Ballads, English -- Appalachian Region.

Abstract

This collection consists of both handwritten/typewritten and published texts and music notations dating primarily from the period 1911-1950. It includes ballads, shape-note and other hymns, rhymes, spirituals, shanties, labor, and commercial country music songs. Also included are related magazine articles, newspaper clippings, bibliographies, excerpts from music faculty annual reports, and correspondence between Berea College staff and music researchers.

Abstract Raine was born (1869) in Scotland and immigrated to the United States with his family when he was 12 years old.  The family lived in West Virginia and, later, in Arkansas. Raine was educated at Oberlin College and Union Seminary in New York.  Ordained to the ministry, he held pastorates in Ohio and New York. Married twice, first to Harriett May (who died one year after their marriage) and to Clara Martz.  Raine had six children. In 1906, Raine became an English instructor at Berea...

Abstract John F. Smith taught in the Berea College Normal School.  As part of his Composition and Rhetoric course, Smith asked students to write down the names of banjo and fiddle songs and tunes known to them in their home districts of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee.  The results are a large, varied body of material that includes ballads, songs, fiddle and banjo tunes, and games.  Several students also included lists of musical instruments present in their home communities and descriptions of music...

Abstract Born in 1892 in Paducah, Kentucky, Ms. Wheeler was the daughter of a well-known attorney.  It was part of a young society woman's education to be trained in music, but Ms. Wheeler took this training and made it her life’s work.  She is best known for two books she authored: Kentucky Mountain Folk Songs (1937) and Roustabout Songs: A Collection of Ohio River Valley...