Topic: Gullah History
Barbados was never a self-sustaining colony. From the beginning it imported labor from England and purchased manufactured goods from whatever ship arrived in the port of Bridgetown.
When planters began growing sugar, draught animals were added to the import list. Dutch merchants were preferred because their quality was good, prices were lower, and terms of sale better. However, as historians have begun to research the role of the Dutch, they have found it was a broad term and could include anyone who used a Dutch flag.
For instance, Constant Silvester [1] left Amsterdam in late 1644 for La Rochelle, France, where he probably purchased wine. From there he sailed to Cape Verde in January where it is assumed he bought cows, donkeys, and horses, and thence to Barbados. [2] In 1613, Silvester’s parents had moved to the area of Amsterdam where English separatists were allowed to settle. [3] Soon after, his father, Giles Silvester, began leasing Dutch ships to trade wine from El Condado, Spain. [4] They were English merchants with a Dutch veneer.
After leaving Barbados in 1645, Silvester went back to La Rochelle for more goods to sell in Barbados. In September, he acquired land on the waterfront from John Crispe for storage. [5] By then, London merchants were buying plantations as safe harbors for their money during the during the Civil War that began in England in 1642. [6] For instance, Andrew Riccard, William Williams, and Edwin Browne bought 300 acres in 1646 through their local factor, Thomas Middleton. Their land rose from the waterfront, where they could construct a pier and warehouse, through some land cleared for cultivation to woodland. [7]
By 1647, individuals had put more land into cultivation, and more settlers increased the demand for food. The Silvester family had two plantations when Constant’s brother, Nathaniel, arrived in 1646. [8] Richard Vines moved to the island in 1646 from Maine, [9] and by 1647 had purchased two plantations. He wrote John Winthrop that year that men were “so intent upon planting sugar they had rather buy food at very dear rates than produce it by labor.” [10]
A smooth running economy can support what today are called long-distance supply chains, but as we have learned in the past two years any disruption in those chains can cause severe problems. Barbados dependence on outsiders for food became a problem in 1647 when John Winthrop heard a drought had destroyed their potatoes and corn. [11]
The importance of those two crops is hard to overemphasize. By the time Richard Ligon arrived in late 1647, bread was made from mixing maize and cassava, while corn boiled in water was a mainstay. Potatoes were used for bread. [12] Crops like wheat could not grow in the tropical heat, and were too bulky to ship cheaply. [13] Other foods, like cheese, did not survive the long voyages from Europe. [14] Barbadian settlers had had to adapt to a tropical diet.
The drought was accompanied by an epidemic now known to have been yellow fever. Ligon recalled that soon after he arrived, “the living were hardly able to bury the dead.” [15] He added, “it was a doubt whether this disease, or famine threatened most: there being a general scarcity of victuals throughout the whole island.” [16]
The next year Vines wrote Winthrop that:
“The sickness was an absolute plague; very infectious and destroying, in so much that our parish there were buried 20 in a week, and many weeks together, 15 or 16. It first seized on the ablest men both for account and ability of body. Many who had begun and almost finished greater sugar works, who dandled themselves in their hopes, but were suddenly laid in the dust, and their estates left unto strangers. Our New England men had their share, and so had all nations especially Dutchmen, of whom died a great company, even the wisest of them.” [17]
By 1650, yellow fever had killed 20% of the population [18] on an island where, even before the epidemic, there had been a chronic shortage of labor. This was when Barbados began to import convict labor and kidnapping increased in London to supply indentured servants. [19]
The immediate cause was a mosquito that bred in fresh water, [20] especially in the discarded clay containers used to drain moisture from sugar and in the cisterns used to collect rain water. [21] James Goodyear said Aedes aegypti alternated between eating sugar and blood, and suggested yellow fever appeared whenever adequate food supplies developed for the females. [22]
The hidden cause was an RNA Flavivirus [23] native to Africa. It could have come anytime after trade was opened with the continent through either mosquitos or human traders, seamen or slaves, and bred quietly until enough mosquitoes and enough people existed for it to spread. John McNeill thinks cutting trees for firewood abetted its diffusion because birds that fed on the insect’s eggs and larvae lost their homes. [24]
Vines saw the epidemic as the Lord’s “heavy hand in wrath.” [25] Winthrop was facing economic problems caused by the Dutch interfering with Boston’s trade with Native Americans, when drought struck the island. He believed that just “as our means of returns for English commodities were grown very short, it pleased the Lord to open to us a trade with Barbados and
other Islands in the West Indies, which as it proved gainful, so the commodities we had in exchange there for our cattle and provisions, as sugar, cotton, tobacco, and indigo, were a good
help.” [26]
William Vassal moved from Massachusetts to Barbados in May 1648 [27] where he became a factor for merchants in Boston. [28] Boston shipped 80 horses that year, and a merchant in Rhode Island sent cattle in 1649. [29] By 1650, Massachusetts was sending nails and rod iron. [30]
End Notes
1. In the 1640s, the family surname was spelled Silvester. Today it has changed to Sylvester. I am using the name used at the time.
2. Rachel Love Monroy. “On the Trade Winds of Faith: Puritan Networks in the Making of an Atlantic World.” PhD dissertation. University of South Carolina, 2015. 31 and 171. Her source is the Dutch archives. Since Sylvester’s father, Giles, was known to evade Dutch taxes, [31] I am not sure if the archives have records of his cargoes or only of his stops.
3. The family history is confused, with no two sources agreeing in detail or citing primary sources. [32] A Mennonite historian [33] says Giles Silvester moved from Stafford, [34] and Mary Arnold from Leicester in 1613. He says her parents were Anthony and Ellen. Most claim her parents were Nathaniel Arnold and Alice Wylde of Suffolk. [37]
4. Monroy. 30. The destination was Condaet, which appeared on a 1608 Dutch map as “El Condado.” [38] The area was between the mouth of the Río Guadalquivir and Seville where the Casa de Medina Sidonia produced wine. [39]
5. Monroy. 176.
6. This is mentioned briefly in the posts for 17 January 2022 3 April 2022.
7. Michael D. Bennett. “Merchant Capital and the Origins of the Barbados Sugar Boom, 1627-1672.” PhD dissertation. The University of Sheffield, June 2020. 153.
8. Monroy. 175.
9. “Richard Vines (Colonist).” Wikipedia website.
10. Richard Vines. Letter to John Winthrop, 9 July 1647. Original in Hutchinson Collection I:250–253. Reprinted by Darnell Davis in 1887 [40] and the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1947. [41] The original wording is: “men are so intent upon planting sugar they had rather buy foode at very deare rates than product it by labor.”
11. John Winthrop. Journal, edited by James Kendall Hosmer as Winthrop’s Journal “History of New England” 1630–1649. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1908. 2:328, entry for June 1647. The original is: “so great a drouth, as their potatoes and corn, etc., were burnt up; and divers London ships which rode there were so short of provisions as, if our vessels had not supplied them, they could not have returned.”
12. Richard Ligon. A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes. London: Peter Parker, 1673. 31. On the plantation where Ligon lived, a Native woman did the cooking. Boiling corn is more typical of Native diets than others. Slaves refused to eat the gruel, and instead roasted the ears.
13. Temperatures in Barbados range from 75 to 82 degrees F. [42] Spring wheat flowers when temperatures are between 44 and 64 F, and yields decline with high temperatures. Winter wheat, like that grown on the Great Plains in this country, requires even colder temperatures. [43] Scientists who grew specialized wheat under optimal conditions in central México, a few degrees north in latitude from Barbados, found yields were “clearly poorest at the lowest” altitude site. This “was probably due to higher temperatures accelerating development, to lower solar radiation reducing assimilation rates, and possibly to reduced diurnal temperature range; specific leaf area was however greatest at this site.” [44]
14. Ligon. 30.
15. Ligon. 21. The original is: “were fo grievoufly vifited with the plague, (or as killing a difeafe,) that before a month was expired, after our arrival, the living were hardly able to bury the dead.”
16. Ligon. 21. The original is: “it was a doubt whether this difeafe, or famine threatned moft: There being a general fcarcity of Victuals throughout the whole ifland.”
17. Richard Vines. Letter to John Winthrop, 29 April 1648. Reprinted by N. Darnell Davis. Cavaliers and Roundheads in Barbados. Georgetown, British Guiana: Argosy Press, 1887. 74. The original is: “The sickness was an absolute plague; very infectious and destroying, in so much that our parish there were buried 20 in a weeke, and many weekes together, 15 or 16. It first seased on the ablest men both for account and ability of body. Many who had begun and almost finished greater sugar workes, who dandled themselves in their hopes, but were suddenly laid in the dust, and their estates left unto strangers. Our New England men had their share, and so had all nations especially Dutchmen, of whom died a great company, even the wisest of them.”
18. David Watts. “Cycles of Famine in Islands of Plenty.” 49–70 in Famine as a Geographical Phenomenon, edited by Bruce Currey and Graeme Hugo. Dordrecht, Netherlands: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1984. 57.
19. Spiriting is mentioned in the post for 23 January 2022.
20. The mosquito that causes malaria, Anopheles, lives in stagnant water. As mentioned in the post for 13 January 2019, it prospered in South Carolina when rice was grown in swamps.
21. The need for cisterns is discussed in the post for 14 November 2021.
22. James D. Goodyear. “The Sugar Connection: A New Perspective on the History of Yellow Fever.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 52(1):5–21:Spring 1978.
23. “Flaviviridae.” United States, Center for Disease Control website.
24. J. R. McNeill. Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 32.
25. Vines, 1648.
26. Winthrop, June 1647. 2:328. If this sounds callous, one must remember epidemic diseases were ever present in England. See the post for November 2021 for more details on the morality rates from epidemics in London in the years when Massachusetts and Barbados were being settled. He did not rely entirely on God for protection. He noted Boston quarantined ships coming from Barbados.
27. Winthrop, 10 May 1648. 2:339.
28. Bernard Bailyn. The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1955; New York: Harper and Row, 1964 reprint. 88.
29. Bailyn. 85.
30. Bailyn. 68–69.
31. Monroy. 170.
32. I understand Henry Hoff has studied the family, and his research is quoted by some. However, his article is not available online or from an online bookseller. His article is “The Sylvester Family of Shelter Island.” The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 125:1:January 1994. Cited by Mark E. Armstrong. “The Ancestry of Mary Sylvester, wife of Richard Edgerton.” Roots Web website, 15 November 2001. Armstrong says, Hoff says, Giles and Mary married in 1913.
33. Jacob Gysbert de Hoop Scheffer. W. T. Whitley extracted some of Scheffer’s notes in “English in Amsterdam about the time of John Smyth.” The Baptist Quarterly 357–367. Errors could have entered in a number of places between the original Dutch records and Whitley. Smyth is the father of Baptists in England, and is mentioned in the post for 19 January 2020.
34. Mormons also mention Stafford, but have Giles and Mary married in 1610, and two different birth dates for Constant. [35] Others list Giles’ birthplace as London. [36]
35. “The Life Summary of Giles.” Mormon’s Family Search website.
36. “Giles Sylvester, Sr.” Geni website, last updated 19 September 2017.
37. “Mary Sylvester.” Geni website, 17 July 2017; last updated 19 September 2017.
Joe Cochoit. “Mary (Arnold) Sylvester (1595 - 1657).” Wiki Tree website, 20 July 2014; last updated 21 August 2021.
38. Willem Janszoon Blaeu. “Algarve to Marbella.” Het Licht der Zee-vaert daerinne. Amsterdam: Willem Janszoon, 1608. Google translates the subtitle “de groote Condaet” as: “Depiction of the sea coasts, between the C. de S. Vincente and the Strate of Gibraltar: as a part of Algarve, the great Condaet, and the coasts of Andalusia.” While the description is in Dutch, the map uses Spanish names.
39. Chris Chaplow. “El Condado.” Andalucia website.
40. Davis. 72–73.
41. Winthrop Papers, Volume 5, 1645–1649, edited by Adam Winthrop. Boston: The Massachusetts Historical Society, 1946. 171–172.
42. “Geography of Barbados.” Wikipedia website.
43. E. Acevedo, P. Silva, and H. Silva. “Wheat Growth and Physiology.” Soil Crop and More website.
44. D. J. Midmore, P. M. Cartwright, and R. A. Fischer. “Wheat in Tropical Environments. II. Crop Growth and Grain Yield.” Field Crops Research 8:207–227:1984.
Sunday, March 27, 2022
Barbados Merchants
Sunday, March 20, 2022
CRS YWCA Repertoire
Topic: CRS Versions
The Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) published a songbook through Cooperative Recreation Service (CRS) in 1942. [1] The reasons it chose CRS are unknown, but the editor, Marie Oliver, may have known or known of Lynn Rohrbough when she was studying music in Boston.
Oliver graduated from Pomona College in 1922, [2] and was teaching in Pomona’s Garey Junior High School in the 1922–1923 school year. [3] She entered the master’s program in music of Boston University [4] sometime after that. Rohrbough started his Social-Recreation Union at BU in 1924. [5]
BU was a much smaller school then than now. Ryan Hendrickson says the total enrollment in 1920 was 450 students. [6] Depending on how Rohrbough advertized his group’s meetings, she could have seen a notice. Or, as likely, she could have had friends who were majoring in music and interested in church youth groups.
I have no information on her life for the next few years. In 1935, she was on the music faculty at BU. [7] At this time, she also became the music secretary for the Boston Y. [8] That led to her job with the national office. She may have seen some of Rohrbough’s publications when she was in Boston, or some member of the New York office was aware of his work with recreation and folk dancing.
The earliest edition I have of Sing Along the Way has a note on the inside cover that the owner was a “member of Y. W. C. A. ‘Six-Thirty Club’ 1944.” [9] It may not be the first edition, but differs significantly from a dated version I own nfrom 1951. [10] Oliver published a companion pamphlet in 1943 [11] that suggests ways songs could be used in club meetings and conventions. This identifies titles that were included in the first edition.
Oliver was a soprano who had been trained to teach public school music. As such, she was accustomed to leading music programs, not following requests from an audience. She recommended a song leader begin with songs everyone knows, to “draw a group together in good feeling.” Then one could introduce new songs. [12]
She suggested some international songs “to promote understanding among peoples of various backgrounds of race, nationality, and region.” [13] Sing Along the Way is not as inclusive as the 1920s’ Botsford Collection mentioned in the post for 13 March 2022. Like the contemporary CRS songbooks mentioned in the post for 27 February 2022, the largest number of international folk songs come from Italy. Unlike those editors, she has more songs from the South [14], including “Shuckin’ of the Corn.” [15]
The one foreign country that Oliver does include is China. Communists had not yet taken over, and the Y had representatives in the country. Both the “Spring Song” [16] and Sun Yat-sen’s “Chinese National Anthem” [17] are overtly political. The “Boatman’s Chanty” and “Treading the Water Wheel” are in the “Work Songs” section. They had been collected by Maryette Lum. [18]
The songbook has two sections whose contents overlap: “Work Songs” and “Social Justice.” Zilphia Johnson Horton was on the music committee, [19] and may be responsible for labor songs like “Solidarity” [20] and “We Shall Not Be Moved” [21] However, as is mentioned in the post for 13 March 2020, the Y had been involved with working women from the beginning. “Shuttles of Commerce” had been sung at a YWCA meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1934. [22]
Other than the nine related to the union movement [23], the other work songs follow the standard groups used by Carl Sandburg [24], John and Alan Lomax [25], and Olcutt Sanders. [26] Five are chanteys or related to boats [27], three have references to cowboys [28], and three to railroads. [29] Like Sanders, most of the songs related to agriculture are international folk songs. [30]
The pamphlet section on camp and conference singing did not list any songs, and the songbook contains few. Camping programs, in general, developed after World War II. Oliver includes the Girl Guides’ “Kookaburra” [31], the Camp Fire Girls’ “My paddle’s keen and bright” [32], and the Y’s “Witchcraft.” [33] She also has the requisite two pages of graces. [34]
Oliver probably was a typical customer for Rohrbough. She had to strike a balance between the type of songs she wanted and the ones he had to offer. When she found a Y song among his plates, she accepted his version. Her version of the “Weggis Song” is neither the one published by Francis Hudson Botsford [35], nor the one Rohrbough used in the 1951 songbook. [36]
Oliver had more concerns than song selection. She could not rely on Rohrbough for copyright information. “Cowboy’s Lullaby” was introduced, without credits, in the 1941 Y songbook published by Carl Edward Zander and Wes Klusmann book. [37] In the 1951 edition of Sing Along the Way, she wrote that, “after using this song for a long time, we find that it has been copyrighted! We see that the tune and words are slightly different and are glad to change our version to the correct one with the kind permission of the copyright owner.” [38]
The 3 3/4" x 6 11/16" cover for the song book maintains the blue and gray color combination seen in the earlier songbook covers reproduced in the post for 13 March 2022. The ink is more blue than other songbooks, but that may have been a result of war shortages rather than aesthetic design. Otherwise, the sonngster was fairly generic, the type Rohrbough would produce if a customer did not provide artwork. The only graphic of interest is the one CRS itself used on the inside front cover.
Notes on Performers
Marie Oliver was from Claremont, California, and may have been connected to a wealthy family there. [39] In 1952, the man who falsely accused Pete Seeger of being a card-carrying Communist, [40] also claimed “the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the YWCA” were “all Communist infiltrated.” [41]
Conservatives criticized Oliver’s use of “Joe Hill,” a song associated with labor organizers in the Pacific Northwest, the International Workers of the World (IWW). Karl Robinson had written the ballad when he was music director at the Communist Party’s Camp Unity near Wingdale, New York, in the 1930s. [42] She responded the song “belongs to a part of labor history that cannot be wiped out simply by eliminating the song.” [43]
It did not matter that Harvey Matusow recanted in 1955; the damage was done. Oliver resigned in 1952, [44] and returned to Pacific Grove, California, where she taught music in the public schools, and later piano. She died in 2000. [45]
So far as I know, only YWCA songbooks contain the labor songs. Rohrbough did include “Shuttles of Commerce” in the master list mentioned in the posts for 20 February 2022 and 27 February 2022. However, he may not have made the others available to other customers, especially after 1952.
Availability
Book: Sing Along the Way, edited by Marie Oliver for the YWCA’s Woman’s Press. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service.
Graphics
1. Sing Along the Way. Front cover.
2. Sing Along the Way. Inside front cover and page 1; copyrighted song on page 1 not reproduced.
3. “Weggis Song.” Sing Along the Way, page 25.
End Notes
1. Larry Nial Holcomb. “A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service.” PhD dissertation. University of Michigan, 1972. 105.
2. “The Chronicle of Commencement.” Pomona College Quarterly Magazine 10:153–154:1922. 153. This makes her graduation date 1922.
3. “Garey Junior High School.” California State Department of Education, Directory of Secondary Schools and Teachers Colleges for the School Year 1922-1923. Sacramento, California: California State Printing Office, January 1923. 198.
4. “Second Inter-Ass’n. Conference of YWCA to Be Held Monday.” San Pedro News Pilot, San Pedro, California, 21 October 1943.
5. See the post for 12 September 2021.
6. Ryan Hendrickson, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University Libraries. Email, 15 November 2021.
7. Advertisement for Boston University College of Music. Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Bulletin, 1935. 569.
8. San Pedro News Pilot.
9. So far as I can tell, Six-Thirty Club was a common term for organizations, and not a program sponsored by the YWCA as a national organization. Most, who used the term, were groups that meet for supper and an after-dinner program.
10. Sing Along the Way, edited by Marie Oliver for YWCA. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service; fifth printing, 1951. Rohrbough uses the word “printing” to mean revision of an existing edition like Zander and Klusmann, discussed in the post for 28 November 2021. The post for 13 March 2033 mentions the confusion this practice caused in YWCA meetings.
11. Marie Oliver. “Let’s Plan a ‘Sing’.” The Woman’s Press, July-August 1943. 18–21 in Let’s Have Music, edited by Oliver. 1945. When I was copying pages from the book in the 1970s, I did not get the complete publication information, and it is not in WorldCat. Presumably it was issued by the YWCA’s Woman’s Press in New York City.
12. Oliver, 1945. 19. Olcutt Sanders makes a similar point in the post for 13 February 2022.
13. Oliver, 1945. 19–20.
14. “Sweet Petatehs” is identified as a “Creole Folk Song.” “Mr. Rabbit” is described as a “Virginia Folk Song.”
15. “Shuckin’ of the Corn.” Tennessee, from Flora L. McDowell, 1938. An early CRS version is reproduced in the post for 12 December 2021. The plate had been remade with standard-sized notation, as shown in the post for 20 February 2022.
16. “Spring Song.” The footnote on page 52 said this song is used extensively today, especially where the singing of national Chinese songs is not permitted. ‘Winter’ symbolizes war, and ‘Spring’ peace.”
17. Sun Yat-sen was a leader in the revolution that ended the Quing Dynasty in 1911. He served briefly as president of the new Republic of China, and remained active until his death in 1925. [46]
18. Maryette Hawley Lum was a Congregation Church missionary who taught music in a Beijing school for girls. [47] She published a collection of children’s songs in 1936 that did not include these two songs. [48] She was in China as late as 1938, when Oberlin College mentioned she had attended the conservatory. [49] By 1943, she was teaching at the Tule Lake “segregation center” for Japanese-Americans in California. She was forced to resign for distributing literature from the pacifist Fellowship for Reconciliation mentioned in the post for 13 February 2022. [50] She died in Santa Jose, California, in 1944. [51]
19. Hulan Glen Thomas. “Horton, Zilphia (1910-1956) Folk Music Collection 1935-1956.” 14 February 1964. Tennessee State Library and Archives website. Horton is discussed in the post for 28 July 2019.
20. “Solidarity Forever” to “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” 48 in Sing along the Way and 20 in Oliver, 1945. Ralph Chaplin wrote the words for the IWW in 1915, and it since has been used by many unions. [52]
21. “We Shall Not Be Moved.” 51 in Sing Along the Way and 20 in Oliver, 1945. This is discussed in the post for 4 August 2019.
22. “Nation-wide Festival Will Be Marked by Y. W. C. A.” Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Indiana, 19 March 1934. It is sung to “Come to the Fair.”
23. “Bread and Roses,” “Go We Forth,” “Joe Hill,” “Over All the Lands,” “We Shall Be Free,” “Whirlwinds of Danger,” and the ones already mentioned.
24. Sandburg is discussed in the post for 5 May 2019.
25. The Lomaxes are discussed in the post for 12 May 2019.
26. Sanders is discussed in the post for 13 February 2022.
27. “Cape Cod Chanty,” “Donkey Riding,” “Down the River,” “Erie Canal,” and the Chinese “Boatman’s Chanty.” “Down the River” is treated as a play party.
28. “Cowboy Lullaby,” “Cowboy Night Song,” and “Night Herding Song.” The last was credited to Singing America, edited by Augustus D. Zanzig. Boston: C. C. Birchard, 1940.
29. “Chicka Hanka,” “Drill Ye Terriers,” and “Levee Song. The first is described as a “track laborer’s song” and the second as an “Irish-American work song, 1880.” The chorus for the last is “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”
30. Sanders is discussed in the post for 13 February 2022.
31. “Kookaburra” is discussed in the post for 20 February 2022.
32. “The Canoe Song” is discussed in the post for 5 December 2021.
33. “Witchcraft” is discussed in the post for 5 December 2021.
34. “Adelynrood Grace,” “Fellowship,” “For health and strength,” “Hark to the chimes,” “Morning had come,” and “O Give Thanks.”
35. Botsford’s version of “Weggis Song” is mentioned in the the posts for 5 December 2021 and 13 March 2022.
36. Sing Along the Way, 1951, credits the words to Zanzig as published by E. C. Schirmer in Ten Folk Songs and Ballads. Set III. I have not been able to confirm this attribution. Zanzig said the Ten Folk series was a set of pamphlets that was selling for .10 in 1933. [53] No library has reported a copy to WorldCat and no copies are for sale by on-line used book sellers. I found the words that appear in the 1951 Y songbook used in a 1942 arrangement by J. A. Fitzgerald. Zanzig used another set of words in Singing America in 1940. The Fitzgerald arrangement was copyrighted by E. C. Schirmer and Singing America by C. C. Birchard. The post for 13 March 2020 suggests copyrights might have been another reason the Y no longer used the Botsford version.
37. “Cowboy’s Lullaby.” 50 in Girl Reserve Song Book. Inglewood, California: Songs ’n’ Things, 1941. Camp Songs ’n’ Things was owned by Carl Edward Zander and Wes Klusmann. This songbook is discussed in the post for 13 March 2022.
38. It’s “Cowboy Lullaby” on page 7 of this edition. The 1951 edition has “Round-Up Lullaby” on page 7 with a credit to “From Sun and Saddle Leather, Copyright by Chapman and Grimes Music Copyright, 1947, by Ralph H. Lyman.” Copyright claims like this are not always accurate. Badger Clark, born Charles B. Clark, Jr., included “A Roundup Lullaby” in Sun and Saddle Leather. Boston: The Gorham Press, 1915. Clifton Wellesley Barnes wrote the camp melody. The composer was a member of the class of 1914 at Pomona College, [54] where Lyman was head of the music department. [55] Lyman altered the melody for his glee club version. I have heard both Barnes and Lyman’s versions sung in camps. [56] Clark’s original version has more stanzas.
39. “Welcome to Marie’s Room.” Martine Inn, Pacific Grove, California, website. “This room is named after Marie Oliver who was a niece of the Parke family as she lived in this room for over 20 years.” The inn was the home of James Parke, son of the founder of Parke-Davis. He had one brother and two sisters, along with three step-brothers and a step-sister. [57] The Oliver connection, if it exists for the Y’s Oliver, could have been through any of their wives.
40. For more on the accusation against Pete Seeger, see the post for 18 August 2019.
41. Harvey Matusow. False Witness. New York: Cameron and Kahn, 1955. This is the explanation for how he came to make false statements. He remembered:
“As if that wasn’t enough, I continued with, ‘The Columbia Broadcasting System, State Department, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the YWCA, the USO, the United Nations, Voice
of America, and the Farmers Union are all Communist infiltrated’.” [page 168]
42. Camp Unity is mentioned in the post for 14 July 2019.
43. Marie Oliver. Quoted by the anonymous overview of the YWCA archives in the Sophia Smith Collection. Smith College website.
44. Smith College.
45. Obituary for Marie Oliver. Herald, Monterey Peninsula, California, 29 January 2000.
46. “Sun Yat-sen.” Wikipedia website.
47. Item. Mission Studies 40(6):162:June 1922. Published by the Woman’s Board of Missions of Interior (Congregational).
48. Maryette Hawley Lum. Songs of Chinese Children. Peking, 1936.
49. “China’s Coeds Celebrate Too.” Oberlin Review, Oberlin College, 66(25):1:7 February 1938.
50. House of Representatives, Special Committee on Un-American Activities. Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, 1943 hearings, volume 16, page 11,038. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1944.
51. Trudy Hawley. “Maryette H. Lum.” The Hawley Record on RootsWeb website, last updated 24 October 2019.
52. “Solidarity Forever.” Wikipedia website.
53. Augustus D. Zanzig. “School Contributions to Community Life.” Music Supervisors’ Journal 19(4):18–19,65:March 1933. 19.
54. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 52.
55. Ralph H. Lyman. “The Music of the Year.” Pomona College Quarterly Magazine 9:164–165:1921. He was head of the department when Oliver was a student at Pomona College.
56. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 418.
57. “Death of Hervery Coke Parke.” Detroit Free Press, Detroit, Michigan, 9 February 1899. 5. Posted by majorwilliamstree on 25 February 2019.
The Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) published a songbook through Cooperative Recreation Service (CRS) in 1942. [1] The reasons it chose CRS are unknown, but the editor, Marie Oliver, may have known or known of Lynn Rohrbough when she was studying music in Boston.
Oliver graduated from Pomona College in 1922, [2] and was teaching in Pomona’s Garey Junior High School in the 1922–1923 school year. [3] She entered the master’s program in music of Boston University [4] sometime after that. Rohrbough started his Social-Recreation Union at BU in 1924. [5]
BU was a much smaller school then than now. Ryan Hendrickson says the total enrollment in 1920 was 450 students. [6] Depending on how Rohrbough advertized his group’s meetings, she could have seen a notice. Or, as likely, she could have had friends who were majoring in music and interested in church youth groups.
I have no information on her life for the next few years. In 1935, she was on the music faculty at BU. [7] At this time, she also became the music secretary for the Boston Y. [8] That led to her job with the national office. She may have seen some of Rohrbough’s publications when she was in Boston, or some member of the New York office was aware of his work with recreation and folk dancing.
The earliest edition I have of Sing Along the Way has a note on the inside cover that the owner was a “member of Y. W. C. A. ‘Six-Thirty Club’ 1944.” [9] It may not be the first edition, but differs significantly from a dated version I own nfrom 1951. [10] Oliver published a companion pamphlet in 1943 [11] that suggests ways songs could be used in club meetings and conventions. This identifies titles that were included in the first edition.
She suggested some international songs “to promote understanding among peoples of various backgrounds of race, nationality, and region.” [13] Sing Along the Way is not as inclusive as the 1920s’ Botsford Collection mentioned in the post for 13 March 2022. Like the contemporary CRS songbooks mentioned in the post for 27 February 2022, the largest number of international folk songs come from Italy. Unlike those editors, she has more songs from the South [14], including “Shuckin’ of the Corn.” [15]
The one foreign country that Oliver does include is China. Communists had not yet taken over, and the Y had representatives in the country. Both the “Spring Song” [16] and Sun Yat-sen’s “Chinese National Anthem” [17] are overtly political. The “Boatman’s Chanty” and “Treading the Water Wheel” are in the “Work Songs” section. They had been collected by Maryette Lum. [18]
The songbook has two sections whose contents overlap: “Work Songs” and “Social Justice.” Zilphia Johnson Horton was on the music committee, [19] and may be responsible for labor songs like “Solidarity” [20] and “We Shall Not Be Moved” [21] However, as is mentioned in the post for 13 March 2020, the Y had been involved with working women from the beginning. “Shuttles of Commerce” had been sung at a YWCA meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1934. [22]
Other than the nine related to the union movement [23], the other work songs follow the standard groups used by Carl Sandburg [24], John and Alan Lomax [25], and Olcutt Sanders. [26] Five are chanteys or related to boats [27], three have references to cowboys [28], and three to railroads. [29] Like Sanders, most of the songs related to agriculture are international folk songs. [30]
The pamphlet section on camp and conference singing did not list any songs, and the songbook contains few. Camping programs, in general, developed after World War II. Oliver includes the Girl Guides’ “Kookaburra” [31], the Camp Fire Girls’ “My paddle’s keen and bright” [32], and the Y’s “Witchcraft.” [33] She also has the requisite two pages of graces. [34]
Oliver probably was a typical customer for Rohrbough. She had to strike a balance between the type of songs she wanted and the ones he had to offer. When she found a Y song among his plates, she accepted his version. Her version of the “Weggis Song” is neither the one published by Francis Hudson Botsford [35], nor the one Rohrbough used in the 1951 songbook. [36]
Oliver had more concerns than song selection. She could not rely on Rohrbough for copyright information. “Cowboy’s Lullaby” was introduced, without credits, in the 1941 Y songbook published by Carl Edward Zander and Wes Klusmann book. [37] In the 1951 edition of Sing Along the Way, she wrote that, “after using this song for a long time, we find that it has been copyrighted! We see that the tune and words are slightly different and are glad to change our version to the correct one with the kind permission of the copyright owner.” [38]
The 3 3/4" x 6 11/16" cover for the song book maintains the blue and gray color combination seen in the earlier songbook covers reproduced in the post for 13 March 2022. The ink is more blue than other songbooks, but that may have been a result of war shortages rather than aesthetic design. Otherwise, the sonngster was fairly generic, the type Rohrbough would produce if a customer did not provide artwork. The only graphic of interest is the one CRS itself used on the inside front cover.
Marie Oliver was from Claremont, California, and may have been connected to a wealthy family there. [39] In 1952, the man who falsely accused Pete Seeger of being a card-carrying Communist, [40] also claimed “the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the YWCA” were “all Communist infiltrated.” [41]
Conservatives criticized Oliver’s use of “Joe Hill,” a song associated with labor organizers in the Pacific Northwest, the International Workers of the World (IWW). Karl Robinson had written the ballad when he was music director at the Communist Party’s Camp Unity near Wingdale, New York, in the 1930s. [42] She responded the song “belongs to a part of labor history that cannot be wiped out simply by eliminating the song.” [43]
It did not matter that Harvey Matusow recanted in 1955; the damage was done. Oliver resigned in 1952, [44] and returned to Pacific Grove, California, where she taught music in the public schools, and later piano. She died in 2000. [45]
So far as I know, only YWCA songbooks contain the labor songs. Rohrbough did include “Shuttles of Commerce” in the master list mentioned in the posts for 20 February 2022 and 27 February 2022. However, he may not have made the others available to other customers, especially after 1952.
Availability
Book: Sing Along the Way, edited by Marie Oliver for the YWCA’s Woman’s Press. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service.
Graphics
1. Sing Along the Way. Front cover.
2. Sing Along the Way. Inside front cover and page 1; copyrighted song on page 1 not reproduced.
3. “Weggis Song.” Sing Along the Way, page 25.
End Notes
1. Larry Nial Holcomb. “A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service.” PhD dissertation. University of Michigan, 1972. 105.
2. “The Chronicle of Commencement.” Pomona College Quarterly Magazine 10:153–154:1922. 153. This makes her graduation date 1922.
3. “Garey Junior High School.” California State Department of Education, Directory of Secondary Schools and Teachers Colleges for the School Year 1922-1923. Sacramento, California: California State Printing Office, January 1923. 198.
4. “Second Inter-Ass’n. Conference of YWCA to Be Held Monday.” San Pedro News Pilot, San Pedro, California, 21 October 1943.
5. See the post for 12 September 2021.
6. Ryan Hendrickson, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University Libraries. Email, 15 November 2021.
7. Advertisement for Boston University College of Music. Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Bulletin, 1935. 569.
8. San Pedro News Pilot.
9. So far as I can tell, Six-Thirty Club was a common term for organizations, and not a program sponsored by the YWCA as a national organization. Most, who used the term, were groups that meet for supper and an after-dinner program.
10. Sing Along the Way, edited by Marie Oliver for YWCA. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service; fifth printing, 1951. Rohrbough uses the word “printing” to mean revision of an existing edition like Zander and Klusmann, discussed in the post for 28 November 2021. The post for 13 March 2033 mentions the confusion this practice caused in YWCA meetings.
11. Marie Oliver. “Let’s Plan a ‘Sing’.” The Woman’s Press, July-August 1943. 18–21 in Let’s Have Music, edited by Oliver. 1945. When I was copying pages from the book in the 1970s, I did not get the complete publication information, and it is not in WorldCat. Presumably it was issued by the YWCA’s Woman’s Press in New York City.
12. Oliver, 1945. 19. Olcutt Sanders makes a similar point in the post for 13 February 2022.
13. Oliver, 1945. 19–20.
14. “Sweet Petatehs” is identified as a “Creole Folk Song.” “Mr. Rabbit” is described as a “Virginia Folk Song.”
15. “Shuckin’ of the Corn.” Tennessee, from Flora L. McDowell, 1938. An early CRS version is reproduced in the post for 12 December 2021. The plate had been remade with standard-sized notation, as shown in the post for 20 February 2022.
16. “Spring Song.” The footnote on page 52 said this song is used extensively today, especially where the singing of national Chinese songs is not permitted. ‘Winter’ symbolizes war, and ‘Spring’ peace.”
17. Sun Yat-sen was a leader in the revolution that ended the Quing Dynasty in 1911. He served briefly as president of the new Republic of China, and remained active until his death in 1925. [46]
18. Maryette Hawley Lum was a Congregation Church missionary who taught music in a Beijing school for girls. [47] She published a collection of children’s songs in 1936 that did not include these two songs. [48] She was in China as late as 1938, when Oberlin College mentioned she had attended the conservatory. [49] By 1943, she was teaching at the Tule Lake “segregation center” for Japanese-Americans in California. She was forced to resign for distributing literature from the pacifist Fellowship for Reconciliation mentioned in the post for 13 February 2022. [50] She died in Santa Jose, California, in 1944. [51]
19. Hulan Glen Thomas. “Horton, Zilphia (1910-1956) Folk Music Collection 1935-1956.” 14 February 1964. Tennessee State Library and Archives website. Horton is discussed in the post for 28 July 2019.
20. “Solidarity Forever” to “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” 48 in Sing along the Way and 20 in Oliver, 1945. Ralph Chaplin wrote the words for the IWW in 1915, and it since has been used by many unions. [52]
21. “We Shall Not Be Moved.” 51 in Sing Along the Way and 20 in Oliver, 1945. This is discussed in the post for 4 August 2019.
22. “Nation-wide Festival Will Be Marked by Y. W. C. A.” Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Indiana, 19 March 1934. It is sung to “Come to the Fair.”
23. “Bread and Roses,” “Go We Forth,” “Joe Hill,” “Over All the Lands,” “We Shall Be Free,” “Whirlwinds of Danger,” and the ones already mentioned.
24. Sandburg is discussed in the post for 5 May 2019.
25. The Lomaxes are discussed in the post for 12 May 2019.
26. Sanders is discussed in the post for 13 February 2022.
27. “Cape Cod Chanty,” “Donkey Riding,” “Down the River,” “Erie Canal,” and the Chinese “Boatman’s Chanty.” “Down the River” is treated as a play party.
28. “Cowboy Lullaby,” “Cowboy Night Song,” and “Night Herding Song.” The last was credited to Singing America, edited by Augustus D. Zanzig. Boston: C. C. Birchard, 1940.
29. “Chicka Hanka,” “Drill Ye Terriers,” and “Levee Song. The first is described as a “track laborer’s song” and the second as an “Irish-American work song, 1880.” The chorus for the last is “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”
30. Sanders is discussed in the post for 13 February 2022.
31. “Kookaburra” is discussed in the post for 20 February 2022.
32. “The Canoe Song” is discussed in the post for 5 December 2021.
33. “Witchcraft” is discussed in the post for 5 December 2021.
34. “Adelynrood Grace,” “Fellowship,” “For health and strength,” “Hark to the chimes,” “Morning had come,” and “O Give Thanks.”
35. Botsford’s version of “Weggis Song” is mentioned in the the posts for 5 December 2021 and 13 March 2022.
36. Sing Along the Way, 1951, credits the words to Zanzig as published by E. C. Schirmer in Ten Folk Songs and Ballads. Set III. I have not been able to confirm this attribution. Zanzig said the Ten Folk series was a set of pamphlets that was selling for .10 in 1933. [53] No library has reported a copy to WorldCat and no copies are for sale by on-line used book sellers. I found the words that appear in the 1951 Y songbook used in a 1942 arrangement by J. A. Fitzgerald. Zanzig used another set of words in Singing America in 1940. The Fitzgerald arrangement was copyrighted by E. C. Schirmer and Singing America by C. C. Birchard. The post for 13 March 2020 suggests copyrights might have been another reason the Y no longer used the Botsford version.
37. “Cowboy’s Lullaby.” 50 in Girl Reserve Song Book. Inglewood, California: Songs ’n’ Things, 1941. Camp Songs ’n’ Things was owned by Carl Edward Zander and Wes Klusmann. This songbook is discussed in the post for 13 March 2022.
38. It’s “Cowboy Lullaby” on page 7 of this edition. The 1951 edition has “Round-Up Lullaby” on page 7 with a credit to “From Sun and Saddle Leather, Copyright by Chapman and Grimes Music Copyright, 1947, by Ralph H. Lyman.” Copyright claims like this are not always accurate. Badger Clark, born Charles B. Clark, Jr., included “A Roundup Lullaby” in Sun and Saddle Leather. Boston: The Gorham Press, 1915. Clifton Wellesley Barnes wrote the camp melody. The composer was a member of the class of 1914 at Pomona College, [54] where Lyman was head of the music department. [55] Lyman altered the melody for his glee club version. I have heard both Barnes and Lyman’s versions sung in camps. [56] Clark’s original version has more stanzas.
39. “Welcome to Marie’s Room.” Martine Inn, Pacific Grove, California, website. “This room is named after Marie Oliver who was a niece of the Parke family as she lived in this room for over 20 years.” The inn was the home of James Parke, son of the founder of Parke-Davis. He had one brother and two sisters, along with three step-brothers and a step-sister. [57] The Oliver connection, if it exists for the Y’s Oliver, could have been through any of their wives.
40. For more on the accusation against Pete Seeger, see the post for 18 August 2019.
41. Harvey Matusow. False Witness. New York: Cameron and Kahn, 1955. This is the explanation for how he came to make false statements. He remembered:
“As if that wasn’t enough, I continued with, ‘The Columbia Broadcasting System, State Department, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the YWCA, the USO, the United Nations, Voice
of America, and the Farmers Union are all Communist infiltrated’.” [page 168]
42. Camp Unity is mentioned in the post for 14 July 2019.
43. Marie Oliver. Quoted by the anonymous overview of the YWCA archives in the Sophia Smith Collection. Smith College website.
44. Smith College.
45. Obituary for Marie Oliver. Herald, Monterey Peninsula, California, 29 January 2000.
46. “Sun Yat-sen.” Wikipedia website.
47. Item. Mission Studies 40(6):162:June 1922. Published by the Woman’s Board of Missions of Interior (Congregational).
48. Maryette Hawley Lum. Songs of Chinese Children. Peking, 1936.
49. “China’s Coeds Celebrate Too.” Oberlin Review, Oberlin College, 66(25):1:7 February 1938.
50. House of Representatives, Special Committee on Un-American Activities. Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, 1943 hearings, volume 16, page 11,038. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1944.
51. Trudy Hawley. “Maryette H. Lum.” The Hawley Record on RootsWeb website, last updated 24 October 2019.
52. “Solidarity Forever.” Wikipedia website.
53. Augustus D. Zanzig. “School Contributions to Community Life.” Music Supervisors’ Journal 19(4):18–19,65:March 1933. 19.
54. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 52.
55. Ralph H. Lyman. “The Music of the Year.” Pomona College Quarterly Magazine 9:164–165:1921. He was head of the department when Oliver was a student at Pomona College.
56. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 418.
57. “Death of Hervery Coke Parke.” Detroit Free Press, Detroit, Michigan, 9 February 1899. 5. Posted by majorwilliamstree on 25 February 2019.
Sunday, March 13, 2022
CRS Custom Secular Songbooks
Topic: CRS Versions
If Lynn Rohrbough had done nothing more than he had done in the early 1940s, he would have had a comfortable business producing songbooks for churches and religious organizations. Larry Holcomb says that, over the years, The Methodist Church ordered 520,000 copies of Larry Eisenberg’s Sing It Again, while the Evangelical and Reformed Church ordered 385,000 copies of Songs of Many Nations through multiple editions. [1]
The Columbus, Ohio, Indianola Methodist Church still would have published Indianola Sings, and John Blocher, Jr., still would have transcribed “Ku Bah Ya” for it. However, the song probably would not have spread much farther than Methodist Youth Fellowship (MYF) networks and local youth camps.
What allowed “Kum Bah Ya” to become an international song was Rohrbough’s access to secular markets. That began in 1942, when his Cooperative Recreation Service (CRS) published Sing Along the Way for the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA). More than 145,000 copies had been produced by the early 1970s. [2]
Of all the organizations that sponsored youth groups, the YWCA had perhaps the greatest interest in music. A librarian at Smith College thinks this was an outgrowth of its religious origins, and that “ participatory singing of hymns and folk songs from all over the world, was a part of Association meetings and events from very beginning.” [3]
There is no single founder or parent organization. In England, several groups with similar names were formed in the 1850s to respond to the needs of working women. Similarly, in this country, prayer groups in cities like Boston and New York evolved into a national organization in 1907. [4]
The Boston group organized in 1866, and immediately began offering classes in singing. Two years later it was running a boarding house for young working women in the city. [5] This was a forerunner of the Bethany Girls Center where Rohrbough worked in Chicago in the 1920s. [6]
One of the Y’s first music publication efforts was initiated by the Department for Work with Foreign-Born Women after World War I. Florence Hudson Botsford began publishing collections of immigrant folk songs in 1921. [7] Two entered residential camp singing traditions: “Baby Owlet” [8] and “Weggis Song.” [9]
In 1918, when denominational groups like the Epworth League were expanding, the Y organized Girl Reserves clubs for girls of all ages. [10] Mildred Roe oversaw its first songbook in 1923.
The format anticipates that of Lynn Rohrbough’s Handy books, [11] and, so far as I have seen in early camp songsters, was unique to the Y. [12] The leatherette cover, which measures 3 5/8" x 7", extends beyond the 3 3/4" x 6 3/4" pages like a Bible. My copy has 64 pages, and is held together by two metal butterfly fasteners. Many of the songs are cheers and stunt songs like those published a few years later by E. O. Harbin for the Methodist Episcopal Church South. [13]
Girl Reserves primarily were interested in school-based clubs. However, its section on camp songs indicate a number of popular ones like “Father time is a crafty man” [14] and “Mister moon moon” [15] already were in tradition. Roe included a version of “Each camp fire lights anew” that later was used by Carl Edward Zander and Wes Klusmann, and is reproduced in the post for 28 November 2021.
Katharine Blunt Parker took over the chairmanship of the music committee and, in 1925, asked Imogene Ireland to direct music at conferences. [16] She issued a new Y songbook in 1926 that contained all but six of the 117 songs published by Roe. [17] The 22 new songs were mainly hymns, Girl Reserve songs, and graces.
Someone, perhaps Margaret Hall, [18] published a Girl Reserve Song Book through Zander and Klusmann’s company in 1941. While the cover design features the organization’s logo, the overall format is the same as their other collections. It is 3 5/8" x 6 15/16", and bound by two staples.
This does not mean a wholesale change in repertoire. Many of the songs, like those from the Botsford collection, did not become popular, and were replaced by the newer European folk songs like “Came a Riding” [27] and “Tiritomba.” [28] It uses Augustus Zanzig’s version of the “Weggis Song” rather than the Botsford one. [29]
The purpose of the songbook was not to include the entire YWCA repertoire, but to provide versions of songs that had were being sung in many camps, but were not yet well-known. [30] Thus, while there was no need to provide versions of “Father Time” and the “Year Song,” there may have been a need to provide texts or tunes for “The Curtains of Night” [31] and “Tell Me Why.” [32]
This may be the last special songbook published by Zander and Klusmann. When the Y wanted to publish a new book in 1942, it turned to Rohrbough’s company.
Notes on Performers
Florence Hudson Botsford was born Florence Topping in Cairo, Illinois, in 1868. [33] She graduated from Shimer College of Chicago in 1888, then taught music for a year. [34] In 1890, she was singing for the State Street Methodist Church in Troy, New York, where she entranced her audience with versions of “Annie Laurie” and “Comin’ Thro’ the Rye.” [35] She married Charles Hull Botsford in 1893. [36] He was involved with oil in the Balkans before World War I. [37] This exposure may have abetted her interest in European music.
Mildred Roe grew up in Buchanan, Michigan, where her grandfather had a lumber business [38] and played a violin he had purchased from a local German farmer [39] She studied piano in Chicago, [40] then matriculated to Smith College where she graduated in 1920. She immediately went to work for the YWCA as a field secretary. [41] Before and after World War II, she worked with Japan for the Y. [42]
Imogene Belle Ireland graduated from Barnard in 1913, where she was treasurer of the YWCA and wrote music for school programs. [43] The next semester she entered Columbia College. [44] She was involved in public school music in 1915, [45] then, with World War I, went to France as secretary to the Y’s Industrial Commission. [46]
Margaret Hall not only is a common name, but is the name of a women’s college at Oxford University and was a dormitory at Iowa State University that burned in 1938.
Availability
Florence Hudson Botsford. Folk Songs of Many Peoples. New York: The Womans Press, volume 2, 1922. Republished as Florence Hudson Botsford. Botsford Collection of Folk Songs. New York: G. Schirmer, 1930.
Girl Reserve Song-Book. New York: The Womans Press, 1923. The Girl Reserve Song-Book Committee included Mildred Roe, chairman, and Imogene B. Ireland.
Imogene B. Ireland. The Song Book of the Y. W. C. A. New York: Womans Press, 1926.
Girl Reserve Song Book. Inglewood, California: Songs ’n’ Things, 1941. “To Margaret Hall for her invaluable aid in editing.” Camp Songs ’n’ Things was owned by Carl Edward Zander and Wes Klusmann.
Graphics
1. Roe. Front cover.
2. “Each camp fire lights anew” to “May Madrigal.” 29 in Roe.
3. Carl Edward Zander and Wes Klusmann. Front cover.
End Notes
1. Larry Nial Holcomb. “A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service.” PhD dissertation. University of Michigan, 1972. 106. Sing It Again is discussed in the post for 9 February 2020. Songs of Many Nations is mentioned in the posts for 20 February 2022 and 27 February 2022.
2. Holcomb. 105.
3. Anonymous overview of the YWCA archives in the Sophia Smith Collection. Smith College website.
4. “YWCA of the U.S.A. History.” International Directory of Company Histories, edited by Jay P. Pederson. Detroit, Michigan: Saint James Press, volume 45, 2002. Reposted on Funding Universe website.
5. Elizabeth Wilson. “To Refute or Verify.” The Association Monthly, December 1914. Cited by “YWCA Boston.” Wikipedia website.
6. The Bethany Girls are mentioned in the post for 12 September 2021.
7. Smith College.
8. “The Owlet.” 2:86 in Botsford (1922) and 1:31 (1930). Arranged by Elena Landázuri; English text by Muna Lee. Reprinted on page 46 of Roe. More information is provided in the post for 21 January 2018.
9. “Weggis Song.” 2:160–161 in Botsford (1922) and 3:265–266 (1933). English by Margaret Widdemer, arranged by Jean Binet. Reprinted on page 47 of Roe. This is mentioned in the post for 5 December 2021.
10. Noriko Namiki. “A Moment in Our History: Touching the Lives of Future Generations: From Girl Reserves and Y-Teens to Girls’ Summit.” YWCA Oahu website, 28 April 2020.
11. A copy of Handy II appears in the post for 12 December 2021.
12. The camp songbooks I have seen from the 1920s and 1940s were more square than oblong. Blue Triangle Songs, issued by the Louisville, Kentucky, YWCA in 1924, is 3 ½" x 5 ½".
13. E. O. Harbin. Paradology, Songs of Fun and Fellowship. Nashville: Cokesbury Press, 1927. This is discussed in the post for 9 February 2020.
14. “Father Time” to “Father Time.” 29 in Roe.
15. “Oh, Mister Moon, Moon” to “Moon, Moon.” 30 in Roe.
16. Smith College. Parker is discussed briefly in Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 57.
17. Ireland replaced two hymns and three old songs with others of the same genres. The Romanian Girl Reserve song, “Come, Girl Reserves, with quickened step,” [47] was replaced with a Czech song from the Botsford Collection. [48] Neither contained the sung syllables mentioned in the post for 5 December 2021.
18. Zander and Klusmann. 8.
19. This number excludes hymns, spirituals, rounds, and older songs like those of Stephen Foster that are not unique to either songbook.
20. “As the bright flames ascend to heaven” to “Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes. 29 in Roe.
“As the Bright Flames.” 60 in Ireland.
“As the Bright Flames Ascend” to “Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes.” 61 in Zander.
21. “The Camper’ Song” to Stevenson’s “Swing Song.” 28 in Roe.
“Follow the Trail to the Open Air. 58 in Ireland.
“Follow the Trail” by Agatha Deming. 56 in Zander.
Camp Songs, Folks Songs has details on page 463 on Deming’s involvement with the Woodcraft league mentioned in the post for 28 November 2021.
22. Sallie Hume Douglass. “Follow the Gleam.” 18 in Roe.
“To Knights in the Days of Old.” 29 in Ireland.
“Follow the Gleam.” Words and music copyrighted 1922 by Sallie Hume Douglas. 91 in Zander.
The words by Helen Hill Miller are written to “Garden of Paradise” by Sallie Hue-Douglas. Camp Songs, Folk Songs has more details on pages 365–366 and 457.
23. “For the Year That Came from Thee.” S1-11 in Ireland.
“Girl Reserve Litany of Thanks” by John H. Gower and Abbie Graham. 86 in Zander.
24. “Gracious in Manner” to “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.” 16 in Roe.
“Gracious I Will Be in Manner.” 26 in Ireland.
“Girl Reserve Code Song” by Eleanore Weddell Roberts. 9 in Zander.
25. “O God, Grant Our Daily Bread.” S1-16 in Ireland.
“Girl Reserve Grace.” 13 in Zander.
26. “Witchcraft.” Used by permission of Margaret Snyder. 10 in Zander. This is discussed in the post for 5 December 2021.
27. “Came A-Riding.” Czech with English by Martha C. Ramsey. 35 in Zander. This is discussed in the post for 9 February 2020.
28. “Tiritomba.” From Folk Songs, Ballads and Songs of Great Composers. Selected by Augustus D. Zanzig under the auspices of the National Recreation Association. Set III. Copyright, 1936, by E. C. Schirmer Music Co.” WorldCat says “Tiritomba” is in Set 1. Zander used a text by Anne G Molloy of page 32. For more on the song, see the post for 5 December 2021.
29. Although the YWCA sponsored the Botsford collection, it was published by G. Schirmer. There may have been copyright issues in reprinting some of the material after the rights were transferred to G. Schirmer in 1929.
Incidentally, there are two Schirmer music companies. G. Schirmer was founded by Gustav Schirmer in New York in 1866. His grandson, also Gustav, ran the company from 1919 to 1921. It specialized in classical music, then branched into other areas. [49] Gustav’s nephew, Ernest C. Schirmer, apprenticed with the company, then ran the Boston Music Company. In 1921, he started his own company, E. C. Schirmer, which published works for the Concord School. [50]
30. Another reason songs sung in camp may have been omitted is that many are written to popular songs. While the right to create a parody is protected by the first amendment, the right to sing the tune is limited by copyright law. This is the reason someone who was not present when “Follow the Gleam” was written gets credit, rather than the actual writers mentioned above in note 22. Oliver discusses the problems the Y had in getting permissions in “How To Write a Parody.” 17 in Let’s Have Music. New York: Woman’s Press, 1948 edition.
31. “The Curtains of Night.” 57 in Zander. “We are indebted to Hazel Bell Withrow and Mrs. Maude Henderson” for this version. See April 1936 Woman’s Press for story of its origins.”
32. “Tell Me Why.” 80 in Zander. Roe has a local version that begins “Why do we love you, O Girl Reserves” to the tune “Because God Made You” on page 14. Zander has a blank in the last line for the camp name.
33. “Florence Botsford.” Shimer College Fandom website.
34. “Florence Hudson Botsford.” Prabook website.
35. “Miss Florence Topping Captivates the Hearts of Her Hearers.” The Morning Telegram, Troy, New York; republished by The Ottawa Daily Republic, Ottawa, Kansas, 14 May 1890. 4. Posted to the internet by reedlr on 05 November 2019.
36. Shimer College.
37. Thomas W. Hawley. “Charles H. Botsford ’75.” Princeton Alumni Weekly 31:390:23 January 1931.
38. Mildred Roe. From her “History of Certain Roe and Tichenor Families in the U.S. A.” October 1965. 31.
39. Roe, History. 32. He then was living in Portage Prairie in Berrien County, Michigan. Buchanan is in the same county.
40. “Pupils of Edward Ehrhand.” Music News, Chicago, Illinois, 8:8:19 May 1916.
41. Item. The Smith Alumnae Quarterly 12:173:November 1920. She was tapped for Phi Beta Kappa.
42. Karen Garner. “Global Feminism and Postwar Reconstruction: The World YWCA Visitation to Occupied Japan, 1947.” Journal of World History 15:191–227:2004. 206.
43. Mortar Board. Barnard College yearbook, 1912.
44. The Columbian. Columbia College yearbook, 1914. 288.
45. “Yonkers Festival Triumph of Public School Music System.” Musical America, 15 May 1915. 47.
46. “Industrial Commission Will Sail to France.” War Work Bulletin, 7 February 1919. 59.
47. Roe. 14.
48. “Andulko.” Botsford, volume 1 (1921) and 3:30–31 (1933). English by John Mokrejs, arranged by LudmilaVojáĉkova-Wetche. Reprinted on page S1-8 of Ireland.
49. Nicolas Slonimsky, Laura Kuhn, and Dennis McIntire. “Schirmer, G., Inc.” Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, a publication of G. Schirmer. Reprinted on Cengage Encyclopedia website.
50. “E. C. Schirmer Music Company.” ECS Publishing Group website.
Sunday, March 6, 2022
Cooperative Recreation Service’s Customers
Topic: CRS Versions
Lynn Rohrbough’s Cooperative Recreation Service (CRS) published songs requested by his customers. He set an aesthetic that included a disdain for popular music heard on radio. Within that framework, his customers refined the repertoire with their selections and contributions. Some, like Edward Schlingman, remained customers for years. A few, like Olcutt Sanders, became close advisors.
The Michigan Methodist church was more typical of the one-time customer who by sheer numbers had a great influences on his workshop. While Schlingman gave him more money for larger print runs, the sheer quantity of the small orders kept his employees busy. The work was the same, whether the output was a large number of songbooks, or a small one.
Below are profiles of the men mentioned in the posts for 13 February 2022, 20 February 2022, and 27 February 2022 who ordered songbooks when the business was just beginning in the 1940s.
Notes on Performers
The Evangelical and Reformed Church resulted from a 1934 merger of what began as the Calvinists’ German Reformed Church of Pennsylvania and the Lutherans’ German Evangelical Church Association centered in Missouri. In 1957, it joined with Congregational Churches, descended from Massachusetts Calvinists, into the United Church of Christ. [1]
When Schlingman was a sophomore in the 1930–1931 school year, Rohrbough had just returned to Delaware, Ohio, but had not yet discovered folk music. The Y may have used some of the materials he prepared in his Handy collections, or may have used some prepared by the YM and YWCA’s.
After graduation, Schlingman earned his divinity degree from Lancaster Theological Seminary in 1935. He was 25 years old. [4] This means he was in school when the first denominational merger occurred. In the nineteenth century, Lancaster was a leader in rejecting revivals that followed Cane Ridge for an emphasis on the church as a community. [5]
Following graduation, Schlingman was assigned to small churches in eastern Bucks County, Pennsylvania. [6] By the time he published Songs of Many Nations, he was in Boyertown. When he spoke at the German Reformed Church’s Ursinus College in 1942, the school paper said he was “well known to many students as a recreation leader in summer camps and conferences.” [7]
By 1950, Schlingman was the recreation specialist for the denomination’s general staff in Philadelphia. [8] He remained in this position after the merger into UCC. [9] He died in 1980. [10] At his funeral, the congregation sang “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee,” [11] while the four presiding pastors sang “For All the Saints.” [12]
Michigan had two conferences in 1941, one called the Michigan Conference with its headquarters at Albion College, and the other called the Detroit Conference with offices in Flint. [15] Frederick Gifford Poole was in charge of education for both groups. [16] In 1941, the western conference decided it was time to appoint its own education director, and hired Wayne Harrison Fleenor. [17]
Melody in Michigan says it was published for the “Detroit Area of the Methodist Youth Fellowship.” [18] It may have been edited or overseen by Paul Franklin Abery, who was in charge of that conference’s programs for youth. [19] However, the copy I have was distributed by both conferences.
Albery was raised in Iowa [20] and earned his divinity degree from Boston University in 1941. [21] He served in small town churches, while also running institutes for the Detroit conference, [22] until he transferred to the Michigan conference in 1946. He retired in 1981, and died in 2006. [23] While he was assigned to Saint Joseph, he directed music one night at the Crystal Springs annual assembly. [24]
The other men responsible for Melody in Michigan were administrators who probably were responsible for distributing songbooks and paying invoices. Thus, while they were not the creators, they were the ones who had to be satisfied if the creators were to keep their positions. Poole was raised in Canada [25] and worked with the YMCA. [26]
Fleenor was from Michigan’s thumb area [27] and graduated from Albion College in 1924. [28] He probably arrived at Garrett Seminary in Chicago the same year as Rohrbough, [29] but it is unlikely they shared any classes, since Rohrbough already had done work at Boston University. [30] However, Fleenor may have been aware of Rohrbough’s promotion of recreation. In 1927, he was the recreation leader at the Crystal Springs camp meeting. That may simply mean he was responsible for equipment like rowboats and volleyballs, or something more. [31]
Photographs of Poole and Fleenor appear in MacNaughton’s history, which The Michigan Area Conference has put on the internet. [32] Sanders is discussed in the post for 13 February 2022.
Graphics
1. Edward Louis Schlingman. Copy provided by Alison Mallin, Archives Assistant with Lancaster Seminary, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
2. E. O. Harbin at Northland Recreation Laboratory. In Bob Nolte. . 1984. Copy provided by Heidi Ryan, 21 June 2016.
End Notes
1. “Evangelical and Reformed Church.” Wikipedia website. UCC is not the same as the Churches of Christ. It also is not related to the Prussian Union of Calvinist and Lutheran churches in Germany.
2. “Y. M. C. A.” 158 in The Aurora, Heidelberg College, Tiffin, Ohio, yearbook for 1932. Edited by Howard Baker.
3. “Gospel Teams.” 160 in The Aurora.
4. Program for “Memorial Service for Dr. Edward L. Schlingman.” Shenkel United Church of Christ, North Coventry, Pennsylvania, 3 August 1980. Copy provided by Alison Mallin, Archives Assistant with Lancaster Seminary, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
5. “Evangelical and Reformed Church.” Wikipedia website.
6. General Synod of the Evangelical and Reformed Church. 1938 Year Book & Almanac of the Evangelical and Reformed Church. Philadelphia: The Board of Christian Education, 1938.
7. “Rev. Schlingman to Speak at Brotherhood Meeting.” The Ursinus Weekly, Ursinus College, 41(11):1:14 December 1942.
8. “St. Pauls To Be Host at Curriculum Institute.” The Kutztown Patriot, Kutztown, Pennsylvania, 75(48):6:6 April 1950.
9. “Training Our Leaders.” The Christian Sun, Southern Convention of Congregational Christian Churches, Elon College, 116:14:28 January 1964.
10. Schlingman memorial service.
11. Schlingman memorial service.
Henry van Dyke. “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee.” The Poems of Henry van Dyke. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1911. Written to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” Symphony No. 9, movement 4. Adapted by Edward Hodges. [32]
12. William H. Howe. “For All the Saints.” Salisbury Hymn-Book, edited by Horatio Nelson. Salisbury, UK: Brown and Company, 1858. Set to Ralph Vaughan Williams. “Sine Nomine.” English Hymnal, edited by Percy Dearmer. London: Oxford University Press, 1906. [33]
13. Larry Eisenberg. “It’s Me, O Lord.” Tulsa, Oklahoma: Fun Books, 1992. 54.
14. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 60.
15. A. Douglas MacNaughton. The Methodist Church in Michigan: The Twentieth Century. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 1976. xx.
17. Keith J. Fennimore. The Albion College Sesquicentennial History: 1835-1985. Albion, Michigan: Albion College, 1985. 536.
18. Melody in Michigan. 1.
19. MacNaughton. 236. Holcomb says the Methodist book was edited by Larry Eisenberg, [34] but I suspect he or Rohrbough confused this with the songbook Eisenberg edited for the Methodist Church in 1945 that is discussed in the post for 9 February 2020. Eisenberg was then a student at Garrett Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. His first job was in Ames, Iowa. [35]
20. “Rev. Paul F. Albery.” Grand Rapids Press, Grand Rapids Michigan, 26 November 2006.
21. “Gagetown News.” Cass City Chronicle, Cass City, Michigan, 27 June 1941.
22. MacNaughton. 226.
23. “Paul Albery.” United Methodist Church, Michigan Area website, 16 November 2006.
24. “Crystal Springs Assembly Program.” The Courier-Northerner, Paw Paw, Michigan, 21 July 1950. 5. Crystal Springs was established as a privately owned camp meeting ground in Cass County, Michigan, in 1860. [36] By 1927, it ran for ten days with speeches every night. Richard A. Dawson came from Evanston, Illinois, to lead the singing, and his wife played the piano. [37]
25. “Frederick Gifford Poole.” Mormon’s FamilySearch website.
26. MacNaughton. 229.
27. “Wayne Harrison Fleenor.” Mormon’s FamilySearch website. He was born in Cass City in Tuscola County. I should say, as a disclaimer, his wife, Ethel Helrigel Fleenor, was the guidance counselor and debate coach in my high school.
28. “Fleenor Announces Retirement.” Albion Pleiad, Albion College, 26 May 1967. 4.
29. See the post for 12 September 2021.
30. See the post for 19 September 2021.
31. “M. E. Campmeeting Now in Full Swing.” Coloma Courier, Coloma, Michigan, 29 January 1927. 1.
31. MacNaughton. Poole’s photograph is on page 14; Fleenor’s is on 223.
32. “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee.” 464 in The Presbyterian Hymnal Companion, edited by LindaJo H. McKim. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993.
33. “For All the Saints.” 676–677 in Psalter Hymnal Handbook, edited by Emily R, Brink and Bert Polman. Grand Rapids, Michigan: CRC Publications, 1998. 389. They give the hymnal as Earl Nelson’s Hymns for Saint’s Days.
34. Larry Nial Holcomb. “A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service.” PhD dissertation. University of Michigan, 1972. 104.
35. Eisenberg. 54–55.
36. “Crystal Springs Decommissioning.” UM Camping website.
37. Coloma Courier. Evanston was the home of Garrett seminary, so Albery may have been one of Dawson’s theology students. Dawson later served a year in Stevensville. Michigan. [38]
38. “One Hundred Fifty Years of Stevensville United Methodist Church (continued).” Church newsletter, undated but covers events planned for May 2017. 8.
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