Topic: CRS Version
Lynn Rohrbough may have come from a strict Methodist family, but as a young man he was open to new experiences. You can see the differences in his self-presentation in photographs taken when he was a college senior, reproduced in the post for 12 September 2021, and the one above.
He finally completed his degree at Boston University in 1928, [1] and no longer needed to take transferable credits at Chicago’s Garrett Biblical Institute. He and his wife, the former Katherine Ferris, were free to live as they wished. She recalled:
“After four years in Chicago, we decided that it was not the place for two county-bred people or for their two small daughters and set out to find a small town location. We hit upon Delaware, Ohio, whose Ohio Wesleyan University Lynn had attended as an undergraduate.” [2]
When they first arrived in Delaware in June of 1929, they rented a place in town. [3] Lynn scheduled his next recreation workshop that year in a city park in Wheeling, West Virginia. [4] It did not attract enough people to support the usual lecture-discussion program of an institute. In the face of potential failure, Rohrbough returned to the early sessions of the Social-Recreation Union in Boston.
“Instead of talking about recreation, they decided to demonstrate. They danced and sang, and it was so much fun they decided to meet the next year at Geneva, Wisconsin.” [5]
Thus, was born the participatory recreation institute. The Wisconsin one was such a success that the attendees elected a committee to plan future sessions. Among the members were Chester Graham of the Ashland Folk School in Newago County, Michigan; [6] a representative of the Methodist Episcopal church; [7] two people from city recreation departments, [8] and two from state agricultural extension offices, including Bruce Tom. [9]
It was at this May event that the Rohrboughs discovered folk dancing. “The most popular activity” was “an English folk dance called ‘Set Running,” taught by Dillard Turner of Yeaddiss, Kentucky.” [10]
Running community dances became their livelihood in the Depression. The Rohrboughs had been able to get a mortgage on an eighty-acre farm outside Delaware in July of 1930, [11] but their income dropped dramatically. In 1929, 10,000 individuals subscribed to their Kit recreation service. With bad times, the membership dropped to a few hundred. [12]
Governments at all levels had become concerned with the welfare of the unemployed, and turned to recreation programs to counter despair. Roosevelt’s Federal Emergency Relief Administration built recreation facilities. [13] Augustus Zanzig [14] left the Concord School in 1929 to begin a survey of musical activities in the United States for the Playground and Recreation Association of America. After it was published in 1932, [15] the renamed National Recreation Association [16] hired him to run recreation workshops throughout the country. [17]
Rohrbough traveled from Ohio down to Texas and out to California during the 1933–1934 winter where he often gave two or three demonstrations a day. At each stop, he set up displays to sell his publications. [18] Rohrbough remembered:
“One time we drove from Toronto to San Diego and gave a party at some church or hall nearly every night. The pay wasn’t so good but we usually had enough to eat, and we collected the most marvelous songs and games. We took the music and the words down where we found them and later put them into print.” [19]
The 1931 recreation institute was held at Waldenwoods, about fifty miles west of Detroit in Livingston County, Michigan. [20] This was the first meeting to include European folk songs. One attendee recalled:
“I think the most practical contribution I received from the Recreation Institute--and one of the richest experiences as well--was the introduction to and increased appreciation of Folk Songs under Mrs. Ramsey’s leadership. I expect to use some of these songs and make more use of Negro Spirituals.” [21]
Waldenwoods was owned by John Robert Crouse [22] and leased to the Michigan Council on Religious Education. [23] Crouse made his money from the development of electric power, but became a champion of cooperation over competition. He first developed Waldenwoods as a conference center, then turned it into a cooperative camp. [24]
Rural marketing cooperatives were being encouraged by the U. S. Department of Agriculture, [25] and this may have been Rohrbough’s first encounter with the movement. In 1934, he and Carl Hutchinson founded the Recreation Co-operative “to furnish leisure materials and services on a non-profit basis.” [26] Hutchinson was active in the Ohio Farm Bureau, [27] which was one of the most successful of the farm cooperatives. [28]
The Rohrboughs’ publishing business evolved during this period. They may have learned more about copyrights when Katherine wrote a book on stunts for a national publisher in 1929. [29] In 1931, they collaborated on Games We Like Best for another national publisher. [30] They continued to update Handy, and the 1931 revision is the first to carry a copyright notice in WorldCat. [31]
While they continued to focus on social games, the Rohrboughs [32] issued their first collection of Quadrilles in 1931. [33] The next year, they published a collection of Play Party Games. [34] After that, they concentrated on games.
Larry Holcomb says Rohrbough continued to reprint parodies like those published by E. O. Harbin [35] until 1932. [36] He included some folk songs in the Kits, but took most of them from existing collections. [37] This, of course, was another opportunity for him to learn the intricacies of copyright law.
The Rohrboughs’ taste was being expanded by the people they met. A 1938 issue of Kit contained twenty-two songs. [38] One third are from the same area in Europe [39] as the one taught by Ramsey. Most are from a collection by a Czech Presbyterian pastor in New York, [40] but one is from a Concord School collection. [41]
Another third of the songs in Joyful Singing is from England. A couple are from a semi-religious collection produced by Walford Davies, [42] who worked for the British Broadcasting Company. [43] One was from the Concord group, [44] and another was collected by Cecil Sharp. [45] I was not able to identify the source for the others. [46]
He learned many of the remaining eight from people he met at workshops. The Social-Recreation Union copyrighted one Danish song, [47] but a woman Rohrbough met in Minnesota provided the other. [48] Three were from Kentucky, [49] while a Swedish song was from Mrs. Albert Magnuson. [50] The others were from a Concord collection [51] or unidentifiable. [52]
Rohrbough was not influenced by the community song tradition of World War I or by professional folklorists or by popular music. Joyful Singing has none of the national songs from England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland or ones by Stephen Foster that filled collections by Peter Dykema. [53] None of the cowboy songs collected by John Lomax appear, [54] nor do any Negro spirituals like those recorded by Victor. [55]
Graphics
1. Lynn Rohrbough, as young man. Photograph used by permission of Michael A. Joyner.
2. A photograph of Rohrbough and his wife, Katherine Ferris Rohrbough, appears of the Photos K tab. His photograph also appears in the post for 12 September 2021.
End Notes
For more on Lynn Rohrbough see the "Topics and Artists" column at the right.
1. Larry Nial Holcomb. “A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service.” PhD dissertation. University of Michigan, 1972. 26.
2. Katherine Ferris Rohrbough. “Good Times as a Career.” Wellesley Alumnae Magazine, January 1956. 84. Quoted by Holcomb. 61. They had a third daughter in 1930.
3. Holcomb. 61.
4. Holcomb. 37.
5. Fred Smith. Quoted by Bob Nolte. Northland Recreation Lab: A History. 1984. 4. Copy provided by Heidi Ryan, 21 June 2016. Smith remembered the institute occurred in 1928; Holcomb said it was 1929.
6. Hans Jorgen Pedersen organized the Ashland Folk School in 1882 [56] for Danish immigrant lumbermen [57] who were supplying the furniture factories in Grand Rapids, Michigan. [58] It used the ideas of Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig. [59] Pedersen left in 1888. [60] The school was revived in 1928 and lasted until 1934. [61] It then moved and is now the Buttermilk Jamboree Folk School. [62]
7. Owen Greer, Institute and Life Work Secretary.
8. Chester Bower worked for the Chicago Department of Young People’s Work. Viola Armstrong was with the Detroit Department of Recreation.
9. Holcomb. 40. The other was Zelma Monroe of the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station. Tom is discussed in the posts for 12 September 2021, 3 October 2021, 10 October 201, and 17 October 2021.
10. Holcomb. 39–40.
11. Holcomb. 61.
12. Holcomb. 32.
13. Richard F. Knapp and Charles E. Hartsoe. Play for America: The National Recreation Association 1906–1965. Arlington, Virginia: National Recreation and Park Association, 1979. 113–115.
14. Zanzig is discussed in the posts for 5 September 2021, 26 September 2021, and 3 October 2021.
15. Augustus Delafield Zanzig. Music in American Life. London: Oxford University Press, 1932.
16. A brief history of the National Recreation Association appears in the post for 5 September 2021.
17. Knapp. 96.
18. Holcomb. 70.
19. Lynn Rohrbough. Quoted by “Who We Were ~ Cooperative Recreation Service.” World Around Songs website.
20. Holcomb. 40.
21. Helen E. Mummery. “Same Aims as Religious Education.” Kit 26:11:1931. Quoted by Holcomb. 41. The impact of Martha Ramsey is mentioned in the post for 9 February 2020.
22. “About Us.” Waldenwoods Banquet and Conference Center website.
23. Item. Federal Council Bulletin, September 1930. 22. The council was an interdenominational group created in 1922 from the merger of several Sunday school associations. It became part of the National Council of Churches in 1950. [63]
24. “724. Crouse, John Robert.” In Thomas Edgerton Powers and William H. McNitt. Guide to Manuscripts in the Bentley Historical Library. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1976. 55.
25. In 1913, the Department of Agriculture established the Office of Markets, which began studying “cooperative marketing and purchasing.” The first cooperative grain elevators followed in 1915. [64]
26. Holcomb. 65. His source was a company flyer.
27. Holcomb. 65.
28. The Farm Bureau was founded in 1919 to create a group powerful enough to counter the railroads and other business interests who were dictating prices. In the early years, it worked to lower the costs of seed and equipment. [65]
29. Katherine Rohrbough. Successful Stunts. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1929. [WorldCat entry.] One contributor, Nancy Beach, may have been a relative. Katherine’s mother was born Nancy Beach. [66]
30. Lynn Rohrbough and Katherine Rohrbough. Games We Like Best. New York: Harper, 1931. [WorldCat entry.]
31. Lynn Rohrbough. Handy II, The Red Book. Delaware, Ohio: Church Recreation Service, 1931. [WorldCat entry.]
32. After 1931, the entries in WorldCat only have his name. I am assuming they wrote them together, or that he drafted them and she edited them for publication.
33. Lynn Rohrbough. Quadrilles. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1931. [WorldCat entry.] The publisher’s name may be an anachronism, or it may be a later reprint that kept the original publication date.
34. Lynn Rohrbough. Play Party Games. Delaware, Ohio: Church Recreation Service, 1932. [WorldCat entry.]
35. E. O. Harbin. Paradology, Songs of Fun and Fellowship. Nashville: Cokesbury Press, 1927. This is discussed in the post for 9 February 2020.
36. Holcomb. 59.
37. Holcomb. 60.
38. Joyful Singing. 1–24 in Handy II. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1938. [67] Rohrbough reused the title Joyful Singing for a generic collection that customers could modify, so there is no such thing as a definitive version of the anthology.
39. Ramsey used the term Czech. Before World War I, the area was known as Bohemia, and afterward was called Czechoslovakia. Today it includes the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. [68]
40. “Goodnight Beloved,” “Happy Meeting,” “My Homeland,” and “Timid Maiden” were published by Vincent Pisek. [69] He was a Czech immigrant who headed the Jan Hus Bohemian Presbyterian Church in New York City. While he died before Rohrbough could have met him, he had visited Czech communities in the Midwest. [70] “Goodnight” and “Homeland” were recorded by Victor in 1914. [71]
41. “Annie, the Miller’s Daughter.” 33–34 in Archibald T. Davison, Thomas Whitney Surette, and Augustus D. Zanzig. Concord Junior Song and Chorus Book. Boston: E. C. Schirmer Music Company, 1927. It is identified as “Slovakian.”
42. Walford Davies. The New Fellowship Song Book. London: Novello, 1931. It is the credited source for “Green Grow the Rushes.” It also contains “John Peel.”
43. Wikipedia. “Walford Davies.”
44. “The Keeper.” [72]
45. “O No, John!” Cecil J. Sharp. Folk-Songs from Somerset: Fourth Series. London: Simpkin and Company, 1911. It was reprinted by both Davies [73] and the Concord group. [74]
46. ““Mow the Hay” and Pretty Maid Come Along.” “Hunting Song” is a round.
47. “Men of the Soil.”
48. “Han Skal Leve.” The collection and Chris Jespersen is discussed in the post for 26 September 2021.
49. “Blackest Crow,” “Down in the Valley,” and “Sister Sally.”
50. “The Happy Plowman.”
51. “My Banjo.” 189–190 in Archibald T. Davison, Thomas Whitney Surette, and Augustus D. Zanzig. A Book of Songs for Unison and Part Singing for Grades IV, V and VI. Boston: E. C. Schirmer Music Company, 1922. It is identified as “Italian.”
52. “Nightingale.”
53. Dykema and the community song tradition are discussed in the post for 28 April 201. He is mentioned again in the post for 5 September 2021.
54. For more on John Lomax and cowboys songs, see the post for 12 May 2019.
55. See the post for 8 August 2021 for a discussion of spirituals recorded by Victor.
56. Thorvald Hansen. “Disaster in Tyler.” Bridge 11(2):1988. Reprinted as “Great Danish American Birthday - Hans Jorgen Pedersen.” National Foundation for Danish America website.
57. Holcomb 51.
58. Wikipedia. “Grant, Michigan.
59. Harold W. Stubblefield. “The Danish Folk High School and Its Reception in the United States: 1870s-1930s.” Roghiemstra website.
60. Hansen.
61. Stubblefield.
62 “The Buttermilk Jamboree Folk School.” Its website.
63. “Guide to the International Council of Religious Education Records.” Presbyterian Historical Society website.
64. Martin A. Abrahamsen. “Policy Developments.” 207–224 in Agricultural Cooperation. Edited by Martin Abraham Abrahamsen and Claude L. Scroggs. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1957. 209.
65. Wikipedia. “American Farm Bureau Federation.”
66. “James 5.” 5.1.2.6.4.3.6.2 on Karsen Sheppard Studios website, April 2008. This is part of a larger genealogy of the descendants of Jeffrey Ferris.
67. Holcomb. 59. He listed the contents of the collection with the associated country.
68. Wikipedia. “Bohemia.”
69. Vincent Pisek. Twenty-Two Bohemian Folk-Songs. 1922.
70. Vincent Trinka. “Vincent Pisek.” Find a Grave website, 15 July 2013. Pisek died in 1930.
71. Ema Destinnová and Dinh Gilly. “Good-night.” Victor C-14755. 23 April 1914.
Ema Destinnová and Dinh Gilly. “My homeland.” Victor B-14756. 23 April 1914.
72. Text in Concord Junior. Rohrbough credits Folk-Songs and Ballads for School, Home and Camp. Boston: E. C. Schirmer, 1932. Schirmer was the Concord’s publisher.
73. 122–124 in Davies.
74. 97–98 in A Book of Songs.
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