Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
The Civil War of the early 1860s disrupted religious practices. Church services continued where men were available to serve as pastors, but revivals and camp meetings required resources that were reallocated to the war effort. [1]
The Holiness movement led by Phoebe Palmer revived large gatherings marked by religious fervor in 1867. [2] During the depression that followed the Panic of 1893, Holiness preachers began emphasizing premillennial connections, and urging people to save themselves by leaving their established churches for new ones that promised ways to survive the coming holocaust. The Methodist Episcopal Church South closed its facilities to them in 1894, and the Northern church disdained them. [3]
Both Methodist churches retreated into a literal interpretation of John Wesley’s method that the way to Salvation was avoiding a list of tabooed activities that included dancing. [4] In the North, church members also followed Palmer’s suggestion that one should do positive things like support missions to immigrants [5] and pagans. Since freed slaves were the target of Northern missionaries after the war, the Southern church did not endorse a proactive program.
At some time before 1894, "75% of the young men in the nation were unchurched." [6] The non-denominational YMCA had become active during the Civil War, and continued to attract young men to their programs. [7] Methodists responded with Epworth Leagues in 1889. [8]
The Leagues were hampered by the prohibition against dancing, which was extended to popular music after the introduction of ragtime that was associated with the foxtrot. E. O. Harbin published a collection of games and stunts for the southern group in 1923. [9] He followed it with the group’s first song collection in 1927. As its title implied, Paradology featured humorous songs set to nineteenth-century popular songs. [10]
Lynn Rohrbough began developing a similar program with friends at Boston University in the 1920s. His parents were such strict Methodists, he didn’t sing until he was in high school and never played a musical instrument. [11] His early publications featured games and circle dances.
He discovered international folk songs at a 1931 Recreation Institute in Michigan where they were taught by Martha Cruickshank Ramsey. [12] Ramsey then was the director of the Cleveland Settlement Music School, [13] and translator of the Czech "Came a Riding." [14] Thereafter, Rohrbough focused on such songs, and began collecting them from foreign-born students at local colleges. Ernest Amy suggested he saw it as missionary effort to combat the lure of Communism. [15]
The two Methodist churches merged in 1939, and the separate Epworth Leagues became the Methodist Youth Fellowship. The emphasis on college campuses was recruiting missionaries. [16] It also sponsored caravans of students who traveled from church to church in the summer to help with Vacation Church schools [17] and perform plays. [18] High school students were encouraged to visit retirement homes and hold car washes to raise money for foreign missions. [19]
Recreation leaders still stressed alternatives to dances and popular music. Right after World War II, Harbin hired Larry Eisenberg as the recreation specialist for the denomination’s Youth Department in Nashville. [20] His primary job was training students and adult counselors in the caravans. [21] He issued a set of folk-dance records [22] and published songbooks through CRS.
More than 40% of Sing It Again’s songs were national or international folk songs like "Came a Riding." 10% were Negro spirituals and 15% were other religious songs. The remaining third of the booklet contained graces, rounds and American songs. [23] Lift Every Voice replaced the nationals songs with more religious ones and some Christmas carols. [24]
After the Civil War, Methodists faced competition from the YMCA. During World War II a number of conservative evangelistic groups developed. Jim Rayburn used club meetings with skits and lively songs to attract high school students to Young Life. [25] His summer camps encouraged attendees to commit themselves to Christ like camp meetings had done in the past. [26]
Youth for Christ became associated with Billy Graham, who had worked for the group before he became an independent evangelist. As mentioned in the post for 15 December 2017, it used popular music to make Christianity fun.
Thomas Bergler argued Methodists could not compete. They had "rejected the idea that a conversion experience should be the foundation of the Christian life" in 1894, but found nothing to replace "a personal encounter with God." Instead, adolescents were expected to lead blameless lives of devotion to others. [27]
By 1952, it was obvious this approach wasn’t working. Eisenberg resigned, [28] and Wallace Chappell was brought from Dallas in 1953. He lasted until 1958. [29] While in Nashville, he published another edition of Sing It Again with CRS, and reissued the folk dance recordings with a new manual. [30]
His version of Sing It Again devoted 48% of its space to international and national songs. Reflecting the global membership of the church, Chappell added more songs from Africa, Asia, and Spanish or Portuguese speaking areas. The number of spirituals and religious songs remained about the same. [31]
The breach between North and South had not disappeared with unification. Bergler noted MYF programs in the 1950s "often stagnated because conservative and liberal influences neutralized each other," [32] and that the earlier emphasis on social justice was "toned down." [33]
In 1957, the Methodist Church pursued both impulses. It hired a former missionary to China who was a friend of Rohrbough’s. Ohio-born Bliss Wiant lasted four years as director of the new Ministry of Music.
Simultaneously, it turned from Rohrbough to publish songbooks edited by Dallas-born James Leisy. The first, Abingdon Song Kit, used a word associated with Rohrbough, [34] but in the Southern tradition of Harbin. It had a section of stunt songs and a number of parodies. Many of the songs were published without music. [35]
Leisy edited a second book in 1959 that was more formal: it had hard covers and tunes for every songs. It used American folk songs, and nineteenth century popular lyrics. It’s international songs were national ones like "The Campbells Are Coming." The only central European song published by Rohrbough was the Czech "Walking at Night." [36]
Neither collection contained "Kumbaya."
Notes on Performers
Harbin worked for the YMCA with the army near Memphis, Tennessee, in World War I. He returned to his home in Louisville, Kentucky, where the Southern Methodist church hired him as director of the Department of Recreation and Culture. He joined the central office of the Methodist’s Epworth youth group in 1919. [37]
Rohrbough’s family moved from West Virginia to Colorado and back. After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, Rohrbough went to Boston for graduate work. When he and his wife, Katharine Ferris Rohrbough, returned to Delaware in 1929, [38] they discovered the college had begun sponsoring dances. He turned his barn into an alternative recreation center, while he continued to publish games and songs. [39] The Boston Social-Recreation Union eventually became Cooperative Recreation Service. [40]
Eisenberg was raised in the Northern Methodist Episcopal Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. [41] He met Rohrbough in 1936 when he was 22 years old. That inspired him to "make my ‘ministry’ social recreation." [42] He later wrote books on song leading for the YMCA, [43] and spent time in Southern Rhodesia as a missionary. [44]
Chappell trained as a chemical engineer, but his grandfather had been a Southern Methodist minister. [45] He was called to the ministry by reading Lloyd C. Douglas’ novel The Robe. [46] He was sent to Nashville after working in churches in Dallas and Wichita Falls. [47] After he returned to Dallas he directed the Methodist Student Movement in Texas. [48]
Wiant is discussed in the post for 2 October 2022. Leisy is discussed in the posts for 15 December 2019 and 22 December 2019.
End Notes
1. Vinson Synan. The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997 edition. 23.
2. Palmer’s Holiness Movement was discussed in the post for 7 December 2017. For more on Holiness camp meetings, see Melvin E. Dieter. The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1996 edition.
3. Synan. 39–40.
4. John Wesley’s prohibition against dancing was discussed in post for 30 October 2018.
5. Palmer’s Five Points Mission was mentioned in the posts for 25 November 2017 and 14 July 2019.
6. Jacob Embury Price. Epworth League Workers. New York: Hunt and Eaton, 1894. 18. Cited by J. Warren Smith. "Youth Ministry in American Methodism’s Mission." Methodist History 19:224-230:July 1981. 224.
7. The Intercollegiate YMCA was organized in 1877. "By the 1890’s this dominated religious life on most American campuses, a position unchallenged until the 1914-18 War." [49]
8. Smith. 225.
9. E. O. Harbin. Phunology: A Collection of Tried and Proved Plans for Play, Fellowship, and Profit. Nashville: Cokesbury Press, 1923.
10. E. O. Harbin. Paradology, Songs of Fun and Fellowship. Nashville: Cokesbury Press, 1927.
11. Lynn Rohrbough. Letter to Larry Nial Holcomb, 17 February 1972. Cited by Holcomb. "A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service." PhD dissertation. University of Michigan, 1972. 14.
12. Holcomb. 40–41. The fifth Social Recreation Institute was held at Waldenwoods Camp from May 25 to May 31. The grounds were owned by the Michigan Council of Religious Education.
13. Sondra Wieland Howe. Women Music Educators in the United States. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2014. 192. Ramsey later worked at the Henry Street Settlement in New York.
14. Holcomb. 41. Ramsey probably heard the song in Cleveland where the Settlement Music School collected neighborhood folk songs. [50]
15. Ernest F. Amy. "Cooperative Recreation Service: A Unique Project." Midwest Folklore 12:202–260:1957. 205–206.
16. Smith. 228.
17. Smith. 229.
18. Thomas E Bergler. The Juvenilization of American Christianity. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012. 75.
19. Smith. 229.
20. Larry Eisenberg. "It’s Me, O Lord." Tulsa: Fun Books, 1992. 54.
21. Eisenberg. 56.
22. Abe Books was offering a 1947 edition of the manual that accompanied The World of Fun Series of Records for Folk Games on 29 November 2019. Discogs website listed 78-rpm records issued as M-101 through M-112 that were produced by Eisenberg for the Methodist Church. Most had two songs on a side played by Michael Herman’s Folk Orchestra. Ron Houston said Paul and Gretel Dunsing supervised the recordings. He noted they were "were responsible for introducing most of the German dances that folk dancers in the United States do today." [51] Svend Tollefsen’s name appeared on several of the records listed by Discogs.
23. Methodist Board of Education. Sing It Again!. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service. The second edition said the first edition was published in 1944. However, in the copy I purchased online, the latest copyright date for an included song was 1947. [52] Eisenberg identified himself as the editor. [53] The cover was light green with four heads: an African-American boy, a Native-American girl, a Spanish girl, and a blond white boy.
24. Larry Eisenberg. Lift Every Voice. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service. One song in the collection was copyrighted in 1948. [54]
25. "Young Life History and Vision for the Future." Young Life website. Young Life was mentioned briefly in the post for 17 December 2017. Jeff McSwain, a Young Life leader who was expelled for heresy, said its method became "preach like Wesley and believe like Calvin." That is, they used the meetings and camps to create a friendly atmosphere, then preached original sin and the damnation of individuals. [55] Rayburn was a Presbyterian, [56] and this was simply a modernization of the methods introduced by Finney, mentioned in the posts for 12 August 2017 and 3 September 2017.
26. "Is Young Life a Cult?" Christian Agnostic website. 4 May 2012.
27. Bergler. 73–74.
28. Eisenberg. 62.
29. Notice of services at Plymouth Park Baptist Church. Irving [Texas] Daily News, 20 November 1970. 5.
30. Irving Daily News. Only the manual was listed in library catalogs. [57] The lead author, R. Harold Hipps, was active in the National Recreation and Park Association and moved to Nashville in 1963 to work as Director of Leisure/Recreation Ministries. He retired from the church’s Board of Education in 1985. [58]
WorldCat listed a 1970 package of World of Fun with seven cassette-tape recordings issued by The United Methodist Church.
Amazon offered World of Fun as a manual and three compact discs issued by Melody House on 29 November 2019.
Discogs listed two versions of record M-108, one produced by Larry Eisenberg and one produced by Wally Chappell. Their content was the same.
31. The Methodist Church. Sing it Again. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1958 revised edition. The front cover was teal green with a music staff set vertically to resemble the neck of a guitar. The four heads were on the back cover.
32. Bergler. 79.
33. Bergler. 76.
34. Rohrbough’s first publications were loose-leaf binders, Handy I and Handy II. Each was composed of kits. "Kit Y" of Handy II contained folk songs. [59] Rohrbough reused the Sing it Again title sometime after 1962. It had slightly fewer religious songs than Chappell’s edition; it did have "Kum Ba Yah." [60]
35. James F. Leisy. Abingdon Song Kit. New York: Abingdon Press, 1957.
36. James F. Leisy. Let’s All Sing. New York: Abingdon Press, 1959. "Walking at Night" was collected from Stella Marek Cushing, the daughter of Czech immigrants. She sang, played violin, and gave dance demonstrations in New Jersey. [61] Augustus D. Zanzig first published it in Singing America. Boston: C. C. Birchard, 1940.
37. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 60.
38. Holcomb. On childhood, 13–14; on Ohio Wesleyan, 16–17; on Boston University, 19; on move to Delaware, 61.
39. Nancy Oldfield. "Rohrbough 22 Provides Novel Recreation Center." The Ohio Wesleyan Transcript. 14 March 1939. 1, 4.
40. Holcomb. Chapter 3, The Social-Recreation Union.
41. Eisenberg. 44, 48.
42. Eisenberg. 51–52.
43. He and his wife, Helen Eisenberg, wrote four books for the YMCA between 1953 and 1956. How To Lead Group Singing was issued by the Association Press in 1955.
44. Eisenberg. 64–71.
45. Wallace Chappell. The Call of God: Selected Sermons. Bloomington, Indiana: Author House, 2011. vi.
46. Lloyd C. Douglas. The Robe. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1942.
47. "Wallace Chappell, Longtime Dallas Methodist Minister, Dies at 96." The Dallas Morning News. 11 October 2016.
48. Irving Daily News.
49. David C. Belden. "The Origins and Development of the Oxford Group (Moral Re-Armament)." D. Phil Thesis. St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University, January 1976. 38.
50. Martha Ramsey and Duane Ramsey. "The Settlement Music School." Music Supervisors’ Journal 19:21-23, 34:May 1933. 34. Cited by Anna Hamilton. "Survey of Outreach Offerings and Practices in Piano Areas of Community Music Schools Affiliated with Colleges and Universities Accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music." PhD dissertation. University of South Carolina, 2012. 22.
51. Ron Houston. "Paul and Gretel Dunsing." Society of Folk Dance Historians website. 2018.
52. "Round-Up Lullaby." Words by Badger Clark. Music by Clifton W. Barnes. Copyrighted 1947 by Ralph Lyman. The poem originally appeared in Sun and Saddle Leather. Boston: Gorham Press, 1915. Page 13 in first edition of Sing It Again!
53. Eisenberg. 62.
54. "Ancient Castle." Japanese folk song arranged by Bliss Wiant; words by Ocutt Sanders. Copyright by Cooperative Recreation Service, 1948. Page 93 in Lift.
55. Jeff McSwain. "Young Life and the Gospel of All-Along Belonging." The Other Journal website. 6 January 2010.
56. Wikipedia. "Young Life."
57. R. Harold Hipps and Wallace Chappell. A World of Fun: Manual of Instructions for World of Fun Records. Nashville: The Methodist Publishing House, 1959.
58. "R. Harold Hipps." The [Nashville] Tennessean. 12 February 2014.
59. Holcomb. 34.
60. Sing it Again. Delaware Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service. The most recent copyright was for "Silvery Star," an Italian song translated by by Max Exner and arranged by Augustus D. Zanzig in 1962, on page 48. The cover was medium green, with the title in a blue box. Three heads were used on the inside front cover.
61. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 57. The primary source was Dick Oakes. "Stella Marek Cushing." Phantom Ranch website.
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