Fletcher Collins Jr. Collection
Catalog Record: http://lccn.loc.gov/2004659978
General International Standard for Archival Description
Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress Washington, D.C. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home
Encoded Archival Description
Encoded Archival Description (EAD) Version 2002
collection
Fletcher Collins Jr. Collection 1935-1944
Collins, Fletcher
Biographical History for: Fletcher Collins Jr. Collection 1935-1944
Biographical History Fletcher Collins Jr. was born on November 19, 1906, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Yale University (Ph.B. 1928, Ph.D. 1934) and was a professor of English at Elon College in North Carolina (1936-42). Collins founded the drama department at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia, where he was professor emeritus (1946-77). He is the author of Alamance Play-Party Songs and Singing Games (1940, reprint 1973), Medieval Church Music-Dramas (1976), Troubadour and Trouvère Songs in Singable English (2 vols. 2000-2001), and numerous other books and articles. He died in 2005.
Scope and Content The manuscript materials in this collection reflect Collins's Anglo-American folk music collecting activities from 1935 to 1944. Collins undertook numerous projects, including a proposed song book titled A Southern Songster and a radio series on WBIG, Greensboro, N.C. Administrative papers and correspondence for these and other projects are included among the manuscript materials. The song and tune transcriptions reflect, for the most part, Collins's collecting in North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia from 1935 to 1941. Many are the result of Collins's fieldwork, while others were mailed to him or transcribed from printed sources. Contextual information (performer, date, place) is provided for about two-thirds of the songs. Some of the disc recordings were transcribed and transcriptions are included among the manuscripts. Collins made twenty-one disc recordings of folk songs and ballads at Elon College in March 1939, under the auspices of the WPA Joint Committee on Folk Arts. These field recordings (AFS 2235, AFS 3769-3788) are on aluminum-base lacquer discs. Field recordings were made in November and December 1941 on glass-base lacquer discs with a Library of Congress Presto recording machine in Brown Summit (AFS 6491), Burlington (AFS 6365-6366, perhaps 6494), Elon College (AFS 6492-6493), and Greensboro (AFS 6482-6486), North Carolina; and in Fancy Gap, Virginia (AFS 6487-6490). Two discs made by Fletcher Collins Jr. in Burlington, N.C., Dec. 8, 1941, were in response to Alan Lomax’s call for "man-on-the-street" reactions to the Pearl Harbor attacks the day prior. They are included in a separate American Folklife Center collection, AFC 1941/004 Man-on-the-Street Interviews Collection.
series
Series I: Manuscripts
item
subseries
Collection Guide
Correspondence
file
Correspondence-General, 1936-44
Correspondence-Library of Congress Recording Project, 1941-43
Collecting and Recording Projects
Indexes-Library of Congress Recording Project, 1939-42
"The Wreck of Old '97" Project, 1939
WBIG Radio Programs, 1940
"A Southern Songster" Project, 1940-44
Song Indexes and Transcriptions
Songs-Original Folders, Photocopies
Songs-Collections
Songs-Collections, Spiral Notebooks
Songs-Collections, Arthurdale Fiddle Tunes
Songs: A-B
Songs: C-D
Songs: E-F
Songs: G-H
Songs: I-J
Songs: K-L
Songs: M-N
Songs: O-P
Songs: Q-R
Songs: S-T
Songs: U-Z
Series II: Sound Recordings
Sound Discs
Original Discs
Twenty-one 12-inch aluminum based original analog discs (preservation tapes: LWO 4872, reels 142B, 245B-246).
Twelve 12-inch glass based original analog discs (preservation tapes: LWO 4872, reels 413B-414A)