New Book ‘California Gold’ Highlights New Deal Folk Music Project
A new book from the Library of Congress offers a compelling cultural snapshot of a diverse California during the late 1930s at the height of the New Deal. “California Gold: Sidney Robertson and the WPA California Folk Music Project” draws on the career of folk music collector Sidney Robertson, who proposed and directed a New Deal initiative designed to survey musical traditions from a wide range of English-speaking and immigrant communities in Northern California.
The 15-month Works Progress Administration California Folk Music Project spawned a remarkable multi-format ethnographic field collection, housed at the American Folklife Center: 35 hours of audio recordings of performances in 12 languages — including Spanish-Californian songs from the 19th century and some of the first California gold rush songs and recent immigrant recordings ever collected — with 168 photographs, numerous technical drawings and sketches of the foreign musical instruments, correspondence, WPA field reports and field documentation.
Author Catherine Hiebert Kerst explores Robertson's distinctive and modern approach to fieldwork and examines the numerous ethnographic documentary materials she generated with WPA project staff to capture a cross-section of the music that people were actively performing in their communities. Kerst highlights some of the most notable songs, images and ephemera of the collection, capturing and contextualizing the diverse musical traditions that California English-language and immigrant communities performed during the New Deal era.
The book includes transcriptions of the song lyrics in their original languages, along with translations into English, making it possible for the first time for listeners to read and understand the lyrics. Digital recordings of the songs featured in the book are available on the Library’s website and via SoundCloud. The American Folklife Center recently released a new story map that explores the California Gold collection.
Catherine Hiebert Kerst is a folklorist, cultural researcher, and writer who worked for many years as folklife specialist and archivist in the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. Her work focuses on archival collections from the New Deal era and research on Danish American culture in the Midwest.
“California Gold: Sidney Robertson and the WPA California Folk Music Project” published April 2 by the University of California Press in association with the Library of Congress. The book is available in the Library of Congress Shop and via booksellers everywhere. 376 pp., 6 x 9, 42 b/w illustrations, $34.95
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Media Contact: Brett Zongker, bzongker@loc.gov
PR 24-033
04/03/2024
ISSN 0731-3527