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.
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