A traveling exhibition on Michigan folk songs will be on display at the Michigan State University Museum’s Heritage Gallery until Oct. 18.
In 1938, a young folk music collector named Alan Lomax—destined to become one of the legendary folklorists of the 20th century—came from Washington, D.C., to record Michigan’s richly varied folk music traditions for the Archive of American Folk-Song at the Library of Congress. Michigan in the 1930’s was experiencing a golden age of folksong collecting, as local folklorists mined the trove of ballads remembered by aging lumbermen and Great Lakes schooner men. In addition to the ballads of the north woods singers, Lomax recorded a vibrant mix of ethnic music from Detroit to the western Upper Peninsula.
“Michigan Folksong Legacy: Grand Discoveries from the Great Depression,” brings Alan Lomax’s 1938 field trip to life through words, song lyrics, photographs and sound recordings. The exhibit explores the groundbreaking collection of Michigan folk music and what it reveals about Michigan history and culture. Ten interpretive banners explore themes, such as Alan Lomax and Michigan folksong collecting in the 1930s; the geography of Lomax’s travels; the musical culture of lumberjacks, miners and schooner men; Michigan’s ethnic diversity and its reflection in Lomax’s field recordings; and the importance of the Lomax Michigan legacy today. Each panel contains a QR code that links to related sound recordings from the Alan Lomax Collection at the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
The programs have been made possible in part by a grant from Michigan Humanities Council, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, with additional support from the MSU Museum and its Great Lakes Traditions Endowment; the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress; the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at the University of Wisconsin; the Association for Cultural Equity; and the Finlandia Foundation.