The Library of Congress Has a Folk Music Recording Collection

The Library of Congress has an incredible folk music recording collection that is available to the public. Learn about the history of folk music and how to access the recordings.

Introduction to the Library of Congress’ Folk Music Recording Collection

Folk music has a long and rich history in the United States, and the Library of Congress’ folk music recording collection is a reflection of that history. The collection contains more than 10,000 recordings of folk music from across the United States, dating back to the early 20th century.

The recordings in the collection were made by a variety of people, including folklorists, ethnographers, musicologists, and private individuals. They document the musical traditions of a wide range of communities and regions, from rural areas to cities.

The recordings in the collection are an invaluable resource for anyone interested in learning about the history and diversity of American folk music.

The Collection’s History

The Library of Congress has a large collection of folk music recordings. The collection began in the 1930s with the goal of collecting and preserving the songs of American culture. The collection has grown over the years and now includes recordings from all over the world.

Early Days

The folk music recording collection of the Library of Congress (LOC) was begun in the 1890s, when the institution was still part of the federal government’s Smithsonian Institution. The first recordings were made on cylinders, which were then deposited with the LOC. In some cases, recordings were also made of traditional music from other cultures in an effort to document them for future generations.

Interestingly, early fieldworkers for the LOC were often able to get better recordings by employing local people familiar with the music and equipment, rather than try to do everything themselves. This practice continued throughout the life of the collection and resulted in some very high-quality recordings.

The Collection Grows

The folk music recording collection of the Library of Congress (LOC) has been growing steadily since it began in the late 1940s. The core of the collection, which consists of more than 12,000 hours of recordings on discs, tapes, and cylinders, was amassed during the Folk Revival of the late 1940s and 1950s by well-known field collectors such as Alan Lomax, Pete Seeger, Hazel Dickens, Harry Oster, and others. These recordings document the lives and traditions of people throughout the United States--including rural farmers, migrant workers, coal miners, urban laborers, and Native Americans--who maintain a strong sense of identity with their cultural heritage. The folk music collection also includes commercial recordings; radio broadcasts; motion picture soundtracks; and field recordings made by musicologists, ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, linguists, historians, and other scholars.

The Collection Today

In 2011, the Library of Congress Folklife Center was approached by the American Folklore Society with a proposal to “adopt” the folk music recordings collection. This proposal resulted in the development of a partnership between the two institutions, which has resulted in the revitalization of the collection and increased access to the recordings.

What’s in the Collection?

The National Folklife Center’s ethnographic collections from the field Number in the hundreds of thousands of hours and gigabytes.

Vinyl discs, open reel and cassette tapes, DATs, CDs, wav and mp3 files, as well as video and film reels document music and musical traditions from all over the world. The Alan Lomax Collection includes his personal reference collection of over 10,000 commercial recordings. Additional important subcollections are theRecorded Sound Reference Center’s World Musical Instruments Collection; the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections; the Freedom Sounds collection documenting the civil rights struggle; Cantometrics; Homegrown Music; Christmas Music from Many Lands; Politics on Parade; and recordings documenting many song traditions brought to America by immigrants.

How Can I Access the Collection?

Getting Started
The Library of Congress has the world’s largest collection of folk music recordings. The collection includes more than three million recordings, dating from the 1940s to the present, that document the songs, instrumental music, and oral traditions of traditional cultures throughout the world.

The recordings are available for research and listening in a variety of formats, including analog and digital. You can access the recordings in several ways:
-In person at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
-Online through the American Memory website
-By interlibrary loan from your local public or university library (for analog format only)
-Through commercial outlets that sell folk music recordings

Conclusion

The Library of Congress has a folk music recording collection that is one of the most important in the world. The recordings date back to the early 1900s and document the lives and culture of people from all over the United States. The collection is a valuable resource for scholars and students interested in American history and folklore.