SOWING THE SEEDS OF DISCONTENT

A Comprehensive Literature Review

of Labor Song Literature

MADELEINE JOANNA BOYER

A MRP SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN

PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE

OF

MASTER OF ARTS IN ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN MUSIC

YORK UNIVERSITY,

TORONTO, ONTARIO

APRIL 2014

©Madeleine Boyer, 2014

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, I would like to thank my MRP supervisor Rob van der Bliek, music librarian at

York University, and my second reader, Dr. Robert Witmer. I thank them for patience

throughout this process and their positive feedback, comments, and guidance. It has been a

privilege and inspiration working under their guidance. I would also like to thank Tere Tilban-

Rios for being an excellent Music Graduate Program Assistant and for helping to navigate me

through the program and department policies and procedures. Secondly, I would like to thank

my family and close friends for believing in me and supporting me throughout graduate

school. Without your continued support, I would have never chosen to go to graduate school

and once here I would not have completed it without your words of encouragement. Times

became extremely tough for me as the degree progressed but all of you stepped-up and were

there when I needed you most. You have always believed in me, even when I did not believe

in myself. Thirdly, thank you to Dr. Charlotte Leonard and Dr. Yoko Hirota for inspiring me

to pursue graduate studies. You both believed in me throughout my undergraduate degree.

Thank you for providing the reference letters for my York University Master’s application.

Each of you had a tremendous impact on my educational and professional goals. You both

inspired me to continue in education and to delve further into the field of cultural music. I am

forever grateful for all the support and encouragement I received throughout this journey. I

would like to send good karma to all those who have stood by me this entire journey, In the

end this was a rich and rewarding experience, allowing me to grow as an individual and

become more impassioned about music.

ABSTRACT

This study is a comprehensive literature review examining labor songs within trade

unions, the labor movement, and in strike contexts. This research answers the following

questions: whether the performance and composing of labor songs is dead within the twenty-

first century and whether labor songs are a topic worthy of study in academia. The study also

contemplates how to permanently reinvigorate academic interest in this topic. This review

reveals that there is an impoverished amount of published literature about labor songs and a

need for more documentation that is active, preservation, and research. Most published

literature covers a period spanning the 1900s to the 1950s and is primarily American and

British centric. The overarching goal of this research is to advocate the importance of labor

song documentation and preservation for future research purposes and for preserving working

class culture, history, and identity as they provide an alternative historical viewpoint and other

invaluable information.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements …………………………………………………………………….. ii

Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………… iii

Table of Contents ……………………………………………………………………… iv-v

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION AND DEFINITIONS ……………………………… 6-21

Introduction ……………………………………………………………….………… 6

Cultural Significance of Music ………………………………………………… 6-7

Folk Music & Politics: Critical Components in Socio-Political Movements ….. 7-10

Background: Setting the Scene …………………………………………...……. 10-16

Definition of Terms…………………………………………………………….. 10-21

CHAPTER II: PURPOSE OF THE STUDY AND THESIS STATEMENT …..……… 22-28

Purpose of the Study ………………………….…………………………………….. 22-23

Why is this study important to society? …………………………………………...... 23-25

Thesis Statement ………………...………………………………………………….. 25-27

Research Methodology ……………………………………………………………... 27-28

Organization ………………………………………………………………………… 28

CHAPTER III: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ………………………………… 29-68

Part I: Labor Song Writings of the Nineteenth Century ………………………......... 30-31

Part II: Korson-Lomax School of Thought …………………………………………. 31-39

Part III: Advocating the Documentation and Preservation of Worker Culture ……... 39-54

Part IV: Sociological School of Thought ………………………………..………….. 54-62

Part V: Labor Songs and Education ………………………………………………… 62-64

Part VI: Biographical Literature on Key Labor Song Figures ……………………… 64-68

CHAPTER IV: SUMMARY, DISCUSSION, AND CONCLUSION .…..……………. 69-83

Summary and Discussion of the Literature Review Results ………………………... 69-75

Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………... 75-82

Closing Remarks: Where Do We Go From Here? ………………………………….. 82-83

BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………. 84-92

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION AND DEFINITIONS

Kids don’t have a little brother working in the coal mine, they don’t have a

little sister coughing her lungs out in the looms of the big mill towns of the

Northeast. Why? Because we organized; we broke the back of the sweatshops

in this country; we have child labor laws. Those were not benevolent gifts from

enlightened management. They were fought for, they were bled for, they were

died for by working people, by people like us. Kids ought to know that. That’s

why I sing these songs. That’s why I tell these stories, dammit. No root, no

fruit! ~ Utah Phillips1

Introduction

Prolific folk singer and American labor organizer Utah Phillips, the “Golden Voice of

the Great Southwest,” once made the above statement regarding his career as a labor song

singer whilst simultaneously alluding to the importance of music preservation and

dissemination. Phillips’ main argument was that he, as a labor activist and musician, and

others like him, are keeping labor history, culture, and identity alive through the singing and

dissemination of labor songs. This ensures that labors’ history and the lessons learnt are

passed down through the generations, so that future laborists can learn from past struggles and

be inspired to stand up for their own rights. For Utah Phillips, and those like him, music is a

historic cultural record, a powerful narrative that needs to be shared and preserved.

Cultural Significance of Music

Considered a primary cultural component of human civilization, music and song have

long played important parts in the lives of the common folk. From the rhythmic a cappella

1 Robert Shetterly, “Bruce “Utah” Phillips,” Americans Who Tell The Truth, last modified 2014,

http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/portraits/bruce-utah-phillips.

songs of agricultural workers in the deep south to the industrial compositions and

musickings23

of trade union legends Billy Pastor, Laura M. Griffing, Joe Hill, Joe Glazer, Ella

Mae Wiggins, Aunt Molly Jackson, and Utah Phillips, folksongs and music have long

functioned as the bearer of the common peoples voice, spreading their message, permeating

everyday lives, rituals, and routines. They are the historical narrative of the people who create

them, an alternative viewpoint, the historical ‘other’ who are not commemorated in the history

books, communicating ideas, thoughts, values, and emotions.4 These musical mediums play a

dominant role in transmitting and preserving the narrative of culture and identity, neatly

packaged within an artistic medium of expression, transmission, and preservation, chock full

of revealing melodies, harmonies, rhythms, and lyrics.

Folk Music & Politics: Critical Components in Socio-Political Movements

Folk Music and the Left: A Historical Overview

Besides love, one of the most prevalent topics of folksong is politics and social

change. A symbiotic intertwining of artistic creation and political expression, folksong and

politics have long been concomitant, a relationship that endures. This can be traced back to the

Anglo-Saxon peasants of medieval Britain and perhaps even earlier.5 The left wing of Britain

2 Christopher Small, Musicking: the Meanings of Performing and Listening (Hanover: University Press

of New England, 1998), 9.

3 From the verb to music, musicking is “...to take part, in any capacity, in a musical performance,

whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance (what is

called compos-ing), or by dancing. We might at times even extend its meaning to what the person is doing ...

They, too, are all contributing to the nature of the event that is a musical performance” (Small 1998, 9).

4 Charles W. Darling, The New American Songster: Traditional Ballads and Songs of North America,

rev. ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1992), 1-2.

5 Josh Dunson, “Chapter 1: Predecessors,” in Freedom in the Air: Song Movements of the 60’s (New

York: International Publishers, 1965), 13.

and North America first embraced folk music during the twentieth century. Within North

America, music has had a long relationship with American politics. Before the twentieth

century, American slaves were using music as a coping mechanism and as a means to alleviate

the drudgery of slave labor. These songs had political undertones to them. Presidential

campaigns were using music to get their messages across to the electorate. Folk music was

even used politically during the American Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth

century. However, the twentieth century was the first decade to experience a marked

production increase in political folk music. It primarily began with the laborists and their labor

movement and continued through subsequent eras, used for various social and political

movements.

The second folk music revival transpired during the mid-twentieth century. From the

revival’s inception, the Left recognized the potential of folksong in socio-political movements

and landscapes. These artistic mediums would now predominantly be considered an idiom of

the Left. It was a powerful tool. As JoAnne Reuss notes, “Left-wing political activists and

labor organizers pursued their goals with missionary zeal - and a strong belief in the power of

folk music to spread the word and enlist supporters.”6 Thus, consequently there was an

increase in folk musicians incorporating socialist and communist ideologies into their music,

expressing their beliefs and emotions over social and political events. The mid-twentieth

century was a booming century for political folksong. The radicalization of this type of music

was far fetching worldwide as folksongs were now deemed a suiting artistic medium for the

working class as it reflected and echoed their voices.

6 JoAnne C. Reuss and Richard A. Reuss, American Folk Music and Left-Wing Politics, 1927-1957

(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), xi.

Idiosyncrasies of Folksong: What makes it important to the Left-Wing?

Folksongs are the voice of the common folk. Their primary function within and

outside the political arena, is for social communication and transmission of information and

for emotional expression. During moments of struggle and discord, it is these qualities that

make folksong intrinsic and central components to social or political movement landscapes.7

They act as the underlying force, fuelling the movement’s momentum, drumming up further

support and participation, and driving the movement towards a successful conclusion.

The narrative and emotional qualities are what affects the audience the most,

influencing them consciously and unconsciously. They are an expression of class struggle

garnering attention and potential support. These qualities are powerful and can be life altering.

As American folk singer-songwriter David A. Carter explains, “a song tells the story simply.

Heroes and villains are identified, struggles and crisis are amplified, and hopes for salvation

and nirvana are shouted. Songs become means of uniting against and coping with a common

enemy.”8 The writing and singing of folksongs is about capturing attention, getting the

audience and participants to identify with their culture, their plights, and their ideologies. The

lyrics and tunes draw supporters in, consoling, mobilizing, unifying and solidifying

individuals into groups. Use of music and song in these movements empower individuals to

unify and work towards a common goal, evoking social change. It was Plato who once stated

that “... any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole state and ought to be

7 Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison, Music and Social Movements: Mobilizing Traditions in the

Twentieth Century (Cambridge, UK: The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1998), 7.

8 David A. Carter, “The Industrial Workers of the World and the Rhetoric of Song,” The Quarterly

Journal of Speech 66, (1980): 365.

prohibited.”9 He, and other philosophers, recognized music for what it was: a powerful

weapon of social change that communicates emotion and messages, shapes human character

and thoughts, essentially a powerful force to be reckoned with that gives meaning to the

movement.10

Kerran Sanger best documents the transformative properties and effects that

songs possess and how they are harnessed and actively applied to encourage participation

within social and political landscapes.11

Songs are about expressing spiritualism, idealism, and

emotionalism; they are a medium of action and contribution used to voice support.12

Be it the

civil rights movement or the labor movement, these mediums continue to have an immense

impact in the social and political landscapes.

Background: Setting the Scene

Industrialization and Unionization: Mitigating the Horrors of Workers

At the turn of the twentieth century, working conditions were appalling. Workers

worked long hours in dangerous and unsanitary conditions, compensated with impoverished

wages. Many fatalities and serious injuries were occurring in workplaces. Bereaved families

and those with grievous injuries would receive little to no compensation, their only source of

income immediately terminated. Workers were being exploited and were easily replaced. It

9 R. S. Denisoff, Sing a Song of Social Significance (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University

Popular Press, 1972), 19.

10

Plato and Aristotle were two of the first scholars to contemplate and discuss the moralities of music

and how they link to social conflict. Plato even went so far to write in his work Republic that music and poetry

should be censored due to its ability to unify minds politically and socially.

11

Anita Krajnc, “The Art of Green Learning: From Protest Songs to Media Mind Bombs,” in Global

Society in Transition: An International Politics Reader, eds. by Daniel N. Nelson and Laura Neack Kluwer (The

Hague, Netherlands: Kluwer Law International, 2002), 299.

12

Ibid., 299.

was all about making profit attained on the hard working backs of workers. Their lives

mattered very little as long as a profit was being turned. As Austrian composer Hanns Eisler

stated, “the worker was no longer a human being.” 1314

However, with the commencement of

industrialization came working class struggles for fair wages, improved conditions, and

improved working hours. Continued tragedies in the workplace motivated workers to start

organizing, forming, and revolting. As the labor movement commenced, lasting well into the

1950s and beyond, workers’ were organizing into unions to fight for their rights and achieve

goals to better the workplace and work conditions.15

Songs and the Labor Movement

“A pamphlet, no matter how good, is never read more than once … but a song

is learned by heart and repeated over and over.” ~ Joe Hill.16

In 1914, Joe Hill, a notorious IWW labor activist and songster, wrote the above

statement.17

Meant as a medium of communication, organization, and mobilization, Hill, like

13

Twentieth century composer Hanns Eisler was a prolific composer of political music. For him the

social function of music was extremely important. He was an activist supporting the Communist Party of

Germany and was involved with the November Group. Eisler wrote many commentaries regarding protest songs

in the early 1930s, including the labor movement.

14

Hanns Eisler, “Labor, Labor Movement and Music,” Unionsong.com, last modified January 2014,

http://unionsong.com/reviews/mol.html.

15

Most labor movements began with the industrial revolution of the early nineteenth century. However,

Canada’s labor movement began in the later part of the nineteenth century.

16

Bryan K. Carman, A Race of Singers: Whitman’s Working-Class Hero from Guthrie to Springsteen

(Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 92.

17

Born in Sweden, Joe Hill immigrated to America in 1902 as a migrant worker. Joe Hill quickly

became involved with the labor movement, joining the newly created IWW in 1910. He quickly rose in

prominence, became a profuse organizer, travelling to spread the union message. He would give speeches, and

compose political songs and satirical poems, both of which he would use when recruiting. Sadly, Joe Hill was

wrongfully accused of murdering a father and son. He was convicted of murder and executed. Many mourned

other early labor unionists, led the way in the adoption of folksongs into the labor movement.

The adoption and utilization of these artistic mediums by the labor movement is considered a

precursor to the Left later subsuming the application of songs for their future political

endeavors.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, society begins to see the

formation of major worker unions. For strategic purposes, unions and laborists appropriated

countless tools for their struggles. Amongst these tools were labor songs, their main weapon

of choice as it was a powerful tool in recruiting.18

They realized early on that singing made the

message easier to remember and spread.19

As a result, the “ . . . labor movement was rich in

music, and with the first unions came the first union songs.”20

The Knights of Labor, one of

the first and largest American labor organizations, formed in 1869. They were one of the first

documented labor organizations to utilize and write labor songs for their politically driven

pursuits believing that song and poem had potential as educational tools.21

Song was viewed

as an essential component for communicating, recruitment, and retention.22

Following the

this labor songster and immortalized him in song. Some of the songs that he himself composed can still be heard

on picket lines to this day. Joe Hill, himself, became a symbol to organize around in future labor events.

18

Oral, visual, and literary materials are all important mediums for the labor movement to communicate

values, ideas, ideologies, and experiences (Taksa 1994, 110). Labor songs are a rhetorical instrument used to

persuade and promote propaganda, to galvanize, to create unity and solidarity, to create a common bond among

participants, and to cope in crisis and hardship. The songs can aid in coordinating and organizing.

19

Carman, A Race of Singers, 92.

20

David King Dunaway, “ Music and Politics in the United States,” Folk Music Journal 5, no. 3 (1987):

274.

21

Timothy P. Lynch, “’Better Than a Hundred Speeches:’ The Strike Song” in The Encyclopedia of

Strikes in American History, eds. Aaron Brenner, Benjamin Day, Immanuel Ness (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe,

2009): 106.

22

Robert James Branham and Stephen J. Hartnett, Sweet Freedom’s Song: “My Country ‘Tis of Thee’”

and Democracy in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 182.

Knights of Labor’s lead, the International Workers of the World, or IWW for short, formed in

Chicago in 1905, becoming the most prolific labor union to use songs pervasively for rallying

and recruitment.23

As Anita Krajnc notes “... songs … were used extensively at rallies,

meetings, and on picket lines in the early labor movement, providing simultaneously

entertainment and a learning experience as well as building emotional links to the movements

and its members.”24

Richard Brazier, one of the forces behind the initial conception and

creation of the IWW’s Little Red Songbook, once commented on the importance of songs to

the IWW stating:

We shall run the gamut of emotions in our songs … We will have songs of

anger and protest, songs which shall call to judgment our oppressors and the

Profit System they have devised. Songs of battles won … songs that hold up

flaunted wealth and thread-bare morality to scorn, songs that lampoon our

masters and the parasitic vermin, such as the employment-sharks and their

kind, who bedevil the workers. These songs will deal with every aspect of the

workers’ lives. They will bring hope to them, and courage to wage the good

fight. They will be songs sowing the seeds of discontent and rebellion. We

want our songs to stir the workers into action, to awaken them from an apathy

and complacency that has made them accept their servitude as though it had

been divinely ordained. We are sure that the power of song will exalt the spirit

of Rebellion.25

Incidentally, many of the IWW’s songs have survived until today and are still being

performed mainly from memory.26

Song was so essential, that between the period of 1911 and

1961, the IWW produced thirty-one editions of songbooks, known as the Little Red Songbook

23

During this part of the century, governments and countries saw the development of socialist parties,

which would later be deemed as “communist parties” during the McCarthy era, and thus persecuted.

24

Krajnc, “The Art of Green Learning,” 298.

25

Richard Brazier, “The Story of the I. W. W.’s ‘Little Red Song Book’,” Labor History 9,

(1968), 97, quoted in David A. Carter, “The Industrial Workers of the World and the Rhetoric of Song,”

Quarterly Journal of Speech 66, no. 4 (1980): 368.

26 Another commonly used term that applies to members of the IWW is Wobblies.

partly due to the color of their covers.2728

The Little Red Songbook would eventually adopt a

symbolic meaning, which is inherently important to any socio-political movement and

counterculture.29

Labor songsters and troubadours, such as Joe Hill and other aforementioned labor

musicians, led the way in the development and singing of these songs. Songs were used as a

means of educating and drawing in support for the working class plight, their lyrics and catchy

tunes forever echoing, uniting the workers, motivating them to win against the employer. The

singing of songs boosted morale and strengthened solidarity.30

The IWW, and other unions,

would borrow the music from the Methodist-Baptist revival and the songs from “jungle” hobo

camps.31

Working class members and unionists borrowed the tunes of these songs and would

superimpose ideological lyrics on them. Working-class members wrote most of the labor

songs.32

These songs were not only important for cohesion and recruitment but also created an

alternative space where members and participants could have their own voices and thoughts

27

Dunson, “Chapter 1: Predecessors,” 14.

28

Traditionally unions in the labor movement and labor colleges would publish their own songbooks,

which primarily served two fundamental functions: for recruitment, communication, solidification, and

mobilization and for information dissemination and historical preservation purposes. The IWW is the most

famous union to publish these songbooks. Unionists would pay a small nominal fee for a copy of their own. As

per Hester L. Furey in her 2001 article “IWW Songs as Modernist Poetry,” the IWW songbooks originally began

as a song card eventually transforming into songbook format under the direction of J. H. Walsh of the IWW’s

Spokane branch (Furey 2001, 53). The IWW’s Little Red Songbook was partially created in response and

opposition of the Salvation Army’s band, who would try to break up IWW street meetings by showing up and

playing in the hopes of drowning them out.

29

The creation of specific institutions, rituals, and symbols are important to counter-cultures, such as the

labor movement. The power and symbolism that cultural products have create strong emotional connections,

which are important in persuading, attracting, and communicating a culture values, morals, and ideologies.

30

Dunson, “Chapter 1: Predecessors,” 17.

31

Ibid., 14.

32

Paul Lauter, “Working-Class Women’s Literature: An Introduction to Study,” in Politics of

Education: Essays from Radical Teacher, ed. Susan Gushee O’Malley, Robert C. Rosen, and Leonard Vogt

(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 114.

heard within the broader movement.

Today, these musical mediums are still used for creating worker solidarity and to

empower workers, but sadly to a lesser degree.33

Unlike earlier labor songs, which were used

primarily for organization, these songs were more about raising class-consciousness amongst

public members.3435

Labor Colleges: Song as an Educational Tool

Labor songs have long been recognized as an educative tool and resource for the labor

movement and other socio-political movements. Commencing in the late nineteenth century,

labor colleges were being established in the United Kingdom and in the United States, aimed

at educating workers, their goal two-fold: “...train labor leaders and activists … and to create

new social order.”36

Many of these colleges incorporated music, and other artistic mediums,

into their curriculum to educate about labor and labor concepts.37

They even had students

33

Michael L. Richmond, “The Music of Labor: From Movement to Culture,” last modified January

2014, http://unionsong.com/reviews/mol.html.

34

Ibid., http://unionsong.com/reviews/mol.html.

35

There were quite a few important figures post IWW and the Knights of Labour that promoted and

disseminated labor songs, including, but not limited to, People’s Songs, The Weavers, and the Almanacs.

People’s Songs, founded by Pete Seeger after WWII, promoted interest in folksong and labor songs in addition to

preserving them. Their goal was to create a singing labor movement following in the vision of the IWW. The

Alamanacs, in the early 1940s popularized labor songs (Dunson 1965, 16). One of their members, Lee Hays had

been working, in tandem with Waldemar Hille, on a collection labor and work songs and was trying to publish it.

The Weavers continued the work of People’s Artist who formed to continue the work of People’s songs after

they dissolved in 1949.

36

Richard J. Altenbaugh, “Worker Colleges and Education,” In The Oxford Encyclopedia of American

Business, Labor, and Economic History, ed. Melvyn Dubofsky (New York: Oxford University

Press, 2013), 413.

37

The Left was also establishing Sunday Schools during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth

century. According to William D. Armaline, Kathleen S. Farber, and Shan Nelson-Rowe in their co-written

chapter “Education and Knowledge,” “...song and play were used to teach the basic principles of socialist

composing their own songs. Firsthand accounts from notable graduates demonstrate the

importance of songs for education: “[w]e did a lot with labor songs and singing and trying to

interest the worker in some of the old songs that portrayed the history of the labor movement

… Brookwood, of course, instilled that into us, the value of music.”38

These labor colleges

would publish their own songbooks not only to be used in courses but for activists and leaders

to bring back to the workers.39

As Volk notes, laborists and labor colleges knew the intrinsic

value of songs and other artistic forms:

these songs were “teaching songs” of the most effective sort, at once didactic

and mnemonic. These songs stayed with the singer. The students who sang

these songs developed into a generation of labor leaders within their own

unions. They carried these songs back to their locals for the practical purposes

of union morale and worker education.40

Incrementally scholars are beginning to accept that songs are key educational tools in

socio-political movements, such as the labor movement.

Definitions of Terms

Before continuing, it is important that we first define and delineate specific folksong

genres in order to clarify what genre this paper focuses on. As noted by Ronald Cohen in his

thought to children” (Armaline et al. 1994, 180).

38

Timothy P. Lynch, “‘Sit down! Sit Down!’: Songs of the General Motors Strike, 1936-37.” Michigan

Historical Review 22, no. 2 (Fall, 1996): 38.

39

Therese Volk, in her 2001 article “Little Red Songbooks: Songs for the Labor Force of America,”

offers an excellent historical overview of labor colleges and their use of labor songs to educate. In it, she lists off

quite a few notable labor colleges and information about their own respective labor songbooks. R. Serge Denisoff

and Timothy P. Lynch also note the importance these colleges played in the history of labor songs, the education

of leaders and activists, and the role these players had in making labor songs a tool of the movement

40

Therese M. Volk, “Little Red Songbooks: Songs for the Labor Force of America,” Journal of

Research in Music Education 49, no.1 (Spring, 2001): 42.

2006 book Folk Music: The Basics, defining music can be a very tricky adventure, especially

when it comes to folk music and all of the sub-genres that fall within it.41

Categorization is

subjective, varying from individual to individual and century to century, and boundaries are

neither finite nor clean cut. These statements are true regarding the defining and

categorization of labor songs. For this study, it is important that I provide a definition of labor

songs and work songs since I am primarily interested in the literature surrounding labor songs.

Within this study, I treat labor songs and work songs as two completely separate entities. They

are both types of folksongs, however each serve different functions and occur in different

contexts.

Occupational Song

Occupational song is considered a broad umbrella term falling under the folk music.

Labor song and work song are placed within this category. As Norm Cohen notes in

“Worksongs: A Demonstration Collection of Examples,” occupational song “... denote[s] a

piece in which descriptions of work or work conditions, or attitudes towards work form a

significant textual element.”4243

41

Ronald D. Cohen, Folk Music: The Basics (New York: Routledge, 2006), 1.

42

Norm Cohen, “Worksongs: A Demonstration Collection of Examples,” in Songs about Work: Essays

in Occupational Culture for Richard A. Reuss, ed. by Norm Cohen (Bloomington: Folklore Institute, Indiana

University, 1993), 332.

43

It is not only Cohen (1993) who defines occupational songs in this way. Other notable scholars

include Gregory (2006) and Gunderson (2010).

Industrial Folksong

The term industrial folksong, also known as industrial song or industrial folk music,

can be problematic when locating labor song literature. Deemed as the precursor to protest

songs, this genre first developed amongst industrial workers in Great Britain during the

eighteenth century. The term industrial folksong encompasses many types of song, from

ballads to work songs to labor songs. Typically they were not sung in the workplace but rather

outside. They would describe work, could be political in nature, and would express emotions

such as anger and discontent in addition to workers’ reactions and resistance against

industrialization and the move towards modernizing society and work.44

Scholar Jon Raven

further adds that these songs would protest work conditions and detail disputes, strikes, and

hardships.45

Many notable scholars such as George Korson, John Lomax, Archie Green, A. L.

Lloyd, and Pete Seeger would go on to study them. Lloyd first attempted to define this genre.

As Lloyd notes in his 1967 work Folk Song in England, industrial folksong is “...the kind of

vernacular songs made by workers themselves directly out of their own experiences,

expressing their own interest and aspirations, and incidentally passed on among themselves by

oral means, though this is no sine qua non.”46

For the purposes of this research, industrial folksong will be incorporated into my

research of labor songs as they do relate to this genre. However, this is not to say that all

scholars agree that labor songs are also industrial songs. University lecturer, Ian Watson, in

his 1983 book Song and Democratic Culture in Britain, views labor songs as different from

44

Cohen, Folk Music, 7.

45

Jon Raven, The Urban & Industrial Songs of the Black Country and Birmingham (Wolverhampton:

Broadside, 1977), 94.

46

A. L. Lloyd, Folk Song in England (London, UK: Lawrence and Wishart, 1967), 317.

industrial folksongs. Watson maintains that labor songs or as he terms them, labor anthems,

were published for political agitation and to rouse the workers, in addition to being direct

appeals for organization and to create solidarity.47

Labor Song

Defining labor song can be an extremely difficult feat as many scholars have differing

opinions. The terms work song, industrial folksong, and labor song, have all been used

interchangeably and due to subjective categorization and miscategorization this has led to

variation and confusion. The problem herein lies that labor songs are very similar to that of

work songs and industrial folksongs. However, there are indeed very fine, contrasting

idiosyncrasies that distinguish it from other songs. These idiosyncrasies are primarily context

and function specific.48

There is some common concurrence among some scholars as to what a labor song is.

Ronald Cohen, Frank Gunderson, Archie Green, and John Minton all agree that labor songs

are songs “... geared towards trade unionism.”49

As Michael Richmond notes “labor music

began out of the need to attract people to group meetings and then to get them to feel a part of

the group.”50

Predominantly associated with labor unions, labor songs reflect the unions’

47

Ian Watson, Song and Democratic Culture in Britain: An Approach to Popular Culture in Social

Movements (Beckenham, Kent: Croom Helm, 1983), 20-22.

48

Mark Korczynski, Michael Pickering, and Emma Robertson, Rhythms of Labour: Music at Work in

Britain (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 26.

49

Frank D. Gunderson, Sukuma Labor Songs from Western Tanzania: We Never Sleep, We Dream of

Farming (Boston: Brill Academic Publishing, 2010), 9.

50

Richmond, “The Music of Labor,” http://unionsong.com/reviews/mol.html.

ideologies and are used to announce their goals and agendas.51

Paul Garon and Gene Tomko

add a further dimension to labor song characteristic, this being emotional appeal. In reference

to the lyrics, Garon and Gene in their 2006 book What’s the Use of Walking If There’s a

Freight Train Going Your Way?: Black Hoboes and their Songs, employ the word hortatory

to help aid in the defining of a labor song. As they note, hortatory is a “...rousing lyric meant

to encourage workers, either during organizing, during a strike, at a union meeting or on a

similar occasion.”52

Labor songs were used to affect the consciousness of its audience,

attracting them to the movement by playing on their emotions, winning them over to the cause

and fight. Their tone is markedly different from work songs. They attacked the bosses and

eventually non-union members who would work their positions while they were on strike. The

songs also celebrated their heroes.

Another point of clarification is the term I employ. Throughout the course of this

study, I will be referring to these types of songs as labor songs. It is worth noting that labor

songs are known by other terms including strike songs, union songs, industrial ballads,

industrial folksongs, songs of unionization, and trade union songs. These terms are all

interchangeable, however for simplicity and to avoid confusion, labor songs will only be

employed.

Work Song

Work songs are a subcategory of their own, falling under the same blanket category as

51

Minton, “Worksong,” 763.

52

Paul Garon and Gene Tomko, What’s the Use of Walking if There’s a Freight Train Going Your

Way?: Black Hoboes and their Songs (Chicago: C. H. Kerr Publishing Company, 2006), 53.

labor songs.53

Like labor songs, it is their function and context that delineates. Work songs are

songs that are actually sung during the work process, accompanying the work and the

workers’ movements,54

acting as a means to relieve the monotony and drudgery of work, and

function as a medium for workers to express their thoughts and emotions while performing the

task.55

The songs typically describe their work, however as labor unions began to form, some

of these songs were evolving into labor songs, developed to attract, organize, and unite

workers against poor working conditions, their employers mistreatment, and unemployment.56

53

Contrary to most scholars, Gerald Porter postulates in his 1992 book The English Occupational Song

that occupation songs is not an overarching umbrella term but rather a category of their own, found in between

the category of work songs and that of labor songs.

54

Korczynski, Pickering, and Robertson, Rhythms of Labour, 26.

55

Minton, “Worksong,” 763.

56

Gunderson, Sukuma Labor Songs, 9.

CHAPTER II

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY AND THESIS STATEMENT

... oral history offered one vital means to tapping memory but also of subjective

collective memory to scrutiny as a "story," a collective myth, rather than a

series of facts. Not every memory could be reached by such means, naturally.

For instance, the study of the "labor song poem," the exceedingly popular

poetry of nineteenth century song- newspapers, might offer the dedicated

researcher a similar kind of scope understanding those generations long

vanished. ~ Paul Buhle57

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this research project is three-fold. Firstly, it is being conducted to

explore the labor song genre, informing myself and others of this genre, providing a general

overview of it, and allowing us to understand how it fuels the movement and why music

attracts individuals to labor movements.

Secondly, this research project is being conducted to develop a comprehensive

literature review, identifying what scholarly research has been performed, which as R. Serge

Denisoff and Richard A. Peterson note is scant,58

and what has yet to be researched. This

project will act as a research guide highlighting the gaps and pitfalls within the field’s

literature base, providing future researchers with new directions to bolster the literature base.

Thirdly, this project will stress the importance of song preservation, especially within

the labor movement and in labor unions, as they are representative of their culture, their

identity, and their history. Invaluable information can be extracted from preserved songs for

57

Paul Buhle, From the Knights of Labor to the New World Order: Essays on Labor and Culture (New

York: Garland Publication, 1997), xvii-xviii.

58

R. Serge Denisoff and Richard A. Peterson, The Sound of Social Change: Studies in Popular Culture

(Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1972), 1.

educational purposes, educating current and future generations about the labor movement.

These songs are the voices of active participants and thus offer an alternative perspective to

the dominant viewpoints typically found in the history books.59

Historical lessons

incorporating sound can provide a more encompassing view of a historical event. By not

stressing labor song importance and pushing in the preservation of these musical artifacts, we

risk losing a cultural treasure and a rich information resource.60

This project is meant to

inspire future unionists, labor movement participants, and researchers to continually document

and analyze these events and musical creations.

Why is this study important to academia and society?

As Martin Luther King Jr. once stated during a speech given at the Albany movement

“the freedom songs are playing a strong and vital role in our struggle … they give the people

new courage and a sense of unity. I think they keep alive a faith, a radiant hope, in the future,

particularly in our most trying hours.”61

Despite referring to the songs of the civil rights

movement, Martin Luther King Jr. eloquently sums up the role that music plays within all

political and social movements. They are powerful weapons, acting as a historical record,

preserving the cultural identity and history of a specific group during a specific time. Songs

have a place, a role, and a function in our lives. They provide us with glimpses into the time

period they came from and the mind frames of those who created and sung them, they carry

59

ESL Folk, “Read about Folk Music,” ESL FOLK, last modified 2012, http://eslfolk.com/articles-

about-folk-music/.

60

Lois Choksy, “Preface,” in Songs of the North Woods: As Sung by O. J. Abbott and Collected by Edith

Fowke, eds. Laszlo Vikar and Jeanette Panagapka (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2004), vi.

61

Robert Shelton, “Songs a Weapon in Rights Battle,” New York Times, last modified August 20, 1962,

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/archival/19620820songsweapon.pdf.

messages, they convey imagery and emotion, they serve as reminders, and they stimulate

action by tapping into the ideological and emotional parts of the brain. These mediums allow

people to assert and preserve their own histories and voices. Many scholars agree that they are

important cultural devices.

Therefore, this study’s importance is far grasping within society being important to

academic fields such as labor studies, historians, folk music studies, sociology, psychology,

etc…, in addition to labor activists. By following in the footsteps of notable scholars such as

Archie Green, John and Alan Lomax, Lawrence Levine, Timothy Lynch, and Clark D. Halker,

this study means that we can embrace a previously neglected source of history, the history of

labor unions and of working-class culture, a seminal movement that gave rise to other

movements. We can advance our current knowledge by embracing the information these

artistic mediums hold.62

They have already been used to develop an appreciation of labor

history and education, enriching the learning experience, aiding in reconstructing a more

accurate account of labor culture, identity, and history.6364

By continuing to document and

research these events and their musical products, we can provide increasingly more accurate

historical reconstructions and can ensure the continual relevance of labor unions, ensuring

their culture endures.

Until recently, it was primarily labor historians and folklorists who were interested in

62

Timothy P. Lynch, Strike Songs of the Depression (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi,

2001), 8.

63

Alan P. Merriam, The Anthropology of Music (Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press, 1964),

277.

64

In his 1991 book For Democracy, Workers, and God: Labor Song-Poems and Labor Protest, 1865-

95, American music historian, labor activist, and singer/songwriter Clark Halker provides us with an interesting

look into the world of labor songs and protest. Within this work he successfully argues and demonstrates how the

incorporation and studying labor songs and poems can enhance the learning of labor history and advance our

knowledge of this culture (Lynch 2001, 8).

labor songs however despite their interest even they performed very little in-depth analysis of

the songs themselves.65

Musical heritage is something not to be ignored, especially within the

labor movement. If the songs produced were important enough to warrant the creation and

publication of folk magazines, such as Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine, and newsletters,

such as People’s Songs, in order to share songs and help organize, there is indeed value in

devising a literature review regarding labor music and encouraging further documentation and

research. As American novelist, John Steinbeck, once wrote:

The songs of the working people have always been their sharpest statement,

and the one statement that cannot be destroyed. You can burn books, buy

newspapers, you can guard against handbills and pamphlets, but you cannot

prevent singing. For some reason it has always been lightly thought that

singing people are happy people. Nothing could be more untrue. The greatest

and most enduring songs are wrung from unhappy people - the spirituals of the

slaves, which say in effect - “It is hopeless here, maybe in heaven it will be

better.” Songs are the statement of a people. You can learn more about people

by listening to their songs than any other way, for into the songs go all the

hopes and hurts, the angers, fears, the wants and aspirations.66

Thesis Statement

A guiding thesis statement has been devised to direct this research. Once described as

“... the universal language of mankind,”67

song and music is fundamental to our existence, a

preservative document, communicating information, messages, and emotions, qualities all of

which make these artistic mediums important to any socio-political landscape. Future

generations learn about and appreciate the past as a result. It is from this statement that I

65

Lynch, Strike Songs of the Depression, 8.

66

John Steinbeck, foreword in Hard Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit People, eds. Alan Lomax, Woody

Guthrie, and Pete Seeger (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1999), 8, quoted in John Greenway, American

Folksongs of Protest (New York: Octagon Books, 1970), vii.

67

Bruno Nettl, “Ethnomusicology and the Teaching of World Music,” International Journal of Music

Education 20, no.1 (1992): 3.

derive my thesis.

Though predominantly categorized as a form of protest song, labor songs have become

a neglected field of study, with academia increasingly concerning themselves in the study of

work songs and the protest songs of currently unfolding socio-political movements. Despite

the labor movement being a long-lived movement that is still transpiring and evolving and

these songs being a precursor to modern protest song, limited scholarly attention is being

afforded to the labor movement and their musical outputs. As research progressed, a few

consequential questions arose: Is labor culture and labor song dead in today’s society?68

Are

they subjects worthy of academic study in the current socio-political climate? How can we

reactivate an interest in this culture and their musical outputs and ensure that this renewed

interest is not temporary and fleeting like in past resurgent academic interest? Positioning

myself within previous and current academic discourse, I have adopted a similar stance of

advocating documentation and preservation like that of notable scholar Archie Green and

labor activist and educator Pat Wynne. In an era marked with increased Capitalist drive and

economic strife, increased unemployment and claw backs of workers’ wages and benefits, in

addition to diminishing drives of unionization and a predominant discussion regarding the

uncertain future of labor unions, I purport that labor songs and culture are indeed still relevant

and areas worthy of study, especially since precarious employment climates, such as present

ones, can result in a renewed interest and drive, ultimately reinvigorating the labor movement.

Now, more than ever, musicologists, sociologists, folklorists, historians, and unionists alike

need to afford more attention to labor songs and culture, seriously documenting and

preserving every single cultural product produced, in order to ensure the survival of this micro

68

Pat Wynne, in her 1998 article “Teaching Labor History through Song,” is the first to writer to

directly state this question and answer it.

cultures’ history and identity.69

As Professor Lois Choksy once stated:

Traditional music or folk music is one of the defining aspects of a culture. The

texts of folk songs preserve the history and illuminate the struggles and

triumphs of a people, as well as portray the more mundane aspects of the daily

lives of individuals at work and play. Their words tell us the way things were

perceived at specific times, and in particular places; they tell us, not only what

happened, but how people felt about what happened. Today we are in danger of

losing that rich resource.70

Research Methodology

Scope and Limitations

Originally this study was going to have a geographical focus, looking at the labor

songs of Canada, however, early on in the preliminary research stage, it was evident that

limited literature was available regarding Canadian labor songs. This was problematic, thus to

make this research project viable, my focus was expanded beyond geographic boundaries,

instead focusing on worldwide labor song literature to ensure there would be sufficient

amounts of literature to review and analyze. Additionally, most materials used within this

study are secondary sources, including scholarly journal articles, books, and encyclopedic

entries. Very few primary sources, besides preserved labor songs, were located.

Most literature I will be examining covers the seminal years of the labor movement,

from the early 1900s to the mid-1950s. Some literature from the twenty-first century will be

incorporated. This will allow for both a historical and present view of the field, and highlight

what is currently underway research wise.

69

Because labor songs are typically spontaneous in creation, and thus extremely ephemeral in nature, if

not recorded or written down, valuable labor history is being lost and in most cases this is permanent.

70

Choksy, “Preface,” vi.

Finally, due to linguistic limitations, the literature resources chosen had to be written

in either English or French. Some literature written in German and Japanese was located

however this literature was excluded due to time restrictions and translation needs.

Non-Literature Resources

Throughout my research for literature, I ran into quite a few songbooks and

anthologies that included labor songs within them. As they are resources I am unable to use in

this literature review, I determined that it would be important to mention them throughout the

research project, so that future researchers and labor activists can easily access songbook and

anthology titles for their own research, knowledge, and musical interests and pursuits.

Organization

This project will be organized as follows. Chapter 1 introduces the study and history of

labor songs whilst providing clarifying definitions of major terms used within the study.

Chapter 2 looks at the purpose of this study, noting why it is needed, and states the guiding

thesis statement. Chapter 2 additionally discusses the project’s scope and limitations. Chapter

3 reviews all relevant literature to this topic. Chapter 4 summarizes and discusses the literature

review results and concludes by presenting new ideas for future research.

CHAPTER III

A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

“Scholarly interest in labor songs and songs of protest has a long and varied

history.” ~ Timothy P. Lynch71

Numerous methods of organization were evident upon reviewing the literature. After

much consideration, the best course of organization was chosen and is listed as follows. The

bulk of labor song literature fell into four dominant, overarching schools of scholarship; the

first being what I deem the Korson-Lomax school of thought, the second being the folklorist

school of thought, and the third being the sociological school of thought. The Korson-Lomax

school is more historically and ethnographically oriented concerned with documenting and

collecting. The folklorist school of thought is concerned with arguing the importance of

documenting and preserving labor songs. The sociological school of thought is more

concerned with the social aspects of labor songs and the labor movement, looking at how

music affects the listener. Lastly, the educative school of thought argues that labor songs are

important in educating workers and future labor leaders. A fifth, less prominent school of

scholarship was that of the biographical study. Thus, this chapter uses these thematic

categories as a method of organization.

However, most of the literature reviewed was historical, sociological, biographical, or

musical in nature. Since many pieces of literature possessed intersecting disciplinary

approaches, there is some subjectivity involved in deciding which work belongs to which

thematic division. In general, almost all literature possesses a mix however I felt some

belonged more to other thematic categories than others.

Additionally, it became evident as the literature review progressed that this chapter

71

Lynch, Strike Songs of the Depression, 4.

would also benefit from being organized chronologically within each section. A chronological

approach will allow the reader to easily and clearly understand and envision the development

of this scholarly field, as it would better highlight the changing perspectives, ideas, and

attitudes of scholars about the historical and cultural importance of this genre.

Therefore, to make this literature review more easy to follow and more narrative-like

in flow, this chapter will be divided into six subsections. They are as follows: Part I is entitled

Labor Song Writings of the Nineteenth Century, Part II is entitled Korson-Lomax School of

Thought – Historical Documentation and Collecting, and focuses on literary works that are

specifically historical, Part III is entitled Advocating the Documentation and Preservation of

Worker Culture – A Folklorist Approach, and looks at any literature that pushes the idea of

documenting and preserving and advocating for the serious study of labor songs, Part IV is

entitled Sociological School of Thought – Functions of Protest and Labor Songs

Communication, Community, and Psychological Effects of Labor Songs, Part V is entitled

Labor Songs and Education and focuses on a strain of scholarship interested in the use of song

to educate workers, and finally Part VI is entitled Biographical Literature on Key Labor Song

Figures where literature developed purely for discussing the life of a key figure in the

development and performing of labor songs.

Part I: Labor Song Writings of the Nineteenth Century

The first critical interest in labor songs began during the latter part of the nineteenth

century.72

During this period, it was primarily folksong collectors and journal commentators

72

This was first noted by Archie Green in his 1991 article “Labor Song: An Ambiguous Legacy.”

who were interested in this newly emerging genre.7374

Resources at this time were limited and

typically comprised of small collections of labor songs, taken and compiled from song

pamphlets such as Chants for Socialists published by the Socialist League in 1885 or Chants

of Labor by Edward Carpenter in 1888 or Charles Kerr’s 1901 Socialist Songs with Music.

Alternative interest came in the form of brief, critical commentaries or song reviews such as

Harry Ward’s 1913 commentary “Songs of Discontent” published in the Methodist Review.7576

The limited literature from this period is not something we would consider as scholarly

writing compared to today’s standards.77

Part II: Korson-Lomax School of Thought – Historical Documentation and Collecting

The first scholarly interest regarding labor songs commenced in the twentieth century.

By the beginning of this century, the labor movement was well underway. Unionization and

the fight for workers’ rights were in full force. Countless numbers of strikes were occurring

and with these strikes came the singing of songs, echoing on the picket lines, throughout the

streets and homes, at meetings, and in union halls. The former part of this century saw the

labor movement reach its culminating peak and the mid-part of the century began to see its

73

Archie Green, “Labor Song: An Ambiguous Legacy,” Journal of Folklore Research 28, no. 2/3 (May

- Dec., 1991): 93.

74

Before the nineteenth century, there were countless individuals composing labor song-poems, as this

was the beginning of the genre’s life. Many names have been lost to us, hidden either deep in archives or

completely lost due to their short lived, spontaneous nature, which makes them extremely ephemeral. In For

Democracy, Workers, and God: Labor song-poems and Labor Protest, 1865-95, Clark D. Halker discusses one

such individual, Rees E. Lewis. He, like other labor song-poets of this era, were important figures in bringing

labor song-poetry to its apex before the nineteenth century, but have typically had their names lost to historians

and the common public (Halker 1991, 2).

75

How many pamphlets, commentaries and reviews exist from this period is unknown. This would be

an immense archival project in itself requiring plenty of archival work worldwide, locally, and regionally.

76

Green, “Labor Song,” 93.

77

Ibid., 93.

decline. Primary interest in labor songs during this period came from folklorists, folksong

collectors, and troubadours. They would predominantly take a historical or collector oriented

approach when either writing literature about the genre or creating song collections.

One dominant strain of labor song research and scholarship from this period is the

George Korson and John Lomax model of historically documenting, collecting, and

preserving worker culture. Works found within this scholarly strain tend to be historical,

ethnographic, and collection oriented.

1900s to the 1950s

John Lomax, one of the leading pioneers of American folklore and musicology and

father to folklorist Alan Lomax, who later became a seminal figure in labor song history,

played an important part in activating academic and public interest in this genre and in folk

music through the publication of his anthological collection Cowboy Songs and Other

Frontier Ballads in 1910.7879

Nearly two decades later, in 1927, folklorist, labor historian, and one of the pioneering

labor song collectors’ of the early twentieth century, George Korson80

published his first

seminal work, a collection and ethnographic book entitled Songs and Ballads of the Anthracite

78

William G. Roy, Red, Whites and Blues: Social Movements, Folk Music, and Race in the United

States (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 104.

79

John Lomax was first exposed to labor songs as a child while living close to the Chisholm Trail near

Meridian, Texas. As a child, he developed an affinity to these types of songs, ultimately deciding to make his life

goal to collect and preserve labor songs and folksongs. Many consider Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier

Ballads as the first collection of American folksong. Lomax’s collection even received endorsement from

President Theodore Roosevelt. It is important to note that Lomax was driven purely by a heritage preservation

objective unlike George Korson who’s collecting and documentation seems to be moderately driven from a

political approach. Lomax’s work did inspire increased collecting of American folksong however, it is unclear

whether George Korson and John Lomax ever met and whether or not George Korson was influenced by John

Lomax’s anthology.

80

Clark D. Halker, For Democracy, Workers, and God (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991), 3.

Miner.81

Narrative-like in its prose, Korson’s work gathers the lyrics and stories and

contextualizes them via a historical narrative. It was this work that would activate an interest

in labor songs purely beyond the approach of collecting. Korson’s work would go on to

inspire the work of future scholars such as Archie Green and Timothy P. Lynch and labor

troubadours such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.82

Korson’s research and subsequent

publication of Songs and Ballads of the Anthracite Miner was inspired by a librarian and via

his observation of miners exchanging songs and stories related to their work whenever they

would gather. Songs and Ballads of the Anthracite Miner was the first work of its kind to

collect songs of a specific group while providing context to the songs. Korson is one of the

first collectors to realize that folklore, especially the lore and cultural products of laborers, is

important as a cultural product and form of identity expression.83

Though he never

straightforwardly states this, his work does imply this belief. Commencing in the 1930s,

Korson moved away from his early journalistic stylings, adopting a more folklore dominant

perspective regarding labor songs. Following along the lines of his first work, Korson would

go on to publish The Miner Sings in 1936 and Minstrels of the Mine Patch: Songs and Stories

of the Anthracite Industry84

in 1938, among other subsequent collection publications.8586

81

Korson’s 1927 book was originally published in the trade union journal United Mine Workers Journal

from November 15, 1926 until March 15, 1927. This book, conducted in a manner similar to ethnographic

studies, collected the songs and stories of anthracite miners in Pottsville, Pennsylvania and was geared towards

the workers themselves. It was its success in serial format that led to it being published in 1927 as a book on its

own.

82

Joe Glazer included a chapter in his 2002 autobiographical book Labor’s Troubadour about coal

mining songs and George Korson. Glazer document’s his relationship with Korson and how he and his works

inspired him.

83

George Korson, Black Rock: Mining Folklore of the Pennsylvania Dutch (Baltimore: The Johns

Hopkins Press, 1960), 3.

84

Minstrels of the Mine Patch: Songs and Stories of the Anthracite Industry by George Korson is an

expansion of his 1927 work. The work alone possessed over one hundred songs and stories and possessed

biographical information on active minstrels within this area. Korson even addresses the production process of

Korson approaches each one of his collections almost as an ethnographic study, documenting

his experiences in addition to the songs and the history attached. His work serves as an

invaluable firsthand account of a specific group and period and even provides us with some

textual and musical analysis. Due to Korson’s interest in the labor songs and stories of these

miners and other occupations, folklorists began to increasingly pay more attention to labor

songs and actively began to collect them.87

George Korson was one of the first people to

document the culture of the working-class, one of the first pioneers in industrial folklore. His

work tells the story of the people, their unions, and eras long gone.

For the next few decades, folklorists and collectors continued this historically oriented

method of collecting labor songs and writing about them, even until present. These historically

oriented literary pieces typically would discuss the development of the labor song or look at

labor songs contextually. They would list some songs, provide a bit of information about

them, and maybe even provide a little textual or musical analysis. Scholars who fall under this

stream perform very little sociological or theoretical analysis nor do they preoccupy

themselves with preservation advocacy, though from a twenty-first century perspective their

works imply it.

Following along the lines of Korson, a very short article by professor of literature

William Alderson appeared in 1942 entitled “On the Wobbly ‘Casey Jones’ and Other Songs.”

labor songs.

85

Lynch, Strike Songs of the Depression, 4.

86

Other publications by George Korson include Pennsylvania Folk Songs and Ballads for School,

Camp, and Playground in 1937, Coal Dust on the Fiddle: Songs and Stories of the Bituminous Industry in 1943,

Pennsylvania Songs and Legends in 1949, and Black Rock: Mining Folklore of the Pennsylvania Dutch in 1960.

87

As Timothy Lynch notes in Strike Songs of the Depression, there were faults with George Korson’s

work. As Korson was preoccupied with the notion of purity, he was very selective and rejected many songs and

stories from his collections (Lynch 2001, 4). John Greenway corrected this fallacy in his 1953 book American

Folksongs of Protest (Greenway 1970, 4).

Alderson is more concerned with providing the reader with a historical look at a few select

songs used by the IWW. Very little musical analysis, critical analysis, or theorizing is

occurring at present.

1960s to Present

As the twentieth century continues to unfold, there was a continuation in historical

writings in addition to the publishing of folksong collections. One important labor song

collection was Joe Glazer and Edith Fowke’s 1960 collection Songs of Work and Freedom.

This collection was for the Labor Education Division of Roosevelt University and featured

quite a few labor songs. In the preface, they note this collection is meant for unionists to use in

their political endeavors and to inspire further research into IWW folklore.88

Similarly, in

1964, Joyce Kornbluh published Rebel Voices: An IWW Anthology. In it, she includes the

songs, stories, poems, history, and art of the IWW.89

Kornbluh’s goal with this comprehensive

and historically informative anthology was to “... bring together the history of the I.W.W. as

told by the Wobblies themselves.”90

Published in 1974 by folklorist Roy Palmer, Poverty

Knock: A Picture of Industrial Life in the Nineteenth Century through Songs, Ballads and

Contemporary Accounts is also another important labor song anthology.91

In 1977, we see the publication of a work very similar to George Korson’s work. A

lesser-known scholar by the name of Jon Raven, an English author and musician, published

88

Edith Fowke and Joe Glazer, Songs of Work and Freedom (Garden City, NY: Dolphin Books, 1961),

preface.

89

Rebel Voices: An IWW Anthology has seen many revisions since it was first released in 1964. The

second edition was published in 1988 and the third in 2011.

90

Joyce Kornbluh, Rebel Voices: AN IWW Anthology (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1998), ix

91

Roy Palmer, in 2010, released another comprehensive anthology that included labor songs entitled

Working Songs: Industrial Ballads and Poems from Britain and Ireland, 1780s-1980s.

his historical study of the understudied industrial Black Country in Britain. Entitled The

Urban & Industrial Songs of the Black Country and Birmingham, Raven’s work is more about

providing a historical narrative of an understudied demographic in Britain. It tells the story of

a neglected subculture within the British cultural fabric and uses the lyrics of labor songs to

reconstruct this period and discuss the culture’s identity as expressed in the songs. He, like

Korson, exemplifies labor songs potential as a cultural and historical document where

researchers and scholars can extract information. It is important to note, that Raven never

argues these points explicitly. In this same decade, quite a few other folksong collections were

published which heavily featured labor songs. In 1977, Barrie Stavis and Frank Harmon

published The Songs of Joe Hill. This collection includes a biography and some information

about each song in addition to the music and lyrics.

A few decades later in 1999, Michael Richmond published his article “The Music of

Labor: From Movement to Culture.” Richmond’s article is a historical overview of American

labor songs and the key figures and organizations tied to this genre. Similar to previous

scholarship and collecting, all the information included is already known. Essentially, you

could consider it an encyclopedic entry giving you a historic overview.

At the turn of the twenty-first century we continue to see historically oriented

publications about labor songs, albeit most only briefly mention labor songs in passing. A lot

of the information about labor songs begins to become repetitive, looking primarily at the

IWW and their Little Red Songbook. In 2000, pioneering scholar of the American folksong

revival, Richard Reuss, along with his wife JoAnne Reuss, were the first scholars to study

labor lore during this century. Releasing their book American Folk Music and Left-Wing

Politics, which was a revised and updated version of Richard Reuss’ dissertation, they adopt a

folklorist and historian perspective, providing us with a historical account of the proletarian

music culture of America between the 1930s and 1940s and how song was used within the

labor movement. Addressing the conflict between the American communist party and the folk

music revival movement, they provide a historical analysis of singers, writers, union

members, and labor organizers, and their connections to left-wing politics. This piece does

briefly address the labor movement and its songs however most of the information included is

similar to information already provided via earlier scholarship. Similar to Reuss and Reuss,

Dick Weissman, singer, composer, author, and teacher, also looked at the twentieth century

American folk music revival in his 2005 book Which Side Are You On?: An Inside History of

the Folk Music Revival in America. Contrary to Reuss and Reuss, Weismann predominantly

focuses on the 1950s and onwards providing a brief look at political folk music before the

revival. Concerned with providing a historical account of the folksong craze, Weissman

centralizes his research examining how the folksong revival occurred and how it developed

over the years until present. He also looks at who was involved in this movement including

collectors and musicians. American music historian and jazz critic Ted Gioia dedicates an

entire chapter of his 2006 book Work Songs to the labor movement and labor song. In a

succinct manner, he provides us essentially with an encyclopedic article about labor songs in

America, covering its history and development from the late nineteenth century to the 1950s,

and touches very lightly on proceeding eras.92

During this decade, we also observe other continents, besides the United States and

Britain, looking into studying their own labor songs and worker history. In Australia, Warren

Fahey, folklore collector, cultural historian, singer, and songwriter, released Ratbags and

Rabblerousers: A Century of Political Protest, Song and Satire in 2000. Providing a past and

92

Many of the literary sources consulted were short, succinct encyclopedic entries focusing on

American labor song from the 1900s to 1950s.

present look at contemporary working-class songwriters, this work is a collection of political

poems and songs of the Australian working-class dating from 1900 to 2000. In 2007, Mark

Gregory finished his thesis Sixty Years of Australian Union Songs: The Australian Folk

Revival and The Australian Labor Movement Since the Second World War.93

Gregory sets out

to critically review Australian labor songs from the past sixty years historically examining “...

the relationship between the Australian folk revival and Australian Trade Unions” arguing that

this relationship has resulted in the high number of labor songs being produced.94

Interestingly

enough, unlike previous scholars in this strain, Gregory argues that these songs are an

important part of Australian culture despite them being hidden in the musical landscape.95

There are also scholars releasing books of labor song-poems. In 2007, John Marsh’s

poem anthology You Work Tomorrow: An Anthology of American Labor Poetry, 1929-1941,

was released. Marsh notes that the literary and English fields have lagged behind when it

comes to labor poetry especially due to anti-communist sentiments during the Cold War and

the New Criticism literary movement of mid-twentieth century America.9697

This is an

anthology of over one thousand poems written by labor organizers and workers during the

93

For access to this thesis, please visit http://unionsong.com/ebooks/thesismg.pdf. Mark Gregory is also

the creator of the website Unionsongs.com, an excellent resource for those interested in reading about labor

songs and listening to them. This website acts as an archival repository and bibliography about the genre.

94

Mark Gregory, Sixty Years of Australian Union Songs: The Australian Folk Revival and The

Australian Labour Movement Since the Second World War (CFMEU, 2007),

http://unionsong.com/ebooks/thesismg.pdf.

95

Ibid., http://unionsong.com/ebooks/thesismg.pdf.

96

John Marsh, You Work Tomorrow: An Anthology of American Labor Poetry, 1929-41 (Ann Arbor:

University of Michigan Press, 2007), 3.

97

The New Criticism movement occurred during the mid-twentieth century at the same time the red

baiting of the McCarthy era was occurring. This movement was about being un-political in their approach.

1930s.98

Folklorists of the twentieth century were becoming increasingly fascinated with the

labor movement due to labor unions’, such as the IWW, adopting and adapting songs for

organizing purposes.99

Part III: Advocating the Documentation and Preservation of Worker Culture - A

Folklorist Approach

Moving beyond the collecting and historical writings about labor songs, we begin to

see a slight shift in scholarship. Beginning approximately in the 1950s, a new trend develops

where scholars begin advocating the need for the serious examination, documentation and

preservation of labor songs and working-class culture.100

Works that follow this strain of

scholarship still are historical and ethnographic in nature but do possess an advocacy

argument.

1900s to the 1950s

English folk singer, songwriter, labor activist, and poet Ewan MacColl along with

English folk singer and folk song collector A. L. Lloyd and American folklorist, archivist and

98

Many labor songs may be hidden within poem anthologies, as they typically borrowed tunes to be

performed to.

99

William Westerman, “Politics and Folklore,” in American Folklore: An Encyclopedia, ed. Jan Harold

Brunvand (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). 571.

100

In the 1940s, the Cold War occurred and with it, we saw governments discouraging any activity

deemed communist by their standards. It was during the second Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s in America

that folk music became associated with left-wing politics. This was during the McCarthy era when communist

sympathizers were being routed out. Folk singers deemed as leftists due to the revolutionary spirit of their music

were ‘persecuted’ and had their civil rights violated. Notable musicians included Pete Seeger and Woody

Guthrie. This is a possible explanation regarding low amounts of literature being produced regarding labor songs

at this time.

ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, were all primary proponents of the second wave folk music

revival, which began approximately in the mid-1940s. They were all concerned with

advocating preservation and documentation and saw this revival “... as one, which must be

concerned with industrial song and the folk culture of the urban working classes.”101

They

spent much of the early 1950s travelling to trade unions and discussing with them their role as

cultural historians advocating that it was the responsibility of unionists’ to preserve and

archive their songs and culture.102

In 1952, Lloyd published his collection of British mining

songs entitled Come All Ye Bold Miners and Coaldust Ballads. In these works, he noted that

industrial folk songs such as labor songs are an important component of British culture and

history. Subsequently in 1954, Ewan MacColl published his own collection The Shuttle and

Cage and indicates that the folklore of the industrial worker is still a largely unexplored field

and that this collection represents no more than a mere scratching of the surface. MacColl

surmises that the labor movement and unions need to collaborate in order to generate a

comprehensive survey of labor songs.103

Following in their paths, John Greenway, scholar, singer, and folklorist, is one of the

first scholars to begin utilizing this alternative approach regarding the study of labor songs. In

1953, Greenway published a broad historical survey entitled American Folksongs of

Protest,104

which is the next substantial literary work since George Korson to look at labor

101

Peter Merriman, Driving Spaces: A Cultural-Historical Geography of England’s M1 Motorway

(Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007), 125.

102

Merriman, Driving Spaces, 126.

103

Ibid., 126.

104

For the purpose of this study, I have consulted both the 1953 edition as found on Internet Archive

(http://archive.org/stream/americanfolksong00gree/americanfolksong00gree_djvu.txt), in addition to the 1970

reprint of John Greenway’s book. This book originally began as Greenway’s Ph. D. dissertation and was

subsequently republished as a book in 1953.

songs. A classic study of protest music, the purpose of his study was to stimulate interest in

song collecting and preservation.105

Greenway focuses on labor songs from various American

occupations, discussing potential reasons for the lack of collections and literature. Reasons

include both the spontaneous, ephemeral nature of the songs and a prevalent, dominant

ideological attitude among a select sect of scholars.106

Up until the publication of Greenway’s

work, there had been a long debate as to whether labor songs were actually folk songs or not

with many folklorists and historians choosing to completely ignore them.107

Greenway openly

criticizes these folklorists writing in his introduction that in order “to understand the people

who produce folk songs, and thereby to understand the songs themselves, it is essential to

consider all the songs that emanate from them, the disturbing as well as the complacent, those

that carry a message as well as those written simply for diversion.”108

Similar to Korson’s

work, Greenway looks at and discusses some songs, contextualizes them and even provides

some biographical information about the composer. Greenway’s work ends with a chapter

about key labor songsters’ and composers and selections of their compositions.109

As John

Greenway indicates in the preface, this book is meant to serve as an introduction and

panorama of labor songs, which for his purposes categorizes them as folk songs and protest

songs.110

He does an excellent job of demonstrating the importance that labor songs had on

105

John Greenway, American Folksongs of Protest (New York: Octagon Press, 1970), viii.

106

Ibid., 3.

107

Philip S. Foner, American Labor Songs of the Nineteenth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois

Press, 1975), xiv.

108

Greenway, American Folksongs, 4.

109

The final chapter of Greenway’s American Folksongs of Protest is centralized around singers Woody

Guthrie, Joe Glazer, Ella May Wiggins, and T. Bone Slim, all important figures to labor songs and labor

movement.

110

Greenway, American Folksongs, viii.

American workers’ socio-political lives.111

1960s to 1980s

In the 1960s, interest waned in the study of labor songs, possibly due to the politically

tense McCarthy era in the 1950s. A separate stream of scholarship began to emerge in the

1970s drawing on the sociology discipline. This will be discussed in Part IV of this chapter.

However, despite the emergence of this divergent stream, those following in the advocacy

path of Lomax, Lloyd, MacColl, and Greenway, continue to advocate the importance of song

collecting, examination, and preservation for the sanctity of the cultural and historical record.

In 1969, Canadian Folklorist Edith Fowke published her article “Labor and Industrial

Protest Songs in Canada.”112

Approaching her study from a historical perspective, Fowke

presents us with a historical overview and survey of labor and industrial protest songs in

Canada between the 1900s through to the 1960s. Though Edith Fowke admits from the

beginning that Canada has few industrial and labor songs, she focuses on studying and

discussing the texts of twenty-nine trade union worker songs from various provinces in

Canada. Her work is an excellent example of the type of scholarly research afforded to labor

songs during this period of minimal interest. Comparable to previous scholars, Fowke

contextualizes the songs she chooses to discuss, providing a brief historical background with

limited musical and sociological analysis. Akin to Greenway, she notes that most of these

songs are ephemeral with few surviving past the conflict they were created for, thus this

111

Though I list this as a literary resource advocating documentation and preservation, Greenway’s

American Folksongs of Protest is also sociological in framework.

112

For anyone interested in labor songs of Canada, Edith Fowke’s article serves as an excellent jumping

point for researchers. In fact, this is the only piece of literature written about Canadian labor songs. This is a field

that sorely needs academic attention.

would explain why Canada possessed so few labor songs at the time of her research.113

Fowke

also emphasizes to us that the songs, though limited in Canada, are important to history and

culture.114

During the seventies, historians of this period finally begin to recognize the importance

of labor songs as a legitimate historical record and begin to increasingly publish research on it.

This is an era where labor song advocacy receives its next biggest push. As Timothy Lynch

notes, this recognition first began with scholars of African American history and culture.

These scholars recognized how valuable songs were to African Americans as they served as a

historical document and record of their culture and identity within the American macro

culture. Furthermore, for these scholars, the expressive behavior within these songs is valuable

in understanding oppressed groups.115

Just as historians initially discounted music and song as

legitimate historical resources, so did labor historians. In fact, many labor historians during

this period discount working-class culture. E. P. Thompson changed this dominating attitude

in 1966 with his book The Making of the English Working Class. Thompson successfully

argues that songs are an expression of working-class culture, containing invaluable

information such as their thoughts, feelings, and attitudes towards figures of power and

authority, in addition to documenting living and working conditions during that period. Labor

historians now begin to embrace neglected sources of history including song following the

publication of Thompson’s work. Other disciplines also began to accept labor songs as a

viable source of history, culture, and identity when reconstructing and analyzing the past.

Folklorists, sociologists, cultural anthropologist and musicologists alike began seriously

113

Edith Fowke, “Labor and Industrial Protest Songs in Canada,” The Journal of American Folklore 82,

no. 32 (Jan. – Mar., 1969): 48.

114

Ibid., 48.

115

Halker, For Democracy, 6.

studying labor songs and protest songs.

Beginning in the 1970s, folklorist Archie Green who, since the zenith era of George

Korson, Lomax, Lloyd, MacColl, and Greenway, becomes the next champion of labor lore116

and labor songs.117

He began reviving some interest in the genre and in worker’s culture.

Specializing in American folk music and labor lore, Green worked tirelessly prior to the

seventies trying to generate interest in the genre from other folklorists and laborists all the

while trying define what a folk song is. This first came to fruition in his 1965 article

“American Labor Lore: Its Meaning and Uses.” In his article, Green boldly states that most

trade unionists, folklorists, and industrial relation specialists to date have seen little value in

the study of labor songs and lore.118

This is evident from the limited literature reviewed thus

far. Advocating that folklore within labor is a subject worthy of study and that the

examination and preservation of working class culture is warranted, Green lists off various

reasons why limited academic attention has been paid to the discipline and the movements’

artistic.119

Reasons include a persevering ideological attitude amongst scholars as previously

116

Archie Green was the first scholar to create and coin the term labor lore in his 1972 book Only A

Miner: Studies in Recorded Coal-Mining Songs. As defined by Green, labor lore describes the study of cultural

artifacts such as union songs and stories.

117

In his book Only A Miner, despite being a follower of George Korson and dedicating a substantial

amount of space to discuss Korson, Archie Green does criticize George Korson for his biased selection methods,

which ultimately led to the loss of some labor songs.

118

Archie Green, “American Labor Lore: Its Meanings and Uses.” Industrial Relations 4, no. 2 (Feb.,

1965): 51.

118

Scholars were continually pre-occupied with romantic ideals and romanticism. Because labor songs

dealt with the working-class and their labor which was consider lowly and dirty due to its links with industrial

factories, grime, and noise, as opposed to the music of peasants and mountaineers, scholars preferred the peasants

and mountaineers music and song.

119

For those interested in the historical development of industrial and occupational folklore please refer

to Archie Greens 1978 article “Industrial Lore: A Bibliographic-Semantic Query.” This is a bibliographic essay

documenting the development of the labor folklore field and surveying notable research that has been performed

up until the 1970s. In this comprehensive overview of early industrial and occupational folklore, Green does look

at a few seminal collectors and scholars of labor songs. This includes George Korson, Archie Green, Wayland D.

noted, a disagreement as to whether the genre is actually folk or popular, a continued denial of

unions being considered a folk institution, and a belief that labor songs and the attached

ideologies were forced on the workers.120

Green also theorizes that future research would shift

away from folklorist domination to labor historian, industrial sociologist, and cultural

academic dominance. We also begin to observe a shift in academic writing dealing with

working-class culture. Many scholars, including Green were shifting to the New Labor

History approach where they were writing ‘history from below’ rather than from above.

‘History from below,’ also known as people’s history or folk history, is defined as history that,

… takes as its subject ordinary people, and concentrate[s] on their experiences

and perspectives, contrasting itself with the stereotype of traditional political

history and its focus on the actions of ‘great men.’ It also differed from

traditional labor history in that its exponents were more interested in popular

protest and culture than in the organizations of the working class.121

In 1972, Archie furthered his scholarly advocating by publishing Only a Miner:

Studies in Recorded Coal-Mining Songs. This was a reworking of his dissertation, which

looked at the intersection of popular culture and coal mining songs whilst advocating for the

examination and preservation of working class culture. He demonstrates how technology can

aid with this. Adopting a musical-historical approach, Green looks at the recording of these

songs, studying how recording technology was being used to record the songs and disseminate

working-class identity,122

proving that the working class does possess a rich culture worthy of

Hand, Richard A. Reuss, Joyce Kornbluh, and Philip Foner. Archie Green even discusses him in his own book

Only A Miner within this essay.

120

Green, “American Labor Lore,” 51-55.

121

The Institute of Historical Research, “History from Below,” Making History: The Changing Face of

the Profession in Britain, last modified 2008,

http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/themes/history_from_below.html.

122

Mark Gregory briefly discusses the importance that radio had in preserving and disseminating labor

studying. He provides us with background information on the stories and songs he does

include and provides a detailed discography of mining songs. Green does adopt a slight

sociological approach, briefly discussing the emotional aspects of the songs and how it

touches the sentiments of the performers, audiences, communities, and collectors. A few years

later in 1975, Philip S. Foner, a prominent Marxist labor historian and teacher, published a

substantial, comprehensive, and informative anthology entitled American Labor Songs of the

Nineteenth Century.123

Covering the period of eighteenth century America to the end of the

nineteenth century, Foner collected labor songs from various archived newspapers and

magazines. Arguing for further examination, and eluding to the need of documentation and

preservation, Foner’s purpose in this work was “... to help revive a worthy American labor

tradition.”124

In 1989, Dr. Robbie Lieberman, a professor of American history specializing in social

movements and music, also becomes an advocate in her doctoral thesis turned book “My Song

Is My Weapon”: People’s Songs, American Communism, and the Politics of Culture, 1930-

1950. Lieberman affirms that without documentation of culture, such as labor songs and

protest songs, we will be losing the “... symbols, rituals, ideas, and commitments by which

entire lives had been organized.”125

Historically approaching her topic, Robbie explores the

origins and development of People’s Songs, an organization whose goal was to create,

songs in his article “Industrial Folk Song in Our Time.” Vincent Roscigno and William Danaher also offer an

informative view into radio’s role in disseminating and preserving labor songs in their book The Voice of

Southern Labor: Radio, Music, and Textile Strikes, 1929-1934. “Woody’s Oil Song” by Archie Green is another

notable article to read about the importance of recording and radio in preservation.

123

The compilation of collections such as this requires lots of archival digging and searching. Despite

the amount of work required, collections like these prove to be invaluable to researchers and laborists.

124

Foner, American Labor Songs, xvi.

125

Robbie Lieberman, “My Song Is My Weapon”: People’s Songs, American Communism, and the

Politics of Culture, 1930-1950 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 16.

promote, and distribute labor songs, and of other various groups and individuals between 1930

and 1950. She was interested in how these groups and individuals would use music as a

rhetorical tool to promote the American Communist Party’s political messages, ultimately

proving that social and political movements do possess their own self-sustaining culture

within a macro-culture. Beliefs paralleling those of previous scholars, Lieberman understands

the cultural and historical value of these songs and concludes that:

… the fact remains that songs, and art in general, may be more effective than

speeches in reaching people … songs can be an especially effective weapon -

or “tool” … Clearly songs are effective in providing internal cohesion for a

movement culture by reaffirming beliefs, building confidence and unity,

providing historical memory and an alternative vision.126

Despite increasingly diverse scholarly interest in labor songs during the twentieth

century these songs were still treated “... more as a garnish than as substance, with no rigorous

analysis or exegesis of the lyrics offered.”127

This trend is noticeable in following decades.

1990s

Labor song interest resurged during the 1990s. American music historian, labor

activist, singer, and songwriter, Clark Halker published For Democracy, Workers, and God:

Labor Song-Poems and Labor Protest, 1865-1895 in 1991, inspired by the work of his

predecessors Korson, Greenway, and Green.128

This is considered as one of the first seminal

works adopting all three strains of scholarship, demonstrating how labor songs and poems

126

Lieberman, “My Song Is My Weapon,” 164.

127

Lynch, Strike Songs of the Depression, 8.

128

Clark Halker, “Jesus was a Carpenter: Labor Song-Poets, Labor Protest, and True Religion in Gilded

Age America,” Labor History 32, no. 2 (1991): 4.

were important for the creation of class-consciousness and examines how studying songs can

advance our knowledge of worker culture and history.129

Adopting a cultural Marxist

approach, like that of E. P. Thompson, Halker traces the history and evolution of labor songs

between the periods of 1865 to 1895 in the United States. Comparable to his predecessors,

Halker is focused on providing us a historical narrative, contextualizing the song and

discussing its texts. Halker wants to expand our knowledge of the musical and poetic history

of the American working-class using these songs and poems as a lens into the larger world of

worker unions and protest in the Gilded Age.130131

However, sadly Halker concludes:

The song-poems written between 1865 and 1895 would become the curiosities

and relics of a previous labor movement. Occasionally they might be recited or

sung as reminders of an earlier generation’s struggles to build a better America.

Later workers, however, did not realize that these compositions represented a

brand of class-consciousness - of a “class for itself” in the actual sense as

opposed to the ascribed variant some would have favoured - once predominant

among workers. Workers no longer understood that these song-poems stood for

the highest ideals of a labor movement…132

This seems to be a current reality in today’s labor movement. This same year, Halker

published “Jesus was a Carpenter: Labor Song-Poets, Labor Protest, and True Religion in

Gilded Age America.” Looking at the labor-poets133

of the labor movement, Clark argues that

labor songs need to be seriously studied, as they are cultural artifacts that divulge history and

129

Lynch, Strike Songs of the Depression, 8.

130

The Gilded Age is a historical period in American history occurring from 1870 to 1900. During this

period economic growth was growing rapidly, there was an increase in immigration, an increase in social conflict

and the labor force, mounting poverty, industrialization, two depressions, and the development of the railroads,

factories, and labor unions.

131

Halker, For Democracy, 14.

132

Ibid., 210.

133

Labor-poet is another term used for composers of labor songs.

identity.134

Examining the Gilded Age of America, between 1870 and 1900, he also discusses

the relationship between religion and labor songs, since labor song composers tended to

borrow well-known religious hymns and tunes. Halker demonstrates how religion played a

positive role in this movement.

A special issue of the Journal of Folklore Research was released in 1991 focusing on

labor songs.135136

Archie provides an introductory article entitled “Labor Song: An

Ambiguous Legacy.” He provides a brief historical overview of labor songs and a primer for

proceeding articles included within. Hel also sets up the documentation and preservation

advocacy argument. Most of the articles in this special issue are all about advocating that

more serious attention needs to be afforded to labor songs and that we need to become more

proactive in documenting and preserving.137

Doug DeNatale and professor of African

American studies Glenn Hinson contributed a historical study, bordering sociological, entitled

“The Southern Textile Song Tradition Reconsidered.” Investigating the southeastern textile

industry of America and the place music held in the lives of the textile mill workers, these two

authors are followers of Greenway and Green’s advocacy and for the recognition of songs as a

legitimate information resource. As they note it is due to dedicated collectors that we are able

to study them and reconstruct this period of history.138

Professor of Folklore John Minton

134

Halker, “Jesus was a Carpenter,” 275.

135

For those interested, this special issue of the Journal of Folklore Research is from May to December

1991, it is volume 28, and is issue no. 2/3.

136

Green, “Labor Song,” 96.

137

Other articles included in this special issue of the Journal of Folklore Research included “‘An Icy

Mountain Brook’: Revival, Aesthetics, and the ‘Coal Creek March’” by Neil Rosenberg, “‘The Waterman Train

Wreck’: Tracking a Folksong in Deep East Texas” by John Minton, “The Brotherhood of Timber Workers and

the Culture of Conflict” by Jeff Ferrell, and “Shack Bullies and Levee Contractors: Bluesmen as Ethnographers”

by John Cowley.

138

Doug DeNatale and Glenn Hinson, “The Southern Textile Song Tradition Reconsidered,” Journal of

demonstrates how song is used for memory and remembrance, in addition to communication,

preserving and transmitting information about past communities and historical events to future

generations. Similarly, John Cowley looks at African American song evolution discussing and

demonstrating how song lyrics can be used for historical interpretation, ferreting out a

culture’s history and identity.139

Neil Rosenberg, a professor emeritus of folklore, also

contributes to this discussion tracing the use and evolution of the labor song ‘Coal Creek

March.’ He contends that mass culture is destroying the history and cultural records of the

labor movement and labor unions. Therefore, folklorists must make it their impetus in

documenting and advocating preservation, an opinion previously expressed.140

In 1993, Archie Green makes a resurgence releasing his ethnographically and

sociologically oriented book Wobblies, Pile Butts, and Other Heroes. Continuing with the

argument that serious study into labor lore is required, from both the side of a worker and the

side of a scholar, Green explores occupational expression in worker culture, tracing labor lore

and examining how cultural expressions are important symbolically for workers. Though

barely addressing songs, Green demonstrates the importance that single word texts have when

reconstructing labor culture. Archie also released a compilation of essays entitled Songs about

Work: Essays in Occupational Culture for Richard A. Reuss, this same year, in honor of the

recently deceased Richard Reuss. Essays within this collection explored labor songs, work

songs, and songs about work. Many were reprints of articles from the special issue of Journal

of Folklore Research. All essays advocate for preservation and demonstrated how songs retell

Folklore Research 28, no. 2/3 (May-Dec., 1991): 103.

139

John Cowley, “Shack Bullies and Levee Contractors: Bluesmen as Ethnographers,” Journal of

Folklore Research 28, no. 2 / 3 (May-Dec., 1991): 135.

140

Neil V. Rosenberg, “‘An Icy Mountain Brook’: Revival, Aesthetics, and the ‘Coal Creek March’,”

Journal of Folklore Research 28, no. 2/3 (May - Dec., 1991): 226.

history and cultural identity. Interestingly enough, folklorists James P. Leary and Richard

March’s article “Farm, Forest, and Factory: Songs of Midwestern Labor,” examines labor and

work songs of foreign workers in America, a micro culture situated within labors’ micro

culture. They demonstrate how these songs function as a historical and cultural document,

exemplifying that they too possess a rich tradition and culture that requires further in-depth

research. Archie Green’s article “Woody’s Oil Song,’ researches two relatively unknown

labor songs composed by Woody Guthrie that were commissioned by the Oil Workers

International Union in 1942. He concludes, like previous scholars that labor songs, even

unpopular ones, “... remain a window to one feature of labor’s past” and that it is the workers

themselves who possess the skill and capacity to preserve and archive such cultural

artifacts.141

Moving beyond just advocating, we begin to see some scholars dedicate entire studies

to the cultural artifacts of specific labor unions demonstrating the importance of preserving

artifacts. This type of study and advocating can first be seen in Archie Green’s 1978 article

“Labor Song as Symbol” which was published in the JEMF Quarterly.142

Green’s aim is to

rouse colleagues in creating labor song discographies since this type of activity was waning.

He adopts a peculiar approach to this article, demonstrating how songs and pictures can retell

history and yield information about a specific culture. Selecting seven pictures that represent

labor songs in broadside, 78-rpm, and LP format, Green performs an iconographic analysis of

141

Archie Green, “Woody’s Oil Songs,” in Songs About Work: Essays in Occupational Culture for

Richard A. Reuss, 208-220. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993): 219.

142

The JEMF Quarterly is the journalistic publication of the John Edwards Memorial Foundation

archival and research center established in 1962 at the University of California in memory of John Edwards, an

Australian who collected early American folk and blues music. The goal of this institution was to promote the

serious study of folk music in twentieth-century America. This center ceased to exist after 1983. To view JEMF

Quarterly please visit Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/jemfquarterlyser1985john. For this specific

article found in volume 15, issue 51 of Autumn 1978 please visit

https://ia801607.us.archive.org/21/items/jemfquarterlyser1978john/jemfquarterlyser1978john.pdf.

the pictures retelling the history of labor songs between the periods of 1930 to the late 1970s.

In 1996, Professor of Liberal Arts Robert E. Weir implements this demonstrative approach as

well in his book Beyond Labor’s Veil: the Culture of the Knights of Labor. Examining the

cultural products and practices of the Knights of Labor, one of the major American labor

unions of the Gilded Age, Weir offers us a comprehensive history of the organization,

analyzing their literary culture, labor songs included, and the attached symbolism of these

products looking at how they influenced the worker’s lives in and outside of the workplace.

Weir does an excellent job in successfully demonstrating how the preservation of cultural

products can be used to enrich our knowledge of working class culture.

Twenty-First Century

During the twenty-first century, the academic world witnessed another small-renewed

interest in the Lloyd, Lomax, MacColl, and Greenway tradition of labor song advocacy.

During this century, it is primarily folklorists, sociologist, and cultural historians who are

interested. However, despite this renewed interest and continued advocacy, labor song study at

this time is still considered a neglected body of art and continued to primarily focus on the

American and British context.

Inspired by Clark Halker’s work in addition to the works of Green, Denisoff, and

Levine, Timothy P. Lynch, professor of American history with a specialty in protest music,

continues their advocacy, stressing its importance to the historical and cultural record. In his

dissertation turned 2001 book Strike Songs of the Depression, Lynch focuses on the music that

was produced during America’s Great Depression from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s. This

was a tumultuous time for labor and the labor movement. Due to economic decline, there was

great labor unrest. Employees were experiencing mass cuts in wages and there were mass

layoffs. Similar to the beginning of the labor movement, workers began to organize and resist

the declining conditions and increased unemployment. There was a marked increase in strikes

and with it labor song production and singing. Lynch examines three different strikes of this

period, the Gastonia textile mill strike of 1929, the coal mining strike of 1931 in Harlan

Country, and the automobile strike in Flint, Michigan from 1936 to 1937. Using new social

history, Lynch’s research expertly exemplifies the importance of song during labor unrest,

looking at how song communicates and promotes a message and how it creates class-

consciousness, solidarity, and collective action. This critical examination of labor songs also

demonstrates how they provide historians with an alternative voice for a group that is deemed

inarticulate and underrepresented in history books. This is one the few pieces of scholarly

literature written specifically about labor songs. As part of his conclusion Lynch notes:

By providing the psychological space for striking workers to speak their minds,

quite literally, singing nurtured a sense of community and class-consciousness.

And when strikers retold the events of their strike, as they did in songs from all

three strikes, they spread and preserved their common history, further

strengthening the bonds among them.143

Just like Lynch, other scholars in 2001 wrote works advocating documentation and

preservation. Literary historian Hester L. Furey focuses on the IWW’s songbook Songs to Fan

the Flames of Discontent in her article “IWW Songs as Modernist Poetry,” arguing that labor

songs, or as she terms them modernist poetry, are a worthy art form of study and an important

rhetorical document. Professor of history, Ronald D. Cohen in 2010 published Work and Sing:

a History of Occupational and Labor Union Songs in the United States. Surveying in-depth

American occupational and labor songs from the late eighteenth century144

to roughly the late

143

Lynch, Strike Songs of the Depression, 125.

144

Though Cohen does touch on the late eighteenth century and the nineteenth century, his work

strongly emphasizes the twentieth century. Additionally to avoid any potential breach of copyright, Cohen tends

1980s, Cohen examines the history behind the various types of song, labor in particular, and

the various leading singing groups including the IWW. His discussion primarily focuses on

the links between the left, the folk music movement, and labor song history. He also examines

the various important song leaders and songsters. Cohen is concerned with “… document[ing]

the publication and collecting of occupational and labor union songs,”145

thus there is a heavy

focus on collectors and their collections. Very little analysis is included. Cohen’s book acts as

an archive in itself and demonstrates the importance of why music matters to historians.

Lawyer Raymond Franklin and professor of Law, David Gregory, follow similar lines of

thought in their 2011 article “Labor Songs: the Provocative Product of Psalmists, Prophets,

and Poets.”146

Concerned with three different eras of American history, the 1930s, 1960s, and

1980s, Franklin and Gregory are concerned with examining the impact that song had on

worker-culture. Looking at the history of the song, its lyrics, and in some cases the evolution

of a specific song through proceeding decades, Franklin and Gregory determine that labor

songs provide an intimate glance into the era they were written and sung in and briefly

discusses how songs unify and act as a vehicle of communication and preservation.147

Part IV: Sociological School of Thought – Functions of Protest and Labor Songs

The sixties was an increasingly political decade marked by protests and political

movements pushing for social change. Song and music could be heard everywhere during this

period. During this decade, another dominant strain of folk song study arose based on

not to include any song lyrics rather he just resorts to listing their names. One of the positive features of this book

is the extensive bibliography he includes.

145

Ronald D. Cohen, Work and Sing: A History of Occupational and Labor Union Songs in the United

States (Crockett, CA: Carquinez Press, 2010), vi.

146

This article is also published under an alternative title “The Contemporary Roles of Labor Songs.”

147

Raymond A. Franklin and David L. Gregory, “Labor Songs: The Provocative Product of Psalmists,

Prophets and Poets,” Journal of Catholic Legal Studies 50, no. 297 (2011): 315.

sociology. Unlike previous scholars, they went beyond just writing historical and ethnographic

works, instead writing about the social aspects of music and the function of music within

movements. Looking at protest songs as a whole instead of as singular subgenres, they

examine music as rhetoric, music as expression, music as power, and music as

communication. Scholars who fall into this field set out to demonstrate that folk songs and

protest songs were important because they communicated messages, they communicated

emotions, they created cohesion, and they were responsible for creating solidarity and unity.

Within this strain labor songs are sporadically mentioned, a few phrases or paragraphs here

and there, however little research in this stream concentrates on them specifically. Generally,

the 1960s was a period of waning interest in the study of labor songs.

1960s to 1999

Before the 1960s, most early interest afforded to labor songs was purely collection

oriented or was concerned with historical documentation. Very little theory generation was

being produced, in fact, it was negligible. However, during the 1960s, the New Left emerged.

Inclined more towards culture, they initially embraced movement culture, including union

culture, however this quickly changed and we saw a split occur, as the New Left did not want

to be involved with the labor movement. This split is reflective in scholarship from the 1960s

onwards. Sociological studies of protest songs, and labor songs to a lesser degree, generally

fall into two different streams as noted by Green: those that look at songs as communicative or

behavior modifying and those that look at it as a symbolic artifact.148

Beginning in 1967, we see some minimal interest in studying labor songs. These

148

Archie Green, “Labor Song as Symbol,” JEMF Quarterly 15, no. 51 (Autumn, 1978): 187.

https://ia801607.us.archive.org/21/items/jemfquarterlyser1978john/jemfquarterlyser1978john.pdf.

studies are far in between though. A. L. Lloyd, influenced by Korson, published Folk Song in

England in 1967. Seen as a seminal work by many folklorists, Lloyd adopts both a Marxist

and sociological framework in his approach. Lloyd determines that labor songs, or as he terms

them, industrial folk songs of Great Britain, were products generated by the conditions and

thus were an important form of social expression.149

Providing a comprehensive analysis, A.

L. Lloyd examines how these songs developed, how they preserved the groups’ identity,

culture, and history, and at how they were important for group cohesion. Lloyd’s main

argument is that the songs “were far more collective in expression than the more anonymous

rural songs that preceded them.”150

In the 1970s we really begin to see this divergent sociological stream in the works of

Denisoff, who goes beyond the prevalent approach of historically documenting and

collecting,151

instead focusing on how protest songs are either a communicative or behavior

modifying tool or alternatively as a symbolic artifact. Denisoff concentrates on the protest

songs of the 1960s and 1970s concerning himself with their role as tools for persuasion and

propaganda in social and political movements. His 1970 article “The Religious Roots of the

American Song of Persuasion,” examines the evolution of early American propaganda

songs,152

looking at how socialist and communist political groups adopted religious songs and

infused their socialist views and beliefs into them. This is one of the few works where

149

A. L. Lloyd, Folk Song in England (New York: International Publishers, 1967), 317-318.

150

Ibid., 342.

151

Halker, For Democracy, 3.

152

Jerome Rodnitzky, another scholar of the seventies, published his 1976 book Minstrels of the Dawn:

The Folk-Protest Singer as a Cultural Hero. Primarily concerned with the sixties, his work also looks at traces

the evolution of the protest song in America, looking at the singers associated with it, how social forces shaped it

and how song is used as a weapon against the dominant culture. Rodnitzky, like Denisoff, provides limited

discussion on labor songs.

Denisoff dedicates an ample discussion about labor songs. Addressing the emotional and

communicative aspects of labor songs, he looks at how members of Brookwood labor School

used them to recruit individuals and the IWW’s use of songs. Denisoff performs similar

research in his 1971 book Great Day Coming: Folk Music and the American Left, which is a

response to Archie Green’s “... request for an objective treatment of the role of Communists in

the so-called urban folk music movement”153

and in his 1972 book Sing a Song of Social

Significance, which is concerned with answering the questions “What properly constitutes a

protest song in a given time and historical place? [and] Do protest songs actually protest

anymore?”154155

Both works are American centric covering the periods of 1930 to 1970 and

focus very little on labor songs. Denisoff`s contribution is great to the sociological

understanding of political and protest music and how it is used as a political tool to attract,

mobilize, and create cohesion and class consciousness, only glosses over the labor

movement.156

This trend is highly visible within sociological publications.

A few scholars do concentrate specifically study labor songs. Around the 1980s, the

field of communication studies begins publishing a few rhetorical studies regarding labor

songs.157

In 1980, David A. Carter, an assistant professor of communication studies, published

153

R. Serge Denisoff, Great Day Coming: Folk Music and the American Left (Urbana: University of

Illinois Press, 1971), foreword.

154

Ibid., xi-xii.

155

As per Denisoff, there are two types of protest songs: those that highlight worker discontent and

those that are written for recruitment and mobilization purposes.

156

In 1998, Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison released Music and Social Movements: Mobilizing

Traditions in the Twentieth Century. Like Denisoff and subsequent sociologists studying music in social

movements, they determine that identity that is articulated through music is imperative to the formation of social

and political movements. Similarly, very little mention of labor songs and the labor movement can be found in

this book.

157

For those interest in the further study of protest songs and protest rhetoric please read the 1991 article

“The Ego Function of Protest Songs: An Application of Gregg’s Theory of Protest Rhetoric” by Charles Stewart

“The Industrial Workers of the World and the Rhetoric of Song.” Unlike Denisoff who

focuses on protest songs, Carter examines the IWW’s use of song as a rhetorical tool and its

evolution from 1905 to 1917. Following in the footsteps of advocacy works by scholars such

as Greenway, Foner, Fowke, and Glazier, Carter concludes that the use of song is imperative

in exposing workers to union ideology and unifying workers within unions and the broader

movement.158

Labor songs, as Carter notes, clearly highlight the ‘good guy’ and ‘bad guy,’

which makes them persuasive. Assistant communication professor Ralph Knupp also

approaches labor songs rhetorically a year later in his article “A Time for Every Purpose under

Heaven: Rhetorical Dimensions of Protest Music.” Concentrating on the labor movement and

anti-war movement, he performs a content analysis beginning microscopically by looking at

the song then moves out to the macroscopic social movement, an approach opposite to

Denisoff, and looks to “... identif[y] the rhetorical methods used in protest music to create a

world discontent …”159

Unlike Carter who concludes that music is imperative to the labor

movement and other movement, Knupp concludes that protest songs, such as labor songs, are

of little use in recruiting as they are “... generalized, self-interested, solutionless criticisms of

the status quo. They minimize the past for the sake of the present, sacrifice instrumentality for

expressiveness, and help to bring an opposition into being with their own words.”160

Many labor studies and sociology scholars, inspired by Thompson’s 1963 work

in the journal Communication Studies, volume 42, issue number 3; Elizabeth Kizer’s 1983 article “Protest Songs

Lyrics as Rhetoric” in Popular Music and Society, volume 9; and Stephen Kosokoff and Carl W. Carmichael’s

1970 article “The Rhetoric of Protest: Song, Speech, and Attitude Change” in The Southern Speech Journal,

volume 35, issue number 4.

158

David A. Carter, “The Industrial Workers of the World and the Rhetoric of Song,” Quarterly Journal

of Speech 66, no. 4: 366, 373.

159

Ralph E. Knupp, “A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven: Rhetorical Dimensions of Protest

Music,” Southern Speech Communication Journal 46, no. 4 (1981): 378.

160

Knupp, “A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven,” 388.

became increasingly interested in studying, defining, and analyzing labor and working-class

culture in the twenty-first century.161

Most look at labor culture as whole, sporadically

mentioning songs. Professor of sociology Jeff Ferrell contributed an article to Archie Green’s

1993 essay compilation. Entitled “The Brotherhood of Timber Workers and the Culture of

Conflict,” Ferrell provides a chronological sketch of the Brotherhood of Timber Workers, a

labor union, and their strike against the southern lumber trust from 1910 to 1914 in the Deep

South. Jeff Ferrell is predominantly interest in the use of song as culture and as an ideological

weapon, looking at how song produced and disseminated a counter-culture.162

Similar to

previous conclusions, Ferrell determines that not only is song a historical document produced

because of labor strife but it also serves active functions. These include communication and

transmission, organization, creating collectivity, and for creating mood and atmosphere.163

Brenda McCallum, a folk life archivist, also contributed a sociologically oriented paper to

Green’s essay compilation. Its’ purpose was to “... examine expressive culture as an agent for

social change”164

in African American labor contexts and determines similar conclusions as

161

Scholars were increasingly becoming interest in studying union culture in the 1980s. Many were

looking at what, at the time, was called movement culture. Scholars looking at movement, and union culture,

were interested in the cultural analysis all cultural products that would result in solidarity, motivate, and maintain

collective action. These cultural products included beliefs, stories, identities, norms, and songs. An excellent

book on the topic is Hank Johnston and Bert Klanderman 1995 book Social Movements and Culture. In it they

present several analytic approaches from the US and Europe to study these types of cultures. Johnston and

Klanderman also look at how these cultures are affected by the external and internal environment. For more

artistically driven research on movement cultures please read James Jasper’s 1997 book The Art of Moral

Protest: Culture, Biography, and Creativity in Social Movements and Thomas Vernon Reed’s 2005 book The Art

of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle.

162

Jeff Ferrell, “The Brotherhood of Timber Workers and the Culture of Conflict,” in Songs About

Work: Essays in Occupational Culture for Richard A. Reuss, ed. Archie Green (Bloomington: Indiana University

Press), 288.

163

Ferrell, “The Brotherhood of Timber,” 299.

164

Brenda McCallum, “The Gospel of Black Unionism,” in Songs About Work: Essays in Occupational

Culture for Richard A. Reuss, ed. Archie Green (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), 108.

Ferrell.

Twenty-First Century

In 2000, Janis Bailey, an associate professor specializing in industrial relations, union

strategy, culture, and protest behavior, wrote “Blue Singlets and Broccoli: Culture in the

Service of Union Struggle.” Bailey, guided by sociology and labor history, adopts a Marxist

approach when looking at Australia’s Third Wave labor movement and “how union culture

can be used strategically by unions for campaigning purposes.”165

She looks at culture as a

lived practice,166

arguing that we need to preserve and look at the cultural artifacts and

practices of labor unions in order to determine and understand their meanings and values and

their role in uniting and solidifying. Bailey determines that song is important in contesting the

dominant culture. 167

We see a few more scholars adding to the sociological study and discussion of labor

songs as the early twenty-first century progresses. In 2001, writer, singer, songwriter, and

college lecturer Duncan Hall published ‘A Pleasant Change from Politics’: Music and the

British Labor Movement between the Wars. This is a historical study sketching all the musical

output of the British labor movement between World War I and World War II. Hall is

concerned with the functions that music and song served. His work allows us to develop a

sense of why music was important to labor activists and why the preservation of these artifacts

are important for historical and cultural prosperity. The study is guided by the following

questions “Was music just ‘a pleasant change from politics’? Was it simply a diversion, an

165

Janis Bailey, “Blues Singlets and Broccoli: Culture in the Service of Union Struggle,” Labour

History, no. 79 (Nov., 2000): 35.

166

Ibid., 35.

167

Ibid., 36.

entertainment and a reward for hard political work? Or did it have a more important role to

play in the work and life of the labor movement in this period?”168

As we learn, music was

used for entertainment, spreading messages, and raising funds. Hall determines by looking at

various political parties of the time including the British Labor Party, the Independent Labor

Party, trade unions, and the British Communist Party, that song functioned as a tool for

enlightenment, education, agitation and political awareness, essentially a “weapon in the

struggle.”169

He concludes:

the experience of struggle - inspired people to look more closely at music as ‘a

weapon in the struggle.’ This led to the lab[or] movement developing quite

distinct aesthetic and cultural theories … the history of the musical culture of

the British lab[or] movement between wars is in fact an important stepping-

stone in a fuller understanding of cultural change in twentieth-century

Britain.170

In this concluding statement, Hall is alluding to the importance of labor song study and the

importance of preservation for history reconstruction purposes. In 2004, professors of

sociology, Vincent J. Roscigno and William F. Danaher, published The Voice of Southern

Labor: Radio, Music, and Textile Strikes, 1929-1934. They examine the textile mill strikes of

the 1920s and 1930s in Tennessee and the Carolinas, and the power of music in creating

culture, mobilizing, and creating collective consciousness. Roscigno and Danaher closely

examine how music and radio disseminated the striking workers message and garnered

support. A few of the guiding questions include: “From where did oppositional culture

emerge, and what role did labor unions play, if any? In what ways was music meaningful in

workers’ daily lives and during protest, and how, if at all, was oppositional music

168

Duncan Hall, ‘A Pleasant Change from Politics’: Music and the British Labor Movement between

the War (Cheltenham: New Clarion, 2001): 6.

169

Hall, ‘A Pleasant Change from Politics,’ 110.

170

Ibid., 170.

disseminated?”171

They conclude that cultural artifacts, such as labor songs, are imperative to

social and political movements, as they aid in mobilizing during periods of labor unrest and in

shaping workers responses and beliefs.

Sociology and communication driven, research into labor culture continues throughout

this era, though much of it does not look at labor song specifically. Labor song remains one of

those under-valued and understudied genres.

Part V: Labor Songs and Education

In the 1990s, the labor education sector starts studying labor songs as a medium for

educating. Laborists of the early labor movement already knew the intrinsic value of using

songs as a method of teaching. Throughout time, this practice fell lax but recently use of song

for educating has been rekindled among labor educators. Consequently, some academic

writing regarding this topic has been published. Identifying with John Greenway and Archie

Green’s approach to labor song study, laborists and educators started looking at the

preservation and use of labor songs to teach their history and to learn about their cultural

identity.172

In 1997, Alan Singer, a social studies educator, published his article “Using Songs

to Teach Labor History.” Acting more as an introduction, he discusses how students can learn

about the American working-class including their life, work, values, culture, and ideology by

looking at labor songs.173

To emphasize his point, Singer includes the verses of some well-

171

Vincent J. Roscigno and William F. Danaher, The Voice of Southern Labor: Radio, Music, and

Textile Strikes, 1929-1934 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004), xviii.

172

As noted by the American Labor Studies Center or ALSC for short, labor songs can be used not only

by history classes but also in English, Humanities, Economics, Government, Music, Art and Career, and

Technical education.

173

Alan Singer, “Using Songs to Teach Labor History,” OAH Magazine of History 11, no. 2 (Winter,

1997): 13.

known labor songs to answer some typical introductory questions including why did workers

organize unions, why did workers sing about unions, and how do you organize a labor union.

Singer even includes a bibliographic list of information resources that educators and laborists

can use to teach about American working-class life. Similar to the goals of Singer’s article, in

1998 Pat Wynne,174

a performer, music teacher, and labor activist and organizer, published her

article “Teaching Labor History through Song.” Wynne’s article is about the labor song and

history course she offers at San Francisco City College and Laney College. Providing a brief

historical overview of movement culture, Wynne, following along the lines of Lieberman’s

school of thought, advocates the use of labor songs as an alternative to standard history

education. She aims to “... expose my students to labor songs and the events that transpired

and …. to help the students write songs based on their own experiences and thereby create

their own labor culture.” Both Singer and Wynne are the foot soldiers of the New Social

History approach in the education field. They advocate the use of bottom up methods of

teaching labor history and culture to the new generations through song, trying to revive this art

form. They both successfully demonstrate the importance of documentation and preservation

of labor songs for educational and historical purposes. As Wynne notes, “labor culture is not

dead.” We also see a re-emergence of education sector interest in labor songs advocating their

importance as educational tools and preservation. Assistant music professor, Theresa Volk, in

2001, looks at the role of music during the twentieth century American labor movement and

labor union leader education in her article “Little Red Songbooks: Songs for the Labor Force

of America.” Discussing four different colleges in America between 1907 and 1932, who used

174

Pat Wynne teaches labor studies at the Music at City College in San Francisco. She is the founder of

the San Francisco Rockin Solidarity Labor Chorus. Built of various union organization members, this Chorus is

dedicated to music and singing to celebrate worker culture. For more information, please visit

http://laborchorus.com/home/about/.

songs and songbooks to educate future labor union leaders, Volk notes that despite music and

song being a powerful educational resource in labor movements and schools, that to date little

research has been done regarding music education and the labor force.175

Terese’s aim in this

article was to demonstrate how music could be used to educate these future leaders. As she

notes, “labor songs were not used to teach about music at the labor colleges in this study,

rather, they were music used to teach about labor and labor concepts.”176

Part VI: Biographical Literature on Key Labor Song Figures

Quite a few scholars have delved into writing biographical works regarding central

figures of labor songs and the labor movement. From these works, we can glean much

information regarding the art and practice of the labor song.

Joe Hill: Labor Activist and Songster

One of the most popular figures that scholars concentrate on is Joe Hill, a Swedish-

American labor activist, who was a prominent figure within the IWW during the late

nineteenth and early twentieth century. He was a prolific labor songwriter and performer and

became a symbol of the IWW and the labor movement after sacrificing his life. Many of his

songs have stood the test of time and continue to be sung on picket lines to this day. In

addition, many songwriters wrote songs about the legendary Joe Hill.

One of the first scholars to write about Joe Hill was Philip S. Foner. Though his 1965

book The Case of Joe Hill is more about the unjust trial and execution of Joe Hill, Foner does

175

Terese M. Volk, “Little Red Songbooks: Songs for the Labor Force of America,” Journal of

Research in Music Education 49, no. 1 (Spring, 2001): 33.

176

Volk, “Little Red Songbooks,” 42.

dedicate a short opening chapter to his contributions to labor songs and The Little Red

Songbook, which preserved many of his songs. As Foner writes, “... after 1912, the best

educational material published by the IWW was The Little Red Song Book.”177

Joe Hill

agreed with this becoming one of the main advocates of education through song. On the

subject of education through song, Joe Hill once wrote:

A pamphlet, no matter how good, is never read more than once, but a song is

learned by heart and repeated over and over; and I maintain that if a person can

put a few cold, common sense facts into a song, and dress them up in a cloak of

humor to take the dryness off of them, he will succeed in reaching a great

number of workers who are too unintelligent or too indifferent to read a

pamphlet or an editorial on economic science.178

Similar to Foner, Gibbs M. Smith published a biography entitled Joe Hill in 1969 dedicating

an entire chapter to Joe Hill and his music. Smith’s chapter does provide a little more

background information into the development of the songbook and a little more discussion of

his songs compared to Foner’s work.179

Other notable biographical works include Sam Richards’s 1983 article “Joe Hill: A

Labor Legend in Song” which focuses primarily on Hill as a labor musician and songwriter

and his importance in labor song dissemination180

and Franklin Rosemont’s 2003 biographical

book Joe Hill: the IWW & the Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass Counterculture,

177

Philip Sheldon Foner, The Case of Joe Hill: The Story of the Trial, the Mass Defense Campaign, and

the Execution of the Famous IWW Poet, Songwriter, and Organizer (New York: International Publication, 1965),

11.

178

Gibbs M. Smith, Joe Hill (Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith, 1969), 19.

179

In 2011, William Adler, published a biography entitled The Man Who Never Died: the Life, Times,

and Legacy of Joe Hill, American Labor Icon. It is written along similar lines as Foner and Smith’s works.

180

In an interesting 1993 article entitled “Joe Hill Incorporated: We Own Our Past,” Lori Elaine Taylor

examines Joe Hill’s influence on proceeding generations, after his execution. She looks at how he became a

symbol of organization and labor struggle, ultimately becoming a renowned celebrate figure in the labor

movement worldwide, living on in folksong and stories. In this same year, Sam Richard’s also published an

article entitled “The Joe Hill Legend in England,” which looks at Joe Hill’s influence in Britain on labor song

composers.

which looks in-depth into the life of Joe Hill and the Wobbly culture. Rosemont’s work acts

more as reflective piece, reflecting his own experiences within the IWW.

Other Noteworthy Labor Troubadours

Though much research and writing has gone into the life and contributions of Joe Hill,

there have been other biographical works written about other key figures in labor song

creation, dissemination, and preservation.

In 1991, Don MacGillivray wrote the article “The Industrial Verse of ‘Slim’ McInnis.”

This work briefly discusses the life of Nova Scotia Steelworker John J. “Slim” McInnis. A

seemingly unknown name, his sparse poetic output is considered quite powerful.181

The article

not only discusses his life but also discusses some of his poetic output.182

Authors Rebecca

Schroeder and Donald Lance, co-published a biographical article in 1993 about African

American farmer, union advocate, labor organizer, and labor song-poem writer John Handcox,

who resided from the early 1900s to early 1990s. We learn that Handcox considered his labor

song-poems as a document of an era passed, reflecting the unionists’ goals, their solutions for

rectifying problems, and an expression of thoughts and ideologies.

In 2001, Solveig Robinson, along similar lines to MacGillivray, published an article

about forgotten nineteenth century labor poet, English author, and chartist,183

Eliza Cook.

Entitled “Of ‘Haymakers’ and ‘City Artisans’: The Chartist Poetics of Eliza Cook’s Songs of

181

Don MacGillivray, “The Industrial Verse of ‘Slim’ McInnis,” Labour/Le Travail 28 (Fall, 1991):

273.

182

A lot of artistic output from the early labor movement was in poem format. Poems are easily set to

music and thus can be considered labor songs. Many scholars considered early labor songsters as poets seeing

that the tunes were tunes they borrowed and not composed.

183

The word chartist comes from chartism, which is in reference to the British working-class movement

from 1838 to 1850.

Labor,” Robinson, an associate professor of English, provides a biographical look at the life of

Eliza Cook and the labor-song poems she composed in England during the nineteenth century.

Cook viewed her songs as an expression of the radical view of the working-class unionist of

her time.

American folk musician Joe Glazer is also a renown singer and composer of labor

songs. Closely tied to labor unions, he became known as ‘labor troubadour’ recording and

performing countless songs. In 2001, Glazer released his autobiography Labor’s Troubadour,

detailing his life his life as a singer and labor educator and his musical contributions to the

labor movement. Joe Glazer’s autobiography demonstrates the power that song hold in

moving towards social change as it promotes ideas and ideologies. This is an important

historical and cultural resource for labor studies.

We also see a resurgent interest in Mexican and Mexican American contributions to

labor song discography in the twenty-first century. Sarah M. Rudd, an author interested in

Latino folklore studies, provides us with an insightful look into the life of Elias Baca and his

labor song compositions surrounding the 1914 Ludlow Massacre in Colorado, which was a

catalyst for their labor movement. As we learn in this biographical, bordering sociological,

article, Baca’s utilized the ballad form corrido184

as a union tool for creating cohesion, unity,

and solidarity whilst simultaneously creating a counter-culture community through song and

disseminating information. Rudd even implies the importance of preserving song and studying

them noting that “… Baca’s song is a discourse that is critical for understanding the larger

history of the massacre, specifically how members of unique ethnic groups worked together to

184

Michael Heisley also looks at Mexican and Mexican-American use of corrido in the labor

movement in his 1993 article “Truth in Folksong: A Corridista’s View of Singing in the California Farm

Worker’s Movement.” Michael determines that the National Farm Workers’ Association movement’s outcome

was due to the use of song singing, which expressed shared experiences and meanings and created solidarity

(Heisley 1993, 245).

fight capitalist corruption and oppression.”185

Finally, Archie Green, as previously noted, has been a big proponent advocating the

academic interest in studying studies labor lore, included labor songs in addition to the

documentation and preservation of labor’s cultural output. In 2011, Sean Burns, writer,

musician, teacher and community organizer, released his book Archie Green: the Making of a

Working-Class Hero, looking at labor songs and working-class cultures biggest advocate.

Burns provides an in-depth look into Green’s life and work within folklore and labor

history.186

185

Sarah M. Rudd, “Harmonizing Corrido and Union Song at the Ludlow Massacre,” Western Folklore

61, no. 1 (Spring, 2002): 22.

186

Other important biographies to read as they pertain to labor songs and the labor movement include

Lonesome Traveler: The Life of Lee Hays by Doris Willens, The Protest Singer: An Intimate Portrait of Pete

Seeger by Alec Wilkinson, How Can I Keep from Singing?: The Ballad of Pete Seeger by King Dunaway and

Pete Seeger, “To Everything There is a Season”: Pete Seeger and the Power of Song by Allan Winkler, This

Land Is Your Land: Woody Guthrie and the Journey of an American Folk Song by Robert Santelli, Bound for

Glory by Woody Guthrie, Ramblin’ Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie by Ed Cray and Studs Terkel,

and Woody Guthrie: Writing America’s Songs by Ronald Cohen. There are an abundance of biographies about

Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, the ones listed above are only a few.

CHAPTER IV

SUMMARY, DISCUSSION, AND CONCLUSION

In 2001, the World Bank wrote that “cultural matrices contain elements of the human

collective memory – language, beliefs and rituals, myths, and values. These are represented

through a variety of art forms and are transmitted from generation to generation. Cultural

references and signs are essential to the formation of national, group, and individual identities.

The preservation of cultural heritage is central to protecting a sense of who we are – a

meaningful reference in our culturally diverse world.”187

In a rapidly diversifying world, this

is the primary reason for why songs must be preserved. Labor songs are cultural matrixes and

are at risk of being lost.

Summary and Discussion of the Literature Review Results

The purpose of this literature review was to provide an overview of the labor song

genre and the research that has already been performed, highlighting the gaps and strengths in

the literature base while simultaneously advocating an increased need in documenting and

preserving these ephemeral artifacts. This research also set out to answer whether labor

culture and the art of labor songs is dead, whether these forms are worthy subjects of

academic study in the twenty-first century, and finally to determine how we can renew

academic interest permanently.

Research regarding this genre has yielded many interesting results and highlighted

many trends and gaps however to date academic interest has been minimal, fleeting at best.

187

Serageldin, Ismail and Ephim Shluger, “Introduction,” in Historic Cities and Sacred sites: Cultural

Roots for Urban Futures, ed. Ismail Serageldin, Ephim Shluger, and Joan Martin-Brown (Washington, DC: The

World Bank, 2001), xiii.

Though referring to the work song genre, the following quote by Marek Korczynski, Michael

Pickering, and Emma Robertson can best be applied to the current state of academic research

focusing on labor songs:

We live in times in which music and work are culturally dislocated. Even

though we spend much of our lives at work, popular songs all too rarely relate

to our working lives… This separation of work from song is further reproduced

in the focus of specialized academic disciplines. Sociologists of work study

work, in which music appears as a peripheral ‘background’ factor, to be

ignored, while musicologists study music, in which work is absent. Because of

this, we know too little about music at work, in both a contemporary and a

historical sense. This constitutes a profound and disturbing gap in our

knowledge.188

As highlighted throughout this research, lack of academic interest is dominant. Many scholars

such as Charles Darling189

and Archie Green have long argued this and many labor

troubadours such as Pete Seeger and Utah Phillips have attempted to keep labor songs alive

through composing and performing. Additionally, labor educators such as Pat Wynne and

Alan Singer in addition to labor organizers are willingly using these songs as a tool for

education, as a weapon to communicate information and ideologies, and as a tool for creating

cohesion, solidarity, and collective consciousness. Yet, despite attempts to prove this genre’s

validity and importance, academic research is minimal in amount and scope.

Geographic and Subject Centricity

Most literature reviewed predominantly covers the American and British context. Very

limited research is done outside of these contexts. Furthermore, research tends to focus on the

country as whole, with a few literary works focusing on specific locations or groups. Most

188

Korczynski, Pickering, and Robertson, Rhythms of Labour, 3.

189

Darling, The New American Songster, 309.

countries have yet to perform any academic research regarding this genre and its culture.190

There were a few brief research efforts performed in Canada by Edith Fowke in the sixties and

recently there was research conducted in Australia by Mark Gregory. Some scholars examined

labor songs of minority groups such as African Americans, Mexicans, and Mexican

Americans and there has been some of collecting performed in India by folklorist Kali

Dasgupta and in Japan by Tetsuro Tanaka, a Japanese worker.191

Despite these efforts,

academic output is still limited.

Most research conducted thus far concentrates greatly on only a few topics. There is a

preponderance of research focusing on the IWW including their use of labor songs, The Little

Red Songbook, and on the life and contributions of labor songster Joe Hill. Another popular

topic of study is the Knights of Labor. Quite a bit of research has also been performed on

People’s Songs, Joe Glazer, and Archie Green.

Very little musical analysis has been performed beyond the inclusion of song text with

some contextualization. This falls in line with Timothy Lynch’s 2001 observation that labor

songs are treated “... more as a garnish than as substance,”192

even to this day.

Time Frame Centricity

This research has also highlighted that there is a predominant disposition for period

centricity. Most literature reviewed focused on the 1930s to the 1950s in addition to the

seminal years of the IWW, approximately the 1900s to the 1920s. Understandably, the 1900s

190

Due to linguistic limitations, literature reviewed had to be either in the English or French language.

Thus, my results are slightly biased and my statement may be inaccurate regarding other countries outside of the

Western world.

191

Mark Gregory, “Industrial Folk Song in Our Time,” in Heritage, Labour and the Working Classes,

ed. Laurajane Smith, Paul A. Shackel and Gary Campbell (New York: Routledge, 2011), 237-39.

192

Lynch, Strike Songs of the Depression, 8.

to the 1950s is when the labor movement first transpired and achieved its’ culminating peak,

however this focus tends to falsely insinuate that the labor movement and labor song

composing ceases to exist after the 1950s, which is far from actuality.

Similar to the age old proverbially question “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is

around to hear it, does it make a sound?” we can easily apply this to our topic of study; when a

unionist sings or composes a song and no person is around to witness it, did it actually

happen? The answer to this is yes it did happen, however since no one, academic or non-

academic, was around to hear or document it, any potential knowledge of this event or product

will perish quickly. The labor movement is continually unfolding and in today’s political and

economic climate it may undergo a renewed resurgence.193

When this renewed movement

does transpire, new labor songs will be produced and thus there will be need for

documentation.

Academic Disciplinary Considerations

History versus Sociology

Much of the literature reviewed fell predominantly into two academic disciplines:

historical and sociological. Most of the literature was historical. This literature typically chose

a decade of focus and a specific group or groups. Every book or article was narrative in

function, telling the history of that group within that specified period. The literature discussed

important labor songs of the period or event, listing the lyrics and contextualizing the songs.

There was limited musical exegesis or theorizing and intermittently there were firsthand

accounts incorporated regarding song performances or insights into the importance of song in

193

Much of the discussion occurring in the media and academia today is whether the labor movement

and labor unions are dead. A highly charged topic, there is strong belief that they are not dead, rather they are

reloading for the next big fight.

the movement.

Sociological works paid very limited attention to this genre. As demonstrated through

the works of R. Serge Denisoff and other scholars, sociological study is more concerned with

the musical outputs of social and political movements that commenced in the 1960s until

present. Sociologists instead would only briefly mention the movement in passing and

occasionally would attribute the creation of modern day protest song to it. In general, labor

songs are an undertreated topic of study among sociologists. An important question that needs

to be asked and researched is as follows: Can we learn anything more through the sociological

study of labor songs or have we learnt everything we can about them?

The Advocacy Preponderance

The advocacy for documentation and preservation was one main stream of labor song

research. This is still a prominent thread. However, despite continual advocating from notable

scholars such as A. L. Lloyd, Ewan MacColl, John Greenway, and Archie Green, revitalized

interest in labor songs tends to be brief and fleeting. This line of thought and research is very

repetitive, with scholars providing similar arguments. An excellent research question to look

into is: How can we further argue the validity of labor songs place in academia?

The Song Collecting Predisposition

As learnt, until the twenty-first century, much of the interest regarding this genre came

from folk song collectors. Numerous labor song collections and discographies were being

released up until the 1970s however, after this decade there is a significant decrease in

songbook and discography collections. The collecting and publication of these types of

resources is important to the survival of labor songs and labor culture. A greater push and

advocacy needs to be done, stressing this activity amongst labor unionists and academics to

ensure its survival.

The Education Argument

Several labor activists, lecturers, folklorists, and musicians have advocated the

importance of labor songs for educative purposes and for historical continuance. Since the

days of the Knights of Labor and the early days of the IWW, songs are regarded as an

important educative tool for teaching labor history, concepts, and for creating collective

consciousness and solidarity. Though there is not much academic writing regarding the

educative properties of such songs, participants in the early labor movement ascertained that

these were important instruments for knowledge retention and dissemination. Pat Wynne and

Alan Singer have indeed written and discussed labor songs’ importance in today's labor

climate for attracting and educating. Many acknowledge the importance of using these songs

when working towards political and social goals. More research is needed in this area.

Other Notable Trends within Academic Research

Preliminary research revealed many problems when it comes to locating substantial

bodies of literature to review. Due to fluctuating subjective definitions and categorical

boundaries, labor songs can fall under many other terms or categories. Due to this variability,

much of the literature that was originally proposed for the literature review turned out to be

irrelevant to what I define as labor songs.194

Additionally, a streamlining of terms would be

194

When searching the Internet, databases, and library catalogue for potential resources, I utilized

keywords and subject terms to search. Keywords and subjects terms used when searching the catalogue, internet,

and databases included: labor songs, labour songs, strike songs, union songs, trade union songs, working class -

songs and music, labor songs - history, labor unions, labor movement, songs, music, labor, songs of

unionization, labor movement music, labor movement songs, and work songs. This was to ensure that I could

beneficial.

Furthermore, the conducting of Internet, database, and library catalogue research

proved problematic when locating potential literary resources. Once commencing the review

of literature, I quickly discovered that many of the resources only afford a few sentences or

phrases to labor songs within the larger body of the text. Thus, much literature was irrelevant

or provided limited information and insight. Information that was incorporated into these brief

passages tended to repeat common knowledge already established in previous research. This

resulted in a very limited body of literature being reviewed.

Conclusion

As professor of sociology, William G. Roy states in his 2010 book Reds, Whites, and

Blues: Social Movements, Folk Music, and Race in the United States:

Music has an essential quality that will always make it potent: its ability to

inspire passion. The poets who embrace the transcendental spirit of music, the

throngs who venerate the latest pop icon, the worshipers who use music to

touch their own souls, and the lovers who set the stage for intimacy with music

al share a passion with the strikers who march to the tune of “Solidarity

Forever” or the picketers who join arms and sway to “We Shall Overcome.”

The passion that people have for music is not just the euphoria of hearing the

sounds wrought by genius; it is the collective bonds of shared experience.

Many people care about music and about the others with whom they share it. A

force that can ease the tedium of working together, enrich the awe of

worshiping together, and sweeten the ecstasy of making love together always

has the capacity to foster the pursuit of justice together.195

Labor songs are indeed a musical oddity in the political and music realm; however it is a rich

and powerful tool of resistance and a record of knowledge. The Knights of Labor and the

Wobblies knew exactly the importance that such a cultural device could play in their

locate the most potentially relevant literature possible.

195

Roy, Reds, Whites, and Blues, 250.

movement. They knew of the power that a simple song could hold the power that many

scholars such as Aristotle and Plato warned of so long ago and those musicians such as Pete

Seeger and Utah Phillips revered, reveled, and readily promoted. They knew the important

preservative qualities song possessed giving them identity and a voice. As Anne Feeney once

wrote, “people without songs are people without history.”196

Labor songs are extremely

important to the field of knowledge and to the political landscape, they retain legions of

invaluable information yet attention to these cultural products is still constrained.

Potential Reasoning for Academic Disinterest

Many scholars have postulated numerous reasons for labor song disinterest making it

an under-researched academic topic. The foremost reason is the ephemeral nature of these art

forms. As Charles Darling notes, protest songs including labor songs are spontaneous

expressions, written and performed in the ‘heat of the moment.’197

Symptomatic of any artistic

form devised spontaneously in a hectic environment such as the labor movement, lack of

documentation leads to lack of primary resources to study later. Unfortunately, not all labor

songs succeed to cult status such as “Solidarity Forever” or “We Shall Overcome.” These

labor songs are most at risk of perishing after the impromptu moment has transpired. Even the

countless revisions that a labor anthem such as “Solidarity Forever” undergoes can

permanently disappear if not documented. Documentation at that moment is consequential for

the survival of these cultural products. Without documentation and preservation, academics

are unable to study them.

196

Anne Feeney, “People Without Songs Are People Without History,” The Newspaper Guild, May 16,

2008, http://migrate.newsguild.org/index.php?ID=5438. 197

Darling, The New American Songster, 336.

Darling further postulates that protest songs and labor songs typically become

casualties of success and circumstantial relevance. As Darling states “most people tolerate the

intolerable too long and then, once change occurs, past grievances are forgotten. Most struggle

songs die quickly in such circumstances.”198

Therefore, once a labor dispute is resolved,

workers are thought to be content once more and thus song is no longer required, falling into

oblivion.199

He further proposes that these songs are susceptible to academic and folk collector

prejudice due to their anti-establishment stance and motifs and a preoccupation in collecting

the ‘authentic.’200

This is most evident during the McCarthy era, when any musician or

individual demonstrating interest, academic or non-academic, in countercultures deemed

communist or socialist in their ideologies were marked by the government and oppressed.201

Other scholars and folk song collectors posit that labor songs are inconsequential

oddities, a passing fad insignificant to neither history nor the cultural record.202

Their

reasoning being that the only ‘innovative’ quality of these songs is the lyrics and their

message, as most of these songs borrowed pre-existing melodies, and thus were accordingly

judged as unoriginal. They are parodies and that is all. With labor songs especially, potential

discussions of authenticity can and have arisen, which within the academic and collector

198

Darling, The New American Songster, 336.

199

John Greenway, in his paper entitled “American Folksongs of Protest” also theorizes this idea that

labor songs and protest songs loose meaning after the event for which they were written.

200

Darling, The New American Songster, 336.

201

There has been a long battle over the place that folksong holds, labor song included, within

academia. The study of folksongs first found its way into academia during the nineteenth century at Harvard via

the work of Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory Francis James Child. Over the following few decades, post-Child,

academia was rapidly adopting folksong studies and folksong collections into their studies. Another important

scholar for folksong acceptance into academia was Betram Harris Bronson who additionally facilitated the

development and the inception of ethnomusicology as a discipline. In Germany, German philosopher Johann

Gottfried von Herder ushered into academia the study of the common peoples’ vernacular culture in the late

eighteenth and nineteenth century.

202

Roy, Reds, Whites, and Blues, 72.

realm can make a potential area of study appealing or unappealing. The academic and song

collector quest for authenticity has long been a practice and problem concerning folk song

collections and the study of these collections. This authenticity debate proves to be

detrimental to labor songs. Some academics perceive labor songs as ‘in-authenticate’ due to

their parody nature. Paradoxically it is this ‘in-authenticity’ that makes them highly accessible

forms for educating and disseminating information and messages.203

Or perhaps it is a

common past attitude that still may be prevalent in today’s academic environment, that these

songs are imposed on workers as a form of ideological indoctrination, as Archie Green

theorized.204

Green even postulates that “industrial relations specialist and trade unionists see

little substance in folklore as a body of traditional material and are but dimly aware of its

variability. When folklore is recognized as a discipline, it usually takes second place to history

or another social science that is more favored.205

Whatever the reason is for a deficiency in labor song interest, it has a significant

impact on the quantity of academic literary resources available and the amount of academic

attention being afforded to researching it. Many scholars and collectors consider it a passé

genre that served its purpose long ago and is no longer relevant in today’s society; however,

this is far from being veracious. Activist circles, unions, and the labor movement of today still

utilize these educative instruments. They may have dematerialized from the airwaves of radio

and media coverage, yet they still ring out loudly on picket lines throughout the world.

203

Marian Mollin, Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working-Class History, Volume 1 A-F (New York,

NY: Routledge, 2007), 927.

204

Green, “American Labor Lore,” 55.

205

Ibid., 51.

How to Permanently Revitalize Interest in Labor Songs?

Thus, there is one smoldering question that remains unanswered: how do we

permanently revitalize interest, academic and non-academic, in the study and collecting of

labor songs? What I propose are a few suggestions that may potentially aid in the

revitalization effort, however this is a question that requires further discussion, research, and

first hand commentary and thoughts from those within academia and the labor movement.

One supposition is that musicologists, folklorists, song collectors, and other academic

disciplines need to have a serious discussion regarding folk song authenticity. In the past and

even in present there is a continual practice of concerning oneself with only ‘authentic’ folk

songs, which has had a tremendous impact on academic labor song interest. This drive for

‘authenticity’ has also affected how the folk song category is defined. Academics need to

redefine what folk songs are and begin accepting parodies as an important part of folk

heritage.206

Collectors and folklorists have had, and still have, a predisposition of excluding

parodies from their collections in addition to academic journals.207

This ties back to long

controversial discussions, beliefs, and practices amongst collectors and folklorists of

collecting the ‘authentic.’ Because the common, uneducated people create ‘authentic’ folk,

unlike parodies, which are created by the educated, collectors and folklorists discount parodies

preferring ‘authentic.’208

Labor songs are one of these affected since they are predominantly

parodies.

In addition, there needs to be a push or recruitment of what I deem as progressive or

206

Cohen, Folk Music, 64.

207

Ed Cray, The Erotic Muse: American Bawdy Songs, 2nd ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,

1992), xxxi.

208

Ed Cray, The Erotic Muse, xxxi-xxxii.

left-leaning folklorists, ethnomusicologists, musicians, and other academics209

who are

interested in industrial folk culture and songs. There have been very few since the era of Irwin

Silber, Russell Ames, John Greenway, Pete Seeger, Alan Lomax, and Archie Green.210

The

field of folklore studies, and more so ethnomusicology, has long been deficient when studying

industrial and union working culture.211

Perhaps a conference, similar to The Great Labor Arts

Exchange, sponsored by the Labor Heritage Foundation, is needed in reaching out to potential

academics, musicians, and even activists interested in studying and documenting this genre.212

Comparatively, a serious discussion and a uniting of forces between

ethnomusicologists, collectors, and trade unionists needs to occur to potentially stimulate

interest in assisting with the active documentation and preservation of their cultural products.

It is imperative when interacting and collaborating, that academics relinquish what can viewed

as a top-bottom complex and inaccessible dialect. Alternatively they need to adopt the bottom-

up approach and accessible dialect when discussing with unions the importance and their

209

Just as Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Utah Phillips, Phil Ochs, The Weavers, and The Almanacs took

up performing labor songs, a twenty-first century alternative could potentially help reinvigorate interest in this

genre. Sadly, many of these influential musicians have passed away leading to the continued demise of labor

song performance and popularity. Despite this, labor song performance still occurs within the movement with

musicians such IWW member Anne Feeney, and collecting still occurs as in the case of professor of labor studies

Tom Juravich. Some digging is needed but this tradition is still occurring in the twenty-first century. In his 2001

autobiography Labor’s Troubadour, Joe Glazer does indeed include some of these labor troubadours and

collectors who are continuing the tradition. Many unions preserve their song in their own archives.

210

James Porter, “Muddying the Crystal Spring: From Idealism and Realism to Marxism in the Study of

English and American Folk Song,” in Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music: Essays on the

History of Ethnomusicology, eds. Bruno Nettle and Philip V. Bohlman (Chicago: The University of Chicago

Press, 1991), 122.

211

Scott B. Spencer, “Chapter One: Ballad Collecting: Impetus and Impact,” in The Ballad Collectors of

North America: How Gathering Folksongs Transformed Academic Thought and American Identity, ed. Scott B.

Spencer (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc, 2012), 13.

212

This idea was stimulated by Joe Uehlein’s 2001 article “An Overture into the Future: The Music of

Social Justice.” Designed as a yearly gathering for those unionists, activists, and educators, the Great Labor Arts

Exchange was founded by the Labor Heritage Foundation. It was Joe Glazer who in June of 1979 began the

annual Great Labor Arts Exchange. In this space, individuals can share art, performances, and music. The Labor

Heritage Foundation is an important body when it comes to cultural heritage preservation and is also about

promoting and preserving working-class culture such as song and music.

importance in documentation and preservation practices. This approach and dialect also needs

to be implemented when ethnomusicologists and folklorists perform ethnographic research

and documentation. Just as MacColl, Lomax, and Lloyd did, academics need to actively

discuss the importance that cultural products, such as labor songs, have concerning the

historical record with those that continuously interact and produce them.

Just as there was a revival of folk singing and folk song study in the 1930s and 1940s,

and subsequently in the 1960s, a revival needs to occur in the twenty-first century.213

The folk

revival exposed people for the first time to folk song forms and that reinvigorated academic

and non-academic interest into these songs. This revival would need to include the

revitalization of labor song composing.

Finally, as Mark Gregory asserts in his article “Industrial Folk Song in our Time,” the

Internet is playing an important role in the dissemination and preservation of labor songs.214215

This is seen on websites such as YouTube. If we can invigorate interest from academics into

this genre, this is an excellent venture to use and build off of. As Mark Gregory writes:

The Internet is clearly changing the way all types of music reach an audience.

It offers a new kind of collaborative, shared public space, where minority

sensibility and taste can vie with the music produced and promoted by the

entertainment corporations … It seems the virtual world is becoming an

important medium for collecting and storing our intangible heritage. Industrial

folk songs are an important part of that heritage.216

Perhaps the Internet is the solution to reinvigorating interest in labor songs. Perhaps it is just a

213

Robert A. Georges and Michael Owen Jones, Folkloristics: An Introduction (Bloomington: Indiana

University Press, 1995), 82.

214

Gregory, “Industrial Folk Song,” 238.

215

Mark Gregory is the creator of the website Unionsong.com which primarily functions as a repository

of labor song collecting. This site also includes links to relevant articles and books in addition to a space where

those interested in this type of culture and their cultural products can go to locate information.

216

Gregory, “Industrial Folk Song,” 242-43.

matter of time before interest resurges and labor songs become an important topic of study,

finally, receiving due justice.

Closing Remarks: Where Do We Go From Here?

Therefore, the final question is where can the study of labor songs go from here? As

exhibited through this literature review, labor songs within academia are an understudied

genre in comparison to the study of other political music forms. This continues to raise the

question of whether labor songs and the tradition of composing and singing them are dying

out. There are conflicting beliefs in this regard both inside academia and outside academia.

For instance, Pete Seeger and Merlin Bishop believe that labor songs are disappearing

whereas Joe Glazer is defiant of this position stating that it is “...overblown and exaggerated”

and that interest comes in cycles.217

Upon performing this literature, I posit myself with the

position of Joe Glazer, and of past scholars such as Archie Green. Much research can be done

at present and in the future. Future potential routes of research includes continuing to advocate

for labor song documentation, preservation, and study, performing further research into the

reason as to why labor songs continue to be an understudied topic in academic, commencing

proper musical analysis of these songs, and furthering sociological study.

From my own past involvement in this movement, there is indeed continual and strong

interest in this genre with tried and true classics still being sung but also many newly

composed songs by participants. These songs and the tradition of performance and

composition are still well and alive, just not in the immediate radar of academia. Songs and

singing are still important to the movement as ever before. Anne Feeney notes “since the

217

Lynch, “‘Better Than a Hundred Speeches,” 117.

dawn of humanity, we have been writing and singing songs as a way to remember our history

and traditions. So many lessons that we have learned—both bitter and glorious—are

remembered in labor songs.”218

In this regard, I need to retract my original question of

whether the art of labor song composing and singing is dead and how we can revitalize

interest in labor songs. Instead, we need to query the following: How can laborists, union

activists, and the labor movement position labor songs so that they are attractive to academics

and collectors?

In closing, it seems befitting that this research should close with a quote by long time

labor song activist Archie Green, for without him and his powerful words and views, the

inspiration for this research and for the continuation in labor song preservation advocacy

would have never been ignited:

The study of any body of tradition is meaningful because of the very integrity

of the material; labor lore adds a dimension of understanding to unionism.

Wobblies perceived their songs as instruments of class struggle, as banners on

which they emblazoned their affirmation of a world to come, and they attached

no special virtue to folklore. A half-century later we see IWW pieces as: folk

songs, elements which bound persons together in a movement, symbols of

solidarity and élan. Wobbly folk songs have been radical and conservative,

practical and symbolic. Surely such multifaceted artifacts retain meaning and

utility.219

218

Feeney, “People Without Songs,” http://migrate.newsguild.org/index.php?ID=5438.

219

Green, “American Labor Lore,” 68.

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