Topic: CRS Versions
Lynn Rohrbough began making his living publishing recreation materials in the 1920s. [1] His first format was mimeographed sheets placed in binders. He soon found a printer, but kept the binder format. It no doubt changed in small ways with the technology. The first example I have is Handy II from 1930.
Inside is a set of booklets measuring 3 5/8" x 6 3/4". It lists section S, “Social Songs,” but that was not something saved by the owner of my copy. I suspect the size of the sections was dictated by the size of the binder that was available, and then was perpetuated by custom when binders no longer were used.
Rohrbough’s move into publishing custom songbooks was gradual, and probably evolved from workshops where he taught various types of folk dances. In 1938, he published Folk Dances of Tennessee. So far as I know, this is the first book he published on behalf of someone else.
Lucien McDowell grew up in DeKalb County on a tributary of the Cumberland River in middle Tennessee. He graduated from Tennessee Polytechnic Institute in neighboring Putnam County, and, in 1934, joined the newly organized Tennessee Folklore Society at the college. One member was George Pullen Jackson. [2]
Members encouraged him to compile the songs he had heard as a child, and in 1936 he had a manuscript ready. [3] Unfortunately, the market for Appalachian folk music was sated.
Francis James Child had begun publishing his ballad collection in 1882, [4] and in 1905, Henry Belden asked teachers and scholars to “recover every vestige of the English and Scottish Ballads in America.” [5] Cecil Sharp focused people’s attention on the Appalachians in 1917 when he published local Child ballads. [6] Academic presses had backlists of collections by the 1930s.
The popular folk-song anthology market was dominated by the works of Carl Sandburg [7] and John Lomax. [8] Locals promoting their own collection also were becoming common, with John Jacob Niles the best known. [9] And, of course, nothing could compete with Jackson’s White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands. [10]
McDowell turned to Edwards Brothers in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It had begun by mimeographing copies of notes from professors’ lectures in 1893. In 1930, when it incorporated, it still specialized in small print-runs for academics. [11] His Songs of the Old Camp Ground was “reproduced from typewritten copy” in 1937. [12]
The next year he and his wife, the former Flora Lassiter, published Folk Dances of Tennessee in a mimeographed format. [13] Later that year, Rohrbough republished the book in Flora’s name. It is easy to hypothesize how McDowell heard about the Edwards Brothers. It is harder to deduce how Rohrbough and the McDowells became partners.
In 1939, Rohrbough published six songs with the title Tennessee Folk Songs. He later reissued Dances with modern technology. He added a photograph of Flora and a tribute to her by composer Charles Faulkner Bryan. [14] It contains eight songs, six of which were published in 1939. I do not have a copy of the original Dances, but suspect it did not contain the songs. A review identifies her as “a ballad singer and musician.” [15]
The 1939 Folk Songs is a long sheet of paper, which is folded in half, then in thirds to measure 4" x 7". The ink is blue green, and a woodcut of a mountain-valley farm is on the front page. It identifies Flora as “a native and life-long resident of the Caney Fork valley in the Cumberland mountains of Tennessee.”
Folk Dances of Tennessee led to more collections for the round- and square-dance market. As mentioned in the post for 26 September 2021, he published Singing Games of the South in 1938, and two more dance Kits in 1939. By 1940, he had discovered that different types of dances had distinctly different audiences. He recombined collections in “flexible” bindings as Handy books of play parties, American square dances, and European folk dances. [16] Two years later, he published Western Play Party Games, [17] and reissued the Handy collection with different sections. [18]
I have a copy of the 1940 play party omnibus, which obviously is not from 1940: it has a plastic comb binding. [19] While the reproduction technology changed, I suspect the page format did not. It has medium-weight cardboard covers and cream-colored pages, suitable for removing to use at an event. It is squarer in shape than his usual books, 3 3/4" wide and 6 23/32" long.
The geographic reach of Rohrbough’s recreation network can be glimpsed in the states where his sources lived. The largest number, naturally, are the fourteen from Ohio. Appalachian states, where play parties were popular, came next: six of his sources are from Kentucky, while four are from Tennessee or West Virginia. Surprisingly, six live in Texas.
Rohrbough did not publish many songbooks edited by others. However, the authors of one contributed to the play-party project. Members of the Ritchie family of Perry County, Kentucky, offered six songs, and later Edna Ritchie helped compile Songs of All Times for the Council of the Southern Mountains. [21]
When Flora published her final song collection in 1947, she did it privately in the town where she was living. [22]
Notes of Performers
Flora E. Lassiter was born in White County, Tennessee, where her great-grandparents had lived. [23] In 1908, she married Lucien Lafayette McDowell. [24] Little more is known about her. He was a teacher, then principal and school superintendent in Smithville, Tennessee. [25] While it is possible they met through kin, [26] it also is possible she took classes at Tennessee Polytechnic.
Bryan knew her through the Tennessee Folklore Society. He recalled her family was “a storehouse of folk music” and that she had “a retentive memory for every melodic curve, each word, and even subtle shadings of inflections used by members of her immediate family.” [27] She herself said she was an effective collector because she
“knew where to go and what to ask about, two things an outside collector would not know, be he ever so well versed in collecting folk material. We also had the advantage of a real personal friendship with those among whom we worked, some of them closely connected with us by blood or marriage.” [28]
She died in 1968, and was buried in Bethel Methodist Church Cemetery in DeKalb County. [29]
Graphics
1. Handy II, edited by Lynn Rohrbough. Delaware, Ohio: Church Recreation Service, 1930, copy 440. Inside cover and title page. Name of the owner partially obscured.
2. “Shuckin’ of the Corn.” Tennessee Folk Songs, recorded by Mrs. L. L. McDowell. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1939. Other copies appear in the posts for 13 February 2022 and 20 February 2020. It is mentioned in the post for 20 March 2022.
3. Lynn Rohrbough. Handy Play Party Book. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1940. 98–99. “I Want to Be a Farmer.” Contributed by R. Bruce Tom, Columbus, Ohio. [30] “Needle’s Eye.” Described by Soweda Hall, Winchester, Kentucky; courtesy of J. Olcutt Sanders. [31]
4. Flora L. McDowell, taken by Orville Joyner. Folk Dances of Tennessee, edited by Flora L. McDowell. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, reissued edition. 4. See the post for 1 May 2022 for more information.
End Notes
1. For more on Lynn Rohrbough’s early career, see the posts for 12 September 2021 and 19 September 2021.
2. Carolyn Livingston. Charles Faulkner Bryan: His Life and Music. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2003. 59.
3. Livingston. 70.
4. Francis James Child. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1882–1898.
5. Henry Marvin Belden. “The Study of Folk-Song in America.” Modern Philology 2:573–579:1905.
6. Cecil James Sharp and Olive Dame Campbell. English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1917.
7. For more on Sandburg, see the post for 5 May 2019.
8. For more on Lomax, see the post for 12 May 2019.
9. John Jacob Niles. Seven Kentucky Mountain Songs. New York: G. Schirmer, 1929.
John Jacob Niles. Songs of the Hill-Folk. New York: G. Schirmer, 1934.
He is mentioned in note 23 of the post for 5 May 2019.
10. George Pullen Jackson. White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1933.
11. Bill Shea. “Printing Company Edwards Brothers Grapples with a Shrinking Market.” Crain’s Detroit Business, 7 January 2010. A similar company, William Brown, is mentioned in the post for 5 January 2020.
12. Lucien L. McDowell. Songs of the Old Camp Ground. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Edwards Brothers, 1937. Description from WorldCat website.
13. Lucien L McDowell and Flora Lassiter McDowell. Folk Dances of Tennessee. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Edwards Brothers, 1938. Description from WorldCat website.
14. The reissue has a yellow cover with a brown design by Jack McDowell and measures 6 5/8" x 9 11/16". If Bryan wrote his appreciation of Flora for this publication, then it was published in 1953; [32] otherwise, the reissue is after that date.
15. Review of the Edwards Brother edition on page 639 of the February 1939 issue of Recreation, the organ of the National Recreation Association. It was favorable.
16. Second title page of Handy Play Party Book of 1940.
17. Western Play Party Games, edited by Lynn Rohrbough. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1942.
18. Rohrbough, Western, page 2. The 1942 collection included Singing Games from the South, Western Play Party Games, Treasures from Abroad, [33] and an earlier collection of Ohio Play Party songs that supposedly was published in 1923 as Kit 24, and is now Kit P. This must refer to Play Party Games published in 1932 as Kit P according to WorldCat. It was reissued as Play Party Games of Pioneer Times: Set down from Original Sources in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Iowa sometime in the 1940s. WorldCat indicates it still is called Kit P.
19. Plastic combs were developed in the 1950s. [34]
20. One contributor was Fred M. Smith. He is mentioned in the post for 26 September 2021 as active in the Northland Recreation Laboratory.
21. Council of the Southern Mountains. Songs of All Times, compiled by Edna Ritchie, Raymond Kane McLain, Richard Chase, and Marie Marvel. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1946. Chase published a number of books on Appalachian lore. Handy Play Party Book reprinted one from Traditional Ballads, Songs and Singing Games, [35] and attributed “Bow Belinda” directly to him. [36] Edna’s sister, Jean, replaced Niles as the most important indigenous performer of Appalachian music in the 1950s. [37]
22. Lucien L. McDowell and Flora Lassiter McDowell. Memory Melodies. Smithville, Tennessee, 1947. [WorldCat website.] Lucian had died in 1943. [38]
23. “Ceiley Elizabeth Clark.” Ancestry website.
24. Steve Eskew. “Fora E. Lassiter.” Eskew’s website; last updated 25 August 2021.
25. Livingston. 69.
26. Putnam County is southwest of DeKalb and White adjoins it on the east. They all are in the Caney Fork Valley where saltpeter was mined before and during the Civil War. White was on the border between Union and Rebel supporters, and suffered from guerilla activities. [39] No doubt people moved along the river, especially after the war.
No one has done a genealogy of the Lassiters; my information is gleaned from people interested in women who married into their families. One source has Flora’s mother born in White County, [40] and another has her born in DeKalb County with her father born in Davidson County. [41]
27. Charles Faulker Bryan. 5 in revised edition of Tennessee Folk Dances.
28. Flora McDowell. Quoted by Livingston. 70.
29. James Real. “Flora (Lassiter) McDowell (1883 - 1968).” Wiki Tree website; last updated 11 June 2020.
30. Tom also is discussed in the posts for 12 September 2021, 19 September 2021, 3 October 2021, 10 October 2021, and 17 October 2021.
31. Sanders is discussed in a post for 13 February 2022.
32. On page 200, Livingston says it is from a paper Bryan wrote in 1953; the page with the citation is blocked in the on-line version.
33. Treasures from Abroad, edited by Lynn Rohrbough. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service. Introductory notes by Chester L. Bower and Neva Boyd. The latter is mentioned in the post for 3 October 2021.
34. “The History of Book Binding.” Powis website.
35. Richard Chase. Traditional Ballads, Songs, and Singing Games. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Institute of Folk Music, 1935. “The Duke of York” is reprinted on page 122.
36. Pages 94–95.
37. “Jean Ritchie.” Wikipedia website.
38. Eskew.
39. “White County, Tennessee.” Wikipedia website.
40. “Catherine Elizabeth Lassiter (born Parker), 1862 - 1939.” My Heritage website.
41. “Floyd Lassiter, born 1885.” My Heritage website. He is Flora’s brother. Nashville is in Davidson County.
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