Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
It is difficult to know how important the Girl Guides’ songbook, Chansons de Notre Chalet, was in spreading “Kumbaya” in 1957. It is known the song entered the Girl Scout repertoire in this country.
Members of Troop 99 in Shamrock, Texas, sang it at a Girl Scout meeting in April of 1959. [1] June Rushing remembered learning it at Silver Springs in 1961. [2] The first group may have been Brownies. The second was a primitive camp for older Scouts sponsored by the San Jacinto Council of Houston, Texas. [3]
“Kumbaya” may have been learned from Chansons, or from some other source. By 1959, it had appeared in a number of CRS and other songbooks.
Larry Holcomb compiled statistics on sales of CRS songbooks from the mid-1950s until 1969. [4] Within that time period, the Methodist church still was the primary customer followed by the Presbyterian and the Evangelical and Reformed churches. The most important youth organizations were the American Camping Association, followed by ones for young women. Among the latter, the Camp Fire Girls purchased 15% more copies of Music Makers than the Girl Guides did of Chansons. The YWCA ordered 15% fewer booklets.
Chansons went through five editions, which means its print run in 1957 may have been 20% of the 190,000 copies reported by Holcomb. Further, a large number probably were sent to Switzerland, so at most, 19,000 may have been circulating the first year in the United States.
Of the groups named by Holcomb, the Methodists included “Kum Ba Yah” in songbooks, but the Presbyterian and Evangelical and Reformed [5] churches did not. The ACA, [6] Girl Scouts and YWCA [7] published it, but the Camp Fire Girls [8] and Pioneer Girls did not. I could not find a copy of the songbook of the other group he mentioned. However, even if the Pioneer Girls had included the text in Songfest, they would not have introduced it into camp tradition because the conservative religious program was designed as an alternative to the more secular girls’ groups. [9]
Membership in the other three girls’ groups was not exclusive. I sent a questionnaire to camps in 1976 asking what songs they were singing. Of the 87 who responded who had attended Girl Scout camps, 13 also had gone to CFG camps and 8 to YWCA ones. 74 reported going to a Camp Fire camp; [10] 9 also had gone to a Scout camp and 4 to a Y one. There were fewer YWCA camps then, but of the 19 who had attended one, 5 also had spent time in a CFG one and 8 in a GS one. 24% of the Scouts had gone to church camps, 28% of the Camp Fire Girls, and 39% of the Y members.
Another way to measure the importance of the Girl Guides’ collection is not to look at sales figures or an individual song, but to ask if the anthology reflected the active repertoire in camps. If other songs in Chansons entered tradition, then one knows, at least, that the songbook was not just purchased but used. Of the 90 songs in the 1957 edition of Chansons, 41 were mentioned voluntarily by someone who answered my questionnaire, not necessarily a Scout. Of those, 25 had appeared in earlier Scout or Guide songbooks, and 14 of those had been published by CRS for the Camp Fire Girls or the YWCA.
One grace, “If we have earned the right to eat this bread,” had been written for the Camp Fire Girls in 1912 by William Harold Neidlinger, but had not been included in their CRS anthologies because the organization was selling copies of it. [11] The Girl Guides included it in the Kent County Song Book in 1934 with full credit. [12] It may have been taken by them to the Chalet.
Thirteen more songs, including “Kum Ba Yah,” already were in the CRS stockpile. Twelve already had appeared in Y or CFG booklets.
The remaining three of the 41 popular songs may have been introduced by Chansons. Certainly “Tina Singu” came from the Guides. While Chansons does not claim a role, it had been collected from Wycliffe Nkuma of Basutoland by Kathleen F. Hill. Hill wrote a history of the organization in South Africa in 1951. [13] In the 1970s, “Tina Singu” was mentioned by 7 people who responded to my questionnaire.
The second that had to have had an English Guide origin is “Jubilate Deo” by Michael Praetorius. [14] The Kent County Song Book had included another round by his uncle, Christoph Praetorius. “Rise Up, O Flame” was mentioned by 29 individuals in the 1970s. “Jubilate” was named by 23.
“Linstead Market” could have been a Guide song or it could have just been received by Lynn Rohrbough and recommended by Augustus Zanzig. Chansons only noted that it came from Jamaica. In fact, it first had been collected there in 1907. [15] It was the kind of popular folk song that caught the attention of both the people who offered songs to CRS and to the Girl Guides. It was mentioned by 24 people who answered my questionnaire.
The creole-language song is a bit of an anomaly in Chansons: its seeming nonsense syllables have a greater appeal to younger campers than those who attend the Chalet in Switzerland. The only other song that played with language was Sanders’ version of “A-Jogging Along.” The ones with pure sung syllables among the top 41 were “Holla Hi,” “Vrenalie” and “Weggis Song.”
Notes on Performers
The songs contributed by U. S. Scouts to the top 41 came from two different traditions. The official publications emphasized the organization. George Newell introduced “O Beautiful Banner” in the Girl Scout Song Book in 1929 [16] Sarah Birdsall Otis Edey added two Scout verses to Homer Harbour’s “The Flag Goes By.” [17] Edey was on the national board of director in 1929. [18]
While Marion Roberts was preparing Chansons, the Scouts issued a rival songbook that adopted the size and format of CRS booklets. The Girl Scout Pocket Songbook had sections devoted to “Songs for Girl Scout Occasions” and “Songs of the Girl Scout Regions.” [19] It introduced two of Chalet’s most popular songs: “Ego Sum Pauper” and “Gelobet Sei.” [20]
Eleanor Thomas, editor of the Pocket Songbook, was born in South Dakota in 1917, and earned a degree in music education from the University of Nebraska. In the 1940s she was a regional field director. She left to earn an advanced degree from Stanford, where she sang in the university chorus. She joined the national GS staff in 1949, and continued in staff positions with local councils until she retired in 1979. Thomas also wrote novels featuring a Brownie Scout named Becky. [21] She died in 1991. [22]
Mary Alison Sanders represented the other Scout tradition, that of women interested in music who privately published collections that were sold by the national organization. She was born in eastern Tennessee in 1886, where she taught music in schools. After studying in Europe, she worked in New York, and occasionally at the Edith Macy training center for leaders. [23]
Her first collection, Our Songs, reflected the early Scout interest in folk songs and games of England, and nothing in it stayed in tradition. [24] Her second, Sing High, Sing Low, was responsible for the greatest number of songs in Chansons, four. [25] One reason for its importance was that was distributed by both the Scouts and Camp Fire Girls. I sang them all in CFG camps. Two used rhythmic gestures [26] and two were reserved for older campers and counselors. [27]
Janet Evelyn Tobitt moved between the two traditions. She was born in England in 1898 and earned a degree from King’s College London in 1923. While teaching school, she spent time in Europe where she discovered folk music and became a collector. When she first moved to New York, she taught at the Mary C. Wheeler School and the New School for Social Research before she worked as a music supervisor at Edith Macy in 1934. [28] She edited an official songster, Sing Together, in 1936. [29] The only song it contributed was the “Day is done” words for “Taps,” which were available from many sources.
Tobitt returned to England in 1936, but permanent moved to this country in 1938, just before the war became serious there. [30] She privately published three songbooks, with one, The Ditty Bag, containing new materials and reproductions from the two earlier ones. [31] They popularized some material from Kent County [32] and were the first publications of three songs in Chansons. [33] While the Girl Scouts did not published Tobitt’s books, they did distribute them.
Tobitt continued to work as consultant for the Scouts while teaching, writing, and collecting in the area of New York touched by the ferment of the pre-commercial phase of the folk-music revival. She died in 1984. [34]
End Notes
1. Item. The Shamrock Texan, Shamrock, Texas, 23 April 1959. 6. The copy of the newspaper available on the internet was badly broken during the digitation process. This is what it said: “Each troop then presented opr phase of the program as follows: Troop 99, Mrs. .) Bailey, Lead! i” ‘Kum Ba Yah’.”
2. June Rushing. “Kumbaya,” collected in 1961 at Camp Silver Springs. In “Camp Songs.” Utah State University, Department of English, Folklore Archive, 1971. Her version included an additional verse, “laughing,” and used the verse order introduced by Tommy Leonetti in 1968. [35] Since the words may not have been written down in 1951, her text may reflect what she was singing later. More information about her and her photograph appear in Camp Songs, Folk Songs.
3. “Highlights through the Years.” The Golden Link 48(2):6-8:Summer 2022. 8.
4. Larry Nial Holcomb. “A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service.” PhD dissertation. University of Michigan, 1972. 129.
5. Edward Schlingman and the importance of the Evangelical and Reformed churches are discussed in 20 February 20220 and 6 March 2022.
6. The American Camping Association is discussed in the posts for 28 May 2023 and 4 June 2023.
7. The YWCA is discussed in the posts for 13 March 2022, 20 March 2022, and 11 December 2022.
8. The Camp Fire Girls will be discussed in a future post.
9. Pioneer Girls was organized in 1939 by Betty Whitaker, a Wheaton College student, as an conservative religious alternative to the more secular girls’ groups. [42] I have a songbook, Pioneer Girls Sing, that could be from the middle or late 1950s.[43] It contains songs from traditional girls’ camps, like “Each Camp Fire” [44] and “Witchcraft” [45] along with ones for young campers. The editors selected few international songs from the CRS repertoire, and used evangelistic religious songs. [46] It did not include “Kumbaya” or any Negro spirituals. However, in 1976, two women attending camps sponsored by the Pioneer Girls answered my questionnaire. Both knew “Kumbaya.” Neither mentioned going to another camp.
10. I excluded people who went to the same CFG camp I attended from these numbers.
11. W. H. Neidlinger. “Blessing,” copyrighted in 1912. Songs of the Camp Fire Girls. This went through a number of editions, including early extracts of individual songs and later issues that removed some of the more offensive material.
12. Girl Guides Association, County of Kent. Kent County Song Book, edited by Gladys Crawter, Doris Escombe, Audrey Page, and Alison Tennant. London: Novello and Company, 1934. 47.
13. Kathleen F Hill. “Brief History of the Guide Movement in South Africa.” May 1951. Copy in Girl Scout Archives in New York. Cited by Tammy M. Proctor. Scouting for Girls: A Century of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. Santa Barbara, California: Praeger, 2009. 22.
14. Both men were born Schultze and used the Latinized term for a local political leader, Praetorius. Camp Songs, Folk Songs has a few more details on page 443.
15. Walter Jekyll. Jamaican Song and Story. London: D. Nutt, 1907, for the Folk-Lore Society. 219-220. Cited by “Linstead Market.” Wikipedia website, accessed 10 November 2022.
16. George Newell. Girl Scout Song Book. New York: Girl Scouts, Inc., 1929.
17. Homer H. Harbour. “The Flag Going By.” 2 in Archibald T. Davison, Thomas Whitney Surette, and and Augustus D. Zanzig. A Books of Songs. Boston: E. C. Schirmer Music Company, 1924. The teacher’s edition is better known as Concord 14. The student’s version is Concord 4. 2. Harbour is discussed in the post for 5 December 2021. He used a German folk tune.
18. Joyce Weaver. “Biographical Sketch of Sarah Elizabeth Birdsall Otis (Mrs. Frederick) Edey.” Alexander Street website, accessed 14 November 2022.
19. Eleanor L. Thomas. Girl Scout Pocket Songbook. New York: Girls Scouts of the U.S.A., 1956.
20. Janet E. Tobitt had published “Gelobet Sei” earlier in A-B-C’s of Camp Music. Pleasantville, New York: 1955. 14. [36] This was not the sort of book most Scouts would see. The varied spellings of the title indicate most had learned it from tradition, not Chansons.
21. Eleanor Thomas. Becky and Tatters: A Brownie Scout Story. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1940.
Eleanor Thomas. Becky’s Boarding House: A Brownie Scout Story. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952.
22. Obituary for Eleanor L. Thomas. Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 29 July 1991. 16.
23. Emily Holmberg. “Mary Alison Sanders (1886 - 1949).” Wiki Tree website, 22 May 2018; last updated 16 June 2022. Her source was a genealogy by Sanders’ brother, William Robert Sanders. Genealogy of the Sanders, Alison, and Collateral Families of Sullivan & Washington Counties Tennessee. Self-Published, 1972. 32-34. This post has family photographs of Sanders. Holmberg is Sander’s niece.
24. Mary A. Sanders. Our Songs. New York: 1942.
35. Mary A. Sanders. Sing High, Sing Low. New York: 1946.
26. At the CFG camp I attended, we used patterned gestures with “A-Jogging Along” and alternated hand claps and finger snaps with “All Night, All Day.” Sanders claimed the second was a Negro spiritual, but the words are the familiar “Now I lay be down to sleep.”
27. Homer H. Harbour wrote “Cloud Ships” to a Tyrolese folk tune for Concord 14. 215-216.
Eleanor Farjeon published the text for “Shepherdess Walk” in Nursery Rhymes of London Town. London: Duckworth and Company, 1916. 48. She published a second volume in 1917, and the two since have been combined into one book. In 1919, she issued a four volume set that included music. “Shepherdess Walk” is in volume 1 of Nursery Rhymes of London Town. London: The Anglo-French Music Company, 1919, as agents for The Oxford University Press. 8-9.
28. “Janet E. Tobitt.” Wikipedia website, accessed 7 November 2022. It has a photograph of her; another appears in Camp Songs, Folk Songs. The Wikipedia article is a thoroughly researched biography.
29. Janet Tobitt. Sing Together. New York: Girl Scouts, Inc., 1936. The Scouts reused the title in 1949 for an anthology that included a few songs from Newell and a few from 1936. [37] It made no obviously contribution to the popular songs in Chansons.
30. Wikipedia, Tobitt.
31. Janet E. Tobitt. The Ditty Bag. Pleasantville, New York: 1946. A revised 1960 edition replaced some songs for copyright reasons.
32. “God has created a new day” appears in Yours for a Song. Pleasantville, New York: 1939. It is printed on page 174 of The Ditty Bag.
“Peace of the River” is in Jane E. Tobitt. Sing Me Your Song O! Pleasantville, New York: 1941. It appears on page 91 in The Ditty Bag.
33. “Railroad Corral” appears on page 62 in The Ditty Bag. The lyrics in Chansons are different, and come from Alice Mulkey of Amarillo, Texas. [38] She worked on the national staff of the Scouts training leaders from the 1930s through the early 1960s. [39] Mulkey led singing at a 1940 meeting in Amarillo [40]
“Dona Nobis Pacem” appears on page 33 in The Ditty Bag with no notes.
“Vrenalie” appears on page 23 in The Ditty Bag. The Swiss song was translated by Violet M. Synge. She later was head of the Girl Guides in England. [41]
34. Wikipedia, Tobitt.
35. Leonetti is discussed in the post for 12 April 2020.
36. Date from Wikipedia, Tobitt.
37. Sing Together. New York: Girl Scouts of the U. S. A, 1949. Forward by Janet E. Tobitt, music consultant to the Girl Scouts of the U. S. A.
38. Chansons, 61.
39. Newspaper reports, including Amarillo Daily News, Amarillo, Texas, 25 July 1935; Denton Record-Chronicle, Denton, Texas, 21 May 1952; and The West News, West, Texas, 19 January 1962.
40. Item. Amarillo Globe, Amarillo, Texas, 19 April 1940.
41. “Violet Synge.” Wikipedia website, accessed 13 November 2022.
42. Timothy Larsen. “Pioneer Girls: Mid-Twentieth-Century American Evangelicalism’s Girl Scouts.” The Asbury Journal 63(2):59-79:2008.
43. Pioneer Girls Sing. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service.
44. “Each Camp Fire” is used as an example of a traditional girls’ camp song in the posts for 28 November 2021, 5 December 2021, 20 February 2022, and 13 March 2022.
45. “Witchcraft” is discussed as a traditional girl’s camp song in the post for 5 December 2021.
46. Their religious songs are discussed in the post for 11 December 2022.
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