Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
Lynn Rohrbough expanded his circle of advisors for Cooperative Recreation Service (CRS) in 1956. He announced Max Exner’s assistance in April, [1] and Augustus D. Zanzig’s in July. [2]
Larry Holcomb does not explain why Rohrbough suddenly needed more help than that provided by Olcutt Sanders. [3] It may well be, as Holcomb implied, CRS’s business was growing. The Baby Boom had begun in 1946 when the number of live births increased by almost 24% over the previous year. Those children were ten-years old in 1956, and they had more younger brothers and sisters. [4] Their presence may have stimulated groups to order custom songbooks.
More likely, Rohrbough was aware the Methodist church central staff was going to publish its own books, rather than use him. [5] Rohrbough did indicate Zanzig would contact “the Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, 4-H groups, camps, and others.” [6]
The mention of the Girl Guides suggest this was more the result of serendipity than it was a coherent business plan. The Guides are not an American group, but a British one. When Robert Baden-Powell organized the Boy Scouts in England, he asked his sister Agnes to establish the Guides as its female equivalent in 1909. [7] In this country, Luther Gulick promoted the Camp Fire Girls in that role. [8] The Girl Scouts was introduced as a separate, independent organization in Savannah, Georgia, in 1912 by Juliette Gordon Low. [9]
Low had spent much of her time in England after her marriage and stayed after her husband died in 1905. She met the unmarried Baden-Powell in 1911. The two came to this country in early 1912 to introduce the Guides. [10] He apparently introduced the English idea that an organization’s credibility depended on the social rank of its sponsors, with that of the royal family the most useful.
From the beginning, the Girl Scouts had different goals than the rival Camp Fire Girls and Young Women’s Christian Association. Low primarily was concerned with building an organization, while Gulick, and his wife, Charlotte Vetter Gulick, were promoting a philosophy and program. [11] The YWCA primarily was concerned with providing services for young women. [12]
In 1919, the Girl Scouts held its first national training school for leaders on the estate of Helen Storrow in Massachusetts. [13] She was descended from political activists in Boston, and was part of the same progressive tradition as the Gulicks. [14] She organized a troop for high-school-aged girls in 1915, and thereafter became vice president of the national organization. [15]
The Boy Scouts changed its organizational structure in 1915. When Gulick had helped establish the group in 1910, he and his fellow sponsors wanted to include the Native American lore publicized by Ernest Thompson Seton [16] and the nature lore of Daniel Carter Beard. [17] Each was made an officer, but James West was hired to manage the organization in 1911. [18]
In 1915, West started emphasizing the military values of Baden-Powell and Beard left. [19] The next year, West asked Congress to formally recognize his group, in exchange for requiring every member be a United States citizen. This forced out the Canadian-born Seton. [20]
Low followed suit. In 1917, she asked the wife of the most prominent official in Woodrow Wilson’s administration to become vice-president, in place of Sturrow. [21] She also induced the president’s wife to accept the title of honorary president. [22] Edith Macy, the wife of a wealthy New Yorker, became the chairman of the executive board in 1919, [23] and the sixty-year-old Low herself was forced out as president in 1920. [24]
Storrow and Low did not disappear. Storrow remained on the board, [25] while Low began working with Baden-Powell’s young wife, Olave, with the international organization. [27] The first conference was held in 1920, and a formal organization created at the 1925 meeting in The Hague. [27]
The widowed Storrow was sent as a delegate to the 1929 international conference where she offered to pay for constructing a meeting center in Switzerland. In return, she was elected chairman of the conference. Our Chalet opened in 1932. [28]
Twenty years later, the Swiss center celebrated its anniversary with a Singing Camp. [29] Marion Roberts must have attended because she recalled “our days and nights were happily spent in singing dozens and dozens of songs from all countries of the world.” [30] In 1955, the organization decided to publish a songbook for use at the conference center [31] and a committee of 18 was formed. Members came from thirteen countries. [32]
What happened next is conjecture. Roberts, who lived in Boston, was appointed editor. Either she contacted Zanzig, who was well known among musicians of a certain type in the area and had been an advisor for a 1936 Scout songbook, [33] or he heard about the project and contacted her. Whichever happened, CRS published Chansons de Notre Chalet in 1957. It contained the original plate for “Kum Ba Yah.”
Vocal Soloist: single melodic line
Credits
African (Angola)
Songbook inside front cover: © 1957, C.R.S. All rights reserved.
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: “Koom-bah-yah,” same as that published in Indianola Sings, which is reproduced in the post for 29 May 2022
Verses: kumbaya, crying, singing, praying; same verses and same order as those published in Indianola Sings
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: four-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5; the melody is the same as Indianola Sings
Time Signature: 3/4
Tempo: slowly
Key Signature: no sharps or flats
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one syllable to one note except for final “Lord”
Ending: none
Notes on Performance
Cover: Drawing of Chalet inside Girl Guides’ logo; design by Elizabeth Gilligan of Boston
Color Scheme: the cover uses dark blue ink on medium blue stock; inside, the pages employ gray-brown ink on white paper
Plate: Same plate used in Indianola Sings, made by Jane Keen. The layout was not done by Sara Bisco Bailey, who had left with her husband in 1954. [34] Whoever look over did not have her gift of organization that allowed CRS to published several songs on a page. [35] Many of the pages have blank spaces. Worse, some are continued on the back side, so that a singer has to flip the page back and forth to sing a second verse. The individual may have sung in a choir that used scores, but had not sung from a hymnal or community songster where the verses are at the bottom of the page with the melody.
Notes on Performers
I have not been able to discover much about Roberts; her name is common. She may or may not have been the Marion Alice Roberts who help produce a musical comedy in Boston in 1947. [36] She certainly was the Marion A. Roberts who wrote the Rockport Folk Mass [37] published by CRS in 1965. [38]
In between, she was leading singing in 1947 at Camp Edith Macy, the permanent training center on land given to the Girl Scouts after Macy died in 1925. [39] The New York Daily News photographed her playing an accordion while leading a group. [40] She was teaching singing games to Girl Scout leaders in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, in 1952, [41] and leading a workshop for leaders in Chelmsford, New Hampshire, in 1967. [42] The last mentioned her accordion.
Roberts appears to have been one of the many women attracted to the Scouts who found occasional employment with the organization, and formed close friendships with other women interested in music. In 1958, she edited a collection of songs by Marie Gaudette that was compiled by Catherine Hammett. The musical transcriptions were done by Mary Alison Sanders and Constance Bell. [43]
Availability
Songbook: “Kum Ba Yah.” 47 in Chansons de Notre Chalet, edited by Marion A. Roberts for Our Chalet, Adelboden, Switzerland. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Inc., 1957.
End Notes
1. Song Sampler, number 2, April 1956. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service, 1956. 3. Cited by Larry Nial Holcomb. “A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service.” PhD dissertation. University of Michigan, 1972. 136-137.
2. Song Sampler, number 3, July 1956. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service, 1956. 6. Cited by Holcomb. 136.
3. Olcutt Sanders is discussed in the post for 13 February 2022.
4. Matt Rosenberg. “Baby Boom.” Thought Co website, last updated 25 May 2018.
5. The history of Methodist church youth groups and their music is sketched in the post for 9 February 2020.
6. Song Sampler 3. 6. Cited by Holcomb. 136.
7. “Agnes Baden-Powell.” Wikipedia website, accessed 7 November 2022.
8. The Gulicks’ role is mentioned briefly in note 35 of the post for 5 September 2021.
9. “Juliette Gordon Low.” Wikipedia website, accessed 7 November 2022.
10. Wikipedia, Low.
11. As mentioned in the post for 5 September 2021, Luther Halsey Gulick believed in the virtues of physical activity. He asked people in Michigan, in January 1914 “what provision do you make in Battle Creek whereby groups of girls [ . . . ] can go off on a tramp of five miles and find a good place to make a fire and a place to bake some potatoes and have a good time together.” [44] His wife, the former Charlotte Vetter, developed the camping program when she expanded work she had been doing with her daughters in Maine. She asked Seton for ideas that led to the introduction of Native American themes in 1910. [45]
12. The YWCA is discussed in the post for 13 March 2022.
13. “Helen Osborne Storrow.” Girl Scouts Archives website, accessed 7 November 2022.
14. Both Storrow and Luther Halsey Gulick were involved with the movement to create playgrounds in Boston. [46] After she met Cecil Sharp, [47] her interest turned to folk dancing. [48] Gulick chaired the session on Folk Dancing at the 1909 Playground Conference. [49] In 1911, she reviewed a book on folk dancing written by Gulick. [50] These references do not prove they knew or liked each other, but they certainly must have been aware of each other.
15. “Helen Storrow.” Storrowtown Village museum website, accessed 7 November 2022.
16. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 145.
17. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 366.
18. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 367.
19. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 367.
20. Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 367.
21. Wikipedia, Low. Herbert Hoover was directing relief efforts for war ravaged countries in Europe. [51] His wife, Lou Henry Hoover, became president of the Girl Scouts in 1922 and remained in that position until here husband was elected president. She was president again between 1935 and 1937. [52]
22. Wikipedia, Low. Edith Bolling Galt Wilson was Wilson’s second wife.
23. “Edith Macy Conference Center.” Wikipedia website, accessed 7 November 2022.
24. Wikipedia, Low.
25. Girl Scouts, Storrow.
26. Wikipedia, Low. Baden-Powell met Olave Soames in January 1912, and married her in October 1912. [53]
27. Barbara Morgan. “Baden-Powell, Olave (1889–1977).” Encyclopedia website, accessed 7 October 2022.
28. Storrowtown.
29. Mrs. Arthur O. Choate. “Greetings from the Chairman of the Juliette Low World Friendship Committee.” 20 August 1951. In The Girl Scout Leader 28:(8):16:November 1951. Choate was Low’s goddaughter, Anne Hyde Choate. [54]
30. Marion A. Roberts. “How a Songbook Is Born.” Our Chalet. 3.
31. Roberts, How. 3.
32. Marion A. Roberts. “Grateful acknowledgment...” Our Chalet. Representatives came from Belgium, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Sweden and Switzerland.
33. Janet Tobitt. Sing Together. New York: Girl Scouts, Inc., 1936. 4.
34. Oscar Bailey is discussed in the post for 1 May 2022.
35. Sara Bailey’s talents are discussed in the post for 15 May 2022.
36. Marion Alice Roberts and Bob Gest. Sunday Afternoon in Boston. Copyrighted 11 April 1947. United States Copyright Office. Catalog of Copyright Entries. Third Series. January–June 1947. 1931. Volume for dramas.
37. Marion A. Roberts. Rockport Folk Mass. Copyrighted 27 August 1965. United States Copyright Office. Catalog of Copyright Entries. Third Series. July–December 1965. 1931. Rockport, on Cape Ann in Massachusetts, was a summer place for the wealthy in the nineteenth century. It since has become a vacation place for artists and writers. [55]
38. Marion A. Roberts. Four American Folk Hymns for Rockport Folk Mass: August 20, 1965. Delaware, Ohio: Informal Music Service, 1965.
39. Wikipedia, Macy.
40. “Marion Roberts with accordion.” The New York Daily News photograph, 1947. Reproduced on Girls Scouts Archives website, accessed 7 November 2022.
41. Item. Fitchburg Sentinel, Fitchburg, Massachusetts , 10 April 1952. 28.
42. “Workshop for Leaders of Girl Scouts.” The Telegraph, Nashua, New Hampshire, 23 January 1967. 20.
43. Marie Gaudette. Marie Gaudette’s Songs, compiled by Catherine T. Hammett, edited by Marion Roberts, music transcriptions by Mary Sanders and Constance Bell. Bedford, New York: The Marie Gaudette Memorial Fund, 1968. Sanders is discussed in the post for 4 December 2022. Bell will be discussed in a future post.
44. Luther Halsey Gulick. “The Girl Who Goes Right.” In National Conference on Race Betterment. Official Proceedings. Battle Creek, Michigan: The Race Betterment Foundation, 1914. Quoted by Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 12-13.
45. Edward Gulick. “The First Camps for Camp Fire Girls.” Camp Fire Girls Camp Histories website.
46. Her interest in playgrounds, without dates, is described in “Helen Storrow.” Wikipedia website, accessed 7 November 2022. Gulick’s role in Playground and Recreation Association of America is mentioned in the post for 5 September 2022.
47. Cecil Sharp is mentioned in the posts for 6 February 2019, 7 April 2019, and 12 May 2019. Before he began promoting folk music in England, he was interested in rituals like Morris dancing.
48. Wikipedia, Storrow.
49. Proceedings of the Third annual Playground Congress. New York City: Playground Association of America, 1910. 197.
50. Helen Storrow. Review of Luther Halsey Gulick’s The Healthful Art of Dancing in The Playground 4(10):353-354:January 1911. Cited by Linda J. Tomko. Dancing Class. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. 261, note 4.
51. “Herbert Hoover.” Wikipedia website, accessed 8 November 2022.
52. “Lou Henry Hoover.” Wikipedia website, accessed 9 November 2022.
53. “Olave Baden-Powell.” Wikipedia website, 7 November 2022.
54. “Anne Hyde Choate.” Girl Scout Archives website, accessed 7 November 2022.
55. “Rockport, Massachusetts.” Wikipedia website, assessed 5 November 2022.
No comments:
Post a Comment