Northland Recreation Laboratory

Topic: CRS Version
Four National Social Recreation Institutes were held at Waldenwoods.  The last, in 1934, occurred during the worst of the Depression.  It was decided that, since many were traveling long distances, it was time to hold regional meetings. [1]

Two groups organized local workshops in 1935 that lasted more than a few years.  DeWitt Ellinwood and Ralph Kofoed held the first Leisurecraft and Counseling Camp in Illinois in 1935, with the assistance of David Lindstrom. [2]  The first two were Methodist ministers, who had attended Waldenwoods. [3]  Lindstrom was a rural sociologist for the University of Illinois Agricultural College.  Not much has been written about the training session, but in 1949 it attracted a hundred participants, [4] and still was active in 1987. [5]

The other was begun by Fred Smith, who was the campus minister for the Wesley Foundation in Minneapolis. [6]  Like Lynn Rohrbough, [7] he had been an undergraduate in the years when couples dancing was forbidden.  He entered Boston University the same year as Rohrbough and been involved with the Social Recreation Union. [8]

In planning the one at Camp Ihduhapi, Smith contacted Henry Lewis, who had attended Waldenwoods; William J. Bell, a recreational consultant for the area Presbyterian church, [9] and Horace Jones, a 4-H leader in South Dakota. [10]  He also asked Marietta Strandskov to teach folk dancing. [11]

Strandskov was from Tyler, Minnesota, where a Danish Folk School had been established in 1888 by followers of Frederick Grundtvig. [12]  He led a ritual-based revival within the Lutheran Church, and publicized early Danish culture, including Beowulf, [13]  The first leader was Hans Jorgen Pedersen, [14] who had founded the Danish folk school in Michigan mentioned in the post for 19 September 2021. [15]

The Danish group introduced handcrafts as well as dancing.  More important to Rohrbough was its interest in music.  Strandskov brought Chris Jespersen, who was compiling a song collection for the Danish American Young People’s League. [16]

Rohrbough did not attend the first meeting, [17] but did the one in 1936 [18] when the name was changed to Northland Recreation Laboratory. [19]  He met Jespersen, [20] who allowed him to use “Han Skal Leve” in his Joyful Singing collection. [21]

He also met Jane Keen, who had been recruited by Jones.  Northland Rec wanted everyone who attended to contribute something.  At the first meeting:

“E. O. Harbin [22] was teaching many new folk songs, which everybody wanted included in the notebook.  Chris Jespersen wrote down the melodies and Jane Keen began laboriously making very artistic mimeograph stencils with words and music.” [23]

Rohrbough hired her on a piece-work basis to produce plates for him.  This allowed him to published collections of circle dances that were accompanied by singing.  He published Singing Games of the South in 1938, [24] and two more in 1939. [25]  Her services also made it possible for him to publish his first song Kit in 1938, the Joyful Singing mentioned above and in the post for 19 September 2021.

While Rohrbough made some useful contacts at Northland, Smith recalled that his contribution was negative.  Even though the Lab already had “adopted the philosophy which he expounded and were using materials from his company,” Rohrbough “was critical of much material being used . . . throughout the country.” [26]

By then, Rohrbough had begun another, rival National Cooperative Recreation School in 1936 with his business partner, Carl Hutchinson. [27]  Even so, he used his Northland contacts to hold the second session at Grand View College, [28] the sponsor of Jespersen’s Danish song project.

Recreation leadership workshops had become, if not big business, a competitive business.  The National Recreation Association held a National Recreation School in New York through 1935, [29] and replaced it with one-month institutes that trained 3,800 in 1936. [30]  Augustus Zanzig led meetings in New York and Burlington, Vermont. [31]

Zanzig did not come cheap.  Northland had to pay $15, and recouped some of its costs by booking him elsewhere.  Bob Nolte recalled:

“he was a masterful leader.  He stood up as he played the piano and walked away fro it and back to it as he led.  He seemed to have a store house of new songs. [. . .]  He taught us how to teach and he developed and tested his ideas and theories as he worked with us – a real recreation laboratory.” [32]

One reason he knew so many songs is that he actively was collecting them.  In 1940, the National Recreation Association published Singing America. [33]  With war already raging in Europe, Zanzig could not use the German material he had used with the Concord collections described in the post for 5 September 2021.  He replaced it with music from the United States that was being popularized by Carl Sandburg and John Lomax: songs from cowboys, sailors, and Appalachia. [34]  He added some Stephen Foster lyrics and a few Negro spirituals.  This, combined with the large number of tunes from the United Kingdom, represented 58% of the anthology.

In a major break from other collections, the third largest group, 17%, came from Latin America.  He did not abandon Germany, but most of the nine songs were by well-known composers in the “Hymns and Chorales” section. [35]  The remaining 21% were from Europe, with a preference for France and Bohemia.

Graphics
1.  Alice Olenin and Thomas F. Corcoran.  Hours and Earnings in the United States, 1932-40.  Washington, DC: United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1942.  Chart 3, “Blast Furnaces and Automobiles.”

2.  A photograph of Rohrbough and his wife, Katherine Ferris Rohrbough, appears of the Photos K tab.  His photograph also appears in the posts for 12 September 2021 and 19 September 2021.

End Notes
1.  Larry Nial Holcomb.  “A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service.”  PhD dissertation.  University of Michigan, 1972.  44–45.

2.  E. H. Reginer.  “The Recreation Workshop.”  Extension Service Review 12–13:January 1949.

3.  “Rev. Ellinwood, Wife To Observe 40th Anniversary.”  The Dispatch, Moline, Illinois, 2 September 1960.  10.

“Rev. Ralph K. Kofoed.”  Los Angeles Times, 21 March 2004.

4.  Reginer.

5.  “Recreation Labs/Workshops.”  41 in Folklore Village Christmas Festival, Program, 27–31 December 1987, Mount Horeb, Wisconsin.

6.  Fred Smith.  Quoted by Bob Nolte.  Northland Recreation Lab: A History.  1984.  4.  Copy provided by Heidi Ryan, 21 June 2016.

7.  Rohrbough spent his senior year at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio.  In 1924, the Methodist church lifted its ban on amusement and dancing was allowed on campus. [36]  For more on the church’s attitude toward dancing, see the post for 2 November 2018.

8.  Smith.  3–4.  The SRU is discussed in the post for 12 September 2021.
9.  Nolte.  4.
10.  Nolte.  7.
11.  Nolte.  15.

12.  “Danebod.”  National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form.  30 June 1975.

13.  Wikipedia.  “N. F. S. Grundtvig.”  Grundtvig translated Beowulf, an epic set in sixth century Denmark. [37]

14.  Wikipedia.  “Danebod.”
15.  Pederson is mentioned in note 6 for the post for 19 September 2021.

16.  Nolte.  15.  The collection was: Danish American Young People’s League.  A World of Song.  Des Moines, Iowa: Grand View College; printed by Blair, Nebraska: Lutheran Publishing House, 1941.  Ten booklets in a three-ring binder.  Jespersen is mentioned briefly in the post for 19 September 2021.

17.  Nolte.  14.

18.  Holcomb.  109.  This is deduced from his statement that Rohrbough began working with Keen in 1936.

19.  Holcomb.  86.  The Lab continued to be held at Ihduhapi, which was owned by the Minneapolis YMCA. [38]

20.  Nolte, 14, and Holcomb, 86.

21.  Joyful Singing.  In Handy II.  Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1938.  This is discussed in the post for 19 September 2021.  In return, Jespersen used 10 of the 22 songs in Joyful Singing in the Danish collection. [39]

22.  Harbin was with the Methodist Episcopal Church South.  He is mentioned in the posts for 9 February 2020 and 12 September 20201.  He continued to attend Northland Rec until he was too frail to travel. [40]

23.  Nolte.  13.

24.  Holcomb.  90.  WorldCat has a copyrighted version from 1939. [41]

25.  Lynn Rohrbough.  American Folk Dances.  Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1939.  [WorldCat entry.]

Lynn Rohrbough.  Square Dances of the Great Smoky Mountains.  Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1939.  [WorldCat entry.]

26.  Fred Smith.  Letter to Larry Nial Holcomb, 12 February 1972.  Quoted by Holcomb.  86.  Ellipsis in Holcomb.

27.  Holcomb.  82.  His source was Consumers’ Cooperation 23:125:August 1936.  Hutchinson is mentioned in the posts for 19 September 2021, 3 October 2021, and 10 October 2021.  The cooperative organization lasted a year, before it failed from the difficulties of maintaining an far-flung organization. [42]

28.  Holcomb.  83.  His source was Consumers’ Cooperation 23:124:August 1937.

29.  Richard F. Knapp and Charles E. Hartsoe.  Play for America: The National Recreation Association 1906–1965.  Arlington, Virginia: National Recreation and Park Association, 1979.  ix.

30.  Knapp.  120.

31.  Item.  The Burlington Free Press, Burlington, Vermont, 9 July 1936.  Posted by charlsbillings on 30 January 2018.

32. Nolte.  19.  See the photograph of Zanzig taken at Northland in the post for 5 September 2021.

33.  Augustus D. Zanzig.  Singing America.  Boston: C. C. Birchard and Company, 1940.

34.  The post for 12 May 2019 has more on the repertoire of American folk songs promoted by Sandburg and Lomax.

35.  This probably was the influence of Archibald Thompson Davison, mentioned in note 43 of the post for 5 September 2021.  Davison believed people would sing classical music if they were exposed to it in familiar contexts like text books and glee clubs. [43]

36.  Le Bejou, Ohio Wesleyan yearbook, 1924.  111.
37.  Wikipedia.  “Beowulf.”

38.  “Camp Ihduhapi.”  University of Minnesota, Elmer L. Andersen Library Archives and Special Collections.

39.  Danish American Young People’s League.  Volume VI.  Songs and Folk Songs from Many Lands.

40.  Nolte.  11.

41.  Lynn Rohrbough.  Southern Singing Games.  Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1939.  [WorldCat entry.]

42.  Holcomb.  66.

43.  William A. Weber.  “Archibald T. Davison: Faith in Good Music.”  The Crimson, Harvard University, 17 February 1961.