Catalog Record:
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Library's online catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically therein.
Gift; Sidney Robertson Cowell; 1977-1994.
The Library of Congress has enjoyed a long and mutually supportive relationship with Henry and Sidney Robertson Cowell that began in the 1930s and continued until Sidney’s death in 1995. Their donations to the Library have allowed researchers and scholars to study most of Henry Cowell’s music manuscripts, view materials that provide an exhaustive account of Sidney’s life and work, and better understand the Cowells’ professional contributions and personal lives.
Sidney Robertson first visited the Archive of American Folk Song, then housed in the Library’s Music Division, in 1936, to discuss some points about American folksong. Her interest led to meetings with Charles Seeger, who hired her to collect and record folk music for the New Deal’s Resettlement Administration. Through her work with Seeger, her ties to various Archive heads, and with Harold Spivacke, chief of the Music Division, were strengthened. Much of the fieldwork done at the Resettlement Administration is now part of the Library’s collections.
The Work Projects Administration California Folk Music Project, conceived and managed by Sidney Robertson Cowell, was jointly sponsored by the Music Department of the University of California, Berkeley and the Library of Congress. Harold Spivacke provided important support by supplying Cowell with blank acetate discs on which to record--with the provision that these recordings be given to the Library—and offering cataloging guidance. The original field recordings became part of the Archive of American Folk Song in 1939 and 1940. These recordings and other materials from the project form the core of the American Folklife Center's
Henry Cowell began depositing his music manuscripts with the Library in the 1940s. Through Henry and Sidney’s generosity, the Music Division would ultimately hold the majority of Henry Cowell’s holograph music manuscripts, which number about 1100 items and date from 1907 to 1965, the year he died. The other repository holding any sizable number of these is the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, which also holds most of Henry Cowell’s personal papers. His music manuscripts at the Library of Congress have been cataloged under the Library of Congress call number ML96.C823, with the exception of works commissioned by various Music Division foundations and a group of folksongs, with accompaniments in Henry Cowell’s hand, located in the Sidney Robertson Cowell Collection. Additional material relating to Henry Cowell, including correspondence and some writings, can be found in numerous collections throughout the Music Division.
Sidney kept in close contact with former Library of Congress Music Division chiefs Harold Spivacke and Don Leavitt, and others within the division, throughout the remainder of her life. Not only did she oversee the Henry Cowell manuscript donations, but she regularly made donations of her own personal and professional papers which comprise the Sidney Robertson Cowell Collection in the Library of Congress and are described in this finding aid.
No further accruals are expected.
The Sidney Robertson Cowell Collection was processed and a finding aid made by Nancy Seeger in 2009. The finding aid was coded for EAD by Nancy Seeger in 2010.
The other major repository of Sidney Robertson Cowell material is the Music Library of the University of California, Berkeley.
The New York Public Library holds the Henry Cowell Papers and additional materials related to Sidney Robertson Cowell.
The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections housed in the Smithsonian Institution's Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage contains duplicates of some of Cowell's Ireland recordings.
Additional material relating to Sidney Robertson Cowell is in the following collections in the Library of Congress Music Division: Charles Seeger Collection,
The American Folklife Center (AFC) of the Library of Congress holds significant primary source material by and relating to Sidney Robertson Cowell, primarily sound recordings accessioned into AFC’s Archive beginning in 1937. The Resettlement Administration Recordings Collection contains 165 field recordings of instrumentals and songs recorded in 1936 and 1937, in various states, by Cowell and others for the Resettlement Administration. It also includes her 1937 recordings of performances at the Fourth Annual National Folk Festival, in Chicago. The W.P.A. California Folk Music Project Collection in the AFC spans 1936 to 1991 and contains 239 discs that Cowell gave to the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library in 1939 and 1940. This collection surveys traditional music and folk song of many ethnic groups in northern California and also includes publicity materials, correspondence, song texts/transcriptions, notes on songs, interview forms, field reports, 170 photographic prints, and twenty-four drawings of instruments. A substantial portion is available online (see Online Content below). The recordings that Cowell made of Carrie Grover from Gorham, Maine also reside in the AFC. These recordings of folk songs, ballads and popular songs were recorded in Teaneck, New Jersey, in 1941.
The AFC has several additional collections related to Sidney Robertson Cowell. There are twelve tapes of folk music recorded in Ireland, Iran, Pakistan and Malaya in the mid-1950s accompanied by additional documentation. The Sidney Robertson Cowell Collection of Writings and Reminiscences contains her recollections about doing fieldwork and folksong collecting. It ranges from the 1950s to 1990 and includes additional biographical, music, and research material. Eight tapes of folksongs recorded by Maud Karpeles and Cowell in North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia in 1950 reside in the AFC along with accompanying documentation. AFC holds fourteen tapes of interviews and music recorded from 1952 to 1956 in Bangladesh, California, Canada, Iran, Ireland, Massachusetts, Montana, New York, North Carolina, Nova Scotia, Pakistan, Wisconsin and Wyoming. This collection also includes correspondence, journals, logs, notes, postcards, transcriptions, and articles. In addition, there is one tape of Wisconsin fiddle tunes originally recorded on disc in 1937 and one disc containing songs sung by Ford-Walker family members recorded in Wisconsin in 1937.
Please contact the Folklife Reading Room, Library of Congress at folklife@loc.gov for more information about these Sidney Robertson Cowell collections.
Materials from the Sidney Robertson Cowell Collection are governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.) and other applicable international copyright laws.
The Sidney Robertson Cowell Collection is open to research. Researchers are advised to contact the Music Division prior to visiting in order to determine whether the desired materials will be available at that time.
Certain restrictions to use or copying of materials may apply.
The American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress has digitized and made available a large portion of their W.P.A. California Folk Music Project Collection.
The Traditional Music and Spoken Word Catalog from the American Folklife Center
The
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: [item, date, container number], Sidney Robertson Cowell Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The Sidney Robertson Cowell Collection, numbering more than 5,000 items, contains material from her work as a folk song collector and ethnographer; voluminous correspondence to her family, friends and colleagues--many of whom are prominent figures in 20th century American music--published and unpublished essays, reviews, and articles; biographical narratives; instructional materials from various stints as a music teacher, and an extensive subject file. The collection contains a great amount of information on Sidney Robertson Cowell’s husband, modernist composer Henry Cowell, including material pertaining to their marriage, writings by and about him, material dealing with his professional relationships with other notables in the music world, and documents concerning his musical legacy, which was carefully nurtured by Sidney Robertson Cowell.
A large part of the collection deals with two major aspects of Cowell’s life: her innovative and groundbreaking work as an ethnographer and folksong and ethnic music collector and recordist; as well as her role as husband Henry Cowell’s personal and professional partner and proprietor of his musical legacy. The extensive fieldwork materials she collected exemplify Sidney Robertson Cowell’s keen insights into the people and music she encountered and offer a behind-the-scenes look at the history and process of her work. The collection is also rich in material that details Cowell’s complex life with Henry Cowell, whom she married in 1941. There is material dealing with their personal lives as well as extensive material related to their writing and travelling collaborations and business and publishing ventures. After Henry Cowell’s death in 1965, Sidney took charge of his personal and professional reputation, which is reflected in correspondence and other material from the 1970s through the 1990s. The collection consists of nine series: Correspondence, Materials Relating to Fieldwork, Materials Relating to Henry Cowell, Biographical Material, Writings and Publications, Subject Files, Photographs, Teaching Materials, and Songs and Song Books.
The Correspondence series is divided into two subseries: Personal (non-family) and Professional Correspondence; and Family Correspondence. The first series covers a myriad of topics with a primary focus on professional matters. Correspondence with Suzanne Bloch, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Lukas Foss, Alfred Frankenstein, Lou Harrison, Colin McPhee, Ned Rorem, and Virgil Thomson concerns professional projects and interests, and offers personal news and viewpoints. Issues relating to Henry Cowell, such as music publishing, discographical entries, and biographical topics are the focus of extensive correspondence with H. Wiley Hitchcock, John Kirkpatrick, William Lichtenwanger, Bruce Saylor, and others. A large amount of the Lichtenwanger and Hitchcock correspondence deals with the catalog of Henry Cowell’s music, which was compiled by Lichtenwanger and published by Hitchcock’s Institute for the Study of American Music. Richard Franko Goldman, Nicolas Slonimsky, and Hugo Weisgall are also frequent correspondents. Sidney Robertson Cowell maintained relationships with many notables in the folk music field, including Bertrand Bronson, Sam Eskin, Charles, Peggy and Pete Seeger, and Margaret Valiant, all of whom are represented in this subseries.
The second subseries, Family Correspondence, contains correspondence with several family members, including Cowell’s parents Charles Hawkins and Mabel “Muz” Morrison Hawkins; husbands Henry Cowell and Kenneth Robertson; siblings Charles Ernest Hawkins, John “Bud” Hawkins, Anne Cotton, and Jeane Mibach; and Henry Cowell’s stepmother, Olive Cowell. Letters to her family, particularly to her mother, shed light on Cowell’s early life during the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s. Extensive correspondence with her sister Anne captures Cowell’s thoughts and feelings on a host of personal and professional topics. In addition, these letters contain a great deal of information about relatives and ancestors from both the Hawkins and Morrison sides of her family.
The Materials Relating to Fieldwork series deals with Cowell’s major folksong and ethnographic music collecting and recording projects. Contained therein are not only finished reports, articles, and song lists derived from these activities, but also handwritten diaries, fieldnotes, letters and draft reports that reveal personal and procedural details about the projects. The series is divided into nine sections. The Resettlement Administration Field Trip to North Carolina with John Lomax section chronicles Cowell’s summer 1936 trip to Western North Carolina with John Lomax and Frank Brown. Cowell was hired in 1936 as Charles Seeger’s music assistant in the Special Skills Division of the Resettlement Administration (RA). Although she had already done some field collecting, Seeger wanted her to become better acquainted with the recording equipment and to benefit from Lomax and Brown’s field experience. The material includes her fieldnotes, correspondence that provides context and background information on the trip, and the final report for the RA.
The Resettlement Administration (RA) section contains extensive fieldnotes, correspondence, memoranda and reports for the remaining field trips that Cowell made during her tenure at the RA, beginning around the autumn of 1936, through 1937, when the Resettlement Administration was reorganized under the Farm Security Administration (FSA). The RA was a New Deal program designed to provide economic aid to struggling rural, and to a lesser extent urban, families during the Great Depression. Cowell explained in a letter that the RA was using the native music of these rural communities as an agent of socialization and cooperation. She recorded extensively in the Ozarks, the Appalachians, and the Great Lakes Region during her time with the RA. Under the FSA, she served as regional representative and relief community manager in the Great Lakes Region for much of 1937. The material included in this subseries reveals Cowell’s sensitive and perceptive prose that offers insights into the communities in which she was living and working. The correspondence, memos, and reports to her RA colleagues, including Adrian Dornbush, Robert Van Hyning, and Grete Franke, illuminate behind-the-scenes problems, issues, and relationships within the RA on almost a weekly basis.
The California Folk Music Project (CFMP) section contains materials relating to Cowell’s most innovative and ambitious project. The CFMP was a New Deal collecting project that Cowell conceived of and managed for the Northern California Work Projects Administration. It was one of the earliest major attempts at documenting traditional and ethnic music in a specific region. Material in the section includes the final report for the project, in addition to notes and an outline for a book on folksong in California that she never completed. Extensive lists of recordings she made of traditional English-language, Western European, and Hispanic ethnic music contain date and place of recording, performer name, and annotations by Cowell.
The Carrie Grover from Gorham, Maine section contains a list of songs by Grover that Cowell recorded in 1941. The Appalachian Trip with Maud Karpeles section contains Cowell’s handwritten diary and notes from the 1950 trip to Appalachia during which she and Karpeles re-recorded performers originally recorded from 1916 to 1918 by English folksong collector Cecil Sharp. A list of the recordings also is included.
The Wolf River Songs and Ford-Walker Family section documents Cowell’s ongoing work with the music-making Ford-Walker family of Wisconsin. The material contains notes and drafts for the Folkways publication
The Songs from Cape Breton Island section contains handwritten drafts and annotated song sheets and transcriptions for her Folkways publication
The Songs of Aran section contains annotated song sheets and transcriptions from Cowell’s 1955 recording trip to Inishmore, the largest of Ireland’s Aran Islands. Cowell used this material in producing
In the mid-1950s, Sidney Robertson Cowell and her husband Henry Cowell travelled extensively in Asia and the Middle East for both the State Department and the Rockefeller Foundation to lecture, assess grant requests, and report on the status of classical and traditional music in various countries. Sidney Robertson Cowell took the opportunity to record many of the traditional musicians she encountered during these trips. The Travels in Asia and Middle East section contains notes, drafts, and finished reports written by Cowell detailing their activities and describing an area’s music and culture.
The Materials Relating to Henry Cowell series consists of a variety of materials, including correspondence, narratives, articles, and music holographs that are either by or about Henry Cowell. Henry Cowell permeates practically the entire Sidney Robertson Cowell Collection, but it was deemed necessary to create a separate series to accommodate the large amount of material related directly to him. It is divided into three sections. The Miscellaneous Material by and about Henry Cowell section contains narratives written by Sidney Robertson Cowell in later years about various aspects of Cowell’s life and work. In addition, there are essays and articles on music written by Henry Cowell, items relating to his discography, as well as commemorative articles on Cowell written for various occasions. This section also includes materials related to his two stepmothers. The “Henry by Sidney” section contains draft material for a biography of her husband that Sidney Robertson Cowell never completed. In her later years, she recorded onto tape personal and professional reminiscences about Henry Cowell and their life together which she planned to turn into a book. The transcriptions of those tapes are included here with Sidney Robertson Cowell’s notes and annotations. The Music by Henry Cowell section contains a small group of photocopies of musical holographs by Henry Cowell that are held in the Library of Congress.
Of particular interest in the Biographical Material series are narratives and essays written by Sidney Robertson Cowell in the 1970s that offer a revealing look back on her career and life with Henry Cowell. The series also contains a travel diary, notes, anecdotes, and random thoughts about her work, travels, and life in general. This series also includes clippings and articles about Cowell and reviews of her work, in addition to detailed family histories and documents relating to her ancestors from the Morrison-Tonnelle (mother’s side) and Hawkins (father’s side) families. One can also find her diploma, passports, and drawings in this series.
The Writings and Publications series offers a rich trove of Cowell’s writings, many in various stages of creation, from handwritten notes and annotated drafts to finished published products. Some items contain annotations that Robertson Cowell made long after the item was published. The series is divided into three sections. The Published Writings by Sidney Robertson Cowell section consists of her major publications as well as reviews, articles and obituaries of Percy Grainger and Charles Seeger. It also contains three items that were attributed to Henry Cowell, but were actually written by Sidney. Of particular interest in the Unpublished Writings by Sidney Robertson Cowell section is the part containing her Narratives on Collecting, which are revealing and lively accounts of past collecting and recording activities written in the 1980s and 1990s. The Drafts of Reviews, Papers, and Reports part contains drafts for many of the pieces found in the Published Writings section. Of particular interest are several drafts for an unfinished piece called “Three Generations of Folk Singers in the United States” and a draft for an article entitled “Music in Ghana” that was never published. The Miscellaneous part includes items such as project proposals, notes from courses, and fiction and poetry. The third section, Publications Written by Others, contains books, journals, and reports dealing primarily with folklore and traditional and world music. Explanatory narratives by Sidney Robertson Cowell accompany Midsummernight by Carl Wilhelmson and her Farsi primer.
The Subject Files series contains an assortment of materials related to people, organizations, and topics that figured prominently in Cowell’s personal and professional life. There is a significant amount of material (correspondence, articles, narratives and clippings) related to Charles Ives, about whom Sidney and Henry Cowell wrote a highly-respected book entitled
The Photographs series consists mostly of black and white photographs of Sidney Robertson Cowell; Henry Cowell; their families; and various friends, colleagues, and associates. Photography was Sidney Robertson Cowell’s avocation and she took many of the photographs found in this series. Folk and ethnic music performers that Cowell recorded throughout her career are the subjects of numerous photographs. Photographs of the offices and staff of the California Folk Music Project are included here as well as photographs of nature scenes, landscapes, abstracts, and animals taken by Sidney Robertson Cowell.
The Teaching Materials series contains notes, outlines, song sheets, reports, and narratives related to Cowell’s music classes for children and for a course on rhythm that she taught at the New School.
The Songs and Song Books series contains lists and books of songs that were collected by Sidney Robertson Cowell throughout her career. Of particular interest is a collection of folk songs with piano settings by Henry Cowell. This series also contains a collection of protest and propaganda songs from the 1930s and 1940s and a collection of songs sung by Cinderella Kinnaird, whom Cowell recorded.
The Sidney Robertson Cowell Collection is organized into nine series:
Correspondence to and from friends, acquaintances, colleagues, associates, businesses and organizations relating to personal and professional activities. May include material attached to letters. Correspondents who are identified by first name only, or are unidentified, are placed at the end of the subseries. Correspondence from a particular individual or organization to Cowell are filed together with items from Cowell to that person or organization.
Arranged alphabetically by name of person or organization and chronologically therein.
Letters about Colin McPhee. Correspondents include Margaret Mead, Oliver Daniel and Mantle Hood.
Correspondence to and from husbands, parents, siblings, in-laws and other family members relating to personal and professional activities. May include material attached to letters. Family members identified by first name only and correspondence addressed to “family” are placed at the end of the subseries. Correspondence both to and from Cowell and a particular individual are usually filed together within each folder. It will be noted when correspondence is separated.
Arranged alphabetically by name of person and chronologically therein.
SRC to AC.
AC to SRC.
AC to SRC.
AC to SRC.
SRC to HC.
SRC to OC.
SRC to OC.
SRC to OC.
OC to SRC.
OC to SRC.
SRC to CAH.
CAH to SRC and other writings by CAH.
SRC to MMH.
SRC to MMH.
SRC to MMH.
SRC to MMH.
SRC to MMH.
SRC to MMH.
SRC to MMH.
SRC to MMH.
SRC to MMH.
SRC to MMH.
MMH to her husband and to SRC.
To MMH from others.
In addition to letters from Ida Insley to SRC, this material contains letters from others relating to Ida Insley’s death and her last will and testament.
Materials related to Cowell’s field recording trips, from various phases of her career, including reports, fieldnotes, correspondence, memoranda, training documents, lists of songs and recordings, song pamphlets, song transcriptions, articles, drafts of reports and handwritten notes.
Arranged chronologically.
Final report, fieldnotes, annotated song list, correspondence.
Written by Sidney Robertson with John Lomax and Frank Brown.
Correspondence, memoranda, field reports, fieldnotes, training documents, song lists, song pamphlets, articles.
Correspondence, memoranda, field reports and notes are arranged chronologically.
Music Memorandum, no. 12. Includes drafts.
No. 8 is missing.
Final report, notes, lists of songs, correspondence.
Includes performers and may include dates and places and annotations by Sidney Robertson Cowell. Includes list of Calif. recordings for the Sidney Robertson Cowell Duplication Project at the Library of Congress.
List of recordings.
Handwritten diary, notes, list of recordings.
Drafts of article, notes, song sheets, lists of songs.
From Library of Congress. List of songs with names of performer, date and place of recording.
Drafts of article, song sheets, song transcriptions, list of recordings, correspondence, article, program sheets.
Song sheets and transcriptions with annotations.
Includes sheets of recordings from the Sidney Robertson Cowell Duplication Project at the Library of Congress.
Final reports, drafts, anecdotes, notes.
Arranged alphabetically by country.
Includes list of recordings from the Sidney Robertson Cowell Duplication Project at the Library of Congress.
Personal narratives by Sidney Robertson Cowell on Henry Cowell's life and work; articles and essays by and about Henry Cowell; discographical material; and photocopies of a selection of Henry Cowell holographs with annotations by Sidney Robertson Cowell.
Personal narratives by Sidney Robertson Cowell, discographical material, information about family, articles and essays by Henry Cowell, articles about Henry Cowell, clippings.
Includes SRC’s addenda to
A narrative about Henry Cowell’s first stepmother.
Photocopy of essay from
Reprint from
Handwritten comment by SRC: “mostly by SRC.”
Draft material for a biography that Sidney Robertson Cowell was planning to write about Henry Cowell called “Henry by Sidney.”
Photocopies of a selection of Henry Cowell holographs that are held in the Library of Congress Music Division. Many contain annotations by Sidney Robertson Cowell.
Arranged alphabetically by title.
Lichtenwanger no. 954.
Lichtenwanger no. 526.
Lichtenwanger no. 956.
Lichtenwanger no. 230.
Lichtenwanger no. 962.
Lichtenwanger no. 312.
A transcription of Chi Papa (The Bird) by Henry Cowell from SRC’s tape made circa 1950.
Lichtenwanger no. 217.
Lichtenwanger no. 953.
Lichtenwanger no. 953.
Lichtenwanger no. 258.
Lichtenwanger no. 955
Autobiographical narratives and essays; anecdotes, personal thoughts and musings on various subjects; articles, clippings and reviews; family histories and documents; drawings; diary; passport; diploma from Stanford University.
Published articles, essays, program notes, and reviews by Sidney Robertson Cowell; unpublished writings by Sidney Robertson Cowell, including drafts, anecdotes, personal narratives, project proposals, class notes, fiction and poetry; also includes books, journals, and reports written by others.
Articles, essays, program notes, reviews, and obituaries.
Arranged chronologically.
Narratives, drafts of talks, notes, anecdotes, letters.
Includes letter from the editor, song sheets and other notes.
This was ghost-written for Henry Cowell.
Project proposals, class notes, fiction and poetry.
Includes correspondence, notes and draft reports.
In French.
A graduate English course thesis.
Books, journals, and reports. Two items are accompanied by explanatory narratives written by SRC.
Correspondence, narratives, planning documents, programs, articles, clippings, and notes relating to individuals, organizations, and personal and professional interests and activities.
Arranged alphabetically by name of person, organization, or topic.
Correspondence, SRC narratives, and a program.
Materials relating to 75th birthday celebration for Cage on the Westdeutscher Rundfunk Koln in Cologne, Germany.
Correspondence, program, planning materials.
Correspondence, program, notes, planning documents, clippings related to Henry Cowell’s trip to Japan and Iran.
Obituaries and other materials relating to friends and colleagues of SRC.
Obituaries and other materials relating to friends and colleagues of SRC.
Materials relating to organizations receiving Cowell materials, including Library of Congress, New York State Historical Association and State University College at New Paltz.
Correspondence, programs, clippings, notes.
Mostly correspondence between SRC and others regarding efforts to assist an ailing Mr. Hayes.
Correspondence to various people in effort to reach Ms. Hulme.
Conference programs.
Correspondence, narratives, articles, clippings.
Letter from Mr. Ross and two works that he wrote: “The Sub-Literary Tradition in Scottish Gaelic Song-Poetry” and ”A Classification of Gaelic Folksong.”
Chiefly black and white photographs of Sidney Robertson Cowell; Henry Cowell; their families; friends and colleagues in the music world; and musicians and performers that Sidney Robertson Cowell recorded throughout her career. Many of the photographs in this series were taken by Sidney Robertson Cowell. Includes artistic photographs taken by Cowell as well as photographs of the California Folk Music Project staff and offices.
Notables from the music world; performers that SRC recorded; and others.
Photographs taken by Sidney Robertson Cowell.
All taken by SRC, except for one of SRC as a baby.
Notes, outlines, song sheets, reports and narratives relating to courses Cowell taught.
Arranged chronologically.
Notes, outlines, song sheets, curriculum information for teaching children music and an outline for a play.
Training materials, including notes, reports, narratives.
Some songs set to music, others include lyrics only. Includes single song sheets, sheets with multiple songs, and the following groupings: songs with piano settings by Henry Cowell, protest and propaganda songs of the 1930s-1940s, and songs collected from Cinderella Kinnaird.
Single song sheets are arranged alphabetically by song title. Protest and propaganda songs and Kinnaird’s songs are arranged alphabetically by song title within those groupings.