Music; F History United States, Canada, Latin America > F001 United States local history
• Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities > Information Studies
• Supervisor's Name: Moss, Professor Michael and Cloonan, Professor Martin
• Date of Award: 2012
• Depositing User: Rory Crutchfield
• Unique ID: glathesis:2012-3392
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 29 May 2012
• Last Modified: 10 Dec 2012 14:06
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/3392