YWCA - Kum Ba Yah

Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
The Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) was the second youth group to include “Kum Ba Yah” in 1957.  We know it came after the Girl Guides’ book, because one page of graces is described as “from CHANSONS DE NOTRE CHALET” [1].

In this case, Augustus D. Zanzig’s role is clearer: he is listed as an editor.  In addition, he translated or arranged 15 of the 63 international songs.
 
It is not known if he contacted the organization, which may not have placed an order since 1954.  On the other hand, it may decided it was time to issue a revised songster and lacked the resources after Marie Oliver left in 1952.  In the 1965 revision, Zanzig is credited with arranging the music. [2]

As mentioned in the post for 20 March 2022, the impression was Oliver was the victim of Harvey Matusow’s claim the organization was infiltrated by the Communist Party.  The 1957 songster has 13% fewer songs from countries controlled by the Soviet Union or which fought against us in World War II.  However, many of the labor songs were reprinted, including the most controversial, “Joe Hill.”

Although some of the songs the caused problems for Oliver were kept, her presence was excised.  Zanzig redid her arrangements for “The Silver Moon Is Shining” and “Golden Day Is Dying.”  This leads to questions about bureaucratic and budgetary decisions that cannot be answered.

Otherwise, the selection of songs remained the same.  It dropped 46 songs from the earlier edition and added 54.  If such changes were not made, no one would have a reason to buy it.

The major change had occurred between the 1941 and 1951 editions, when the number of religious songs increased by nearly 40%. [3]  They came at the expense of what were called “general songs.”  That class included camp songs.  This edition dropped two songs then in active camp tradition, “French Cathedrals” and “Hark to the Chimes.”  The first is a round; the second is a grace.

The songbook’s intended audience was Y-Teen clubs for high-school and college aged young women.  This is a group that would be more likely to sing religious songs at its meetings.  The songbook offered 52 hymns, of which 10 were new.  Among the 8 spirituals, “He’s Got the Whole World” and “Let Us Break Bread Together” replaced “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”

The group drew its members from the same main-line denominations that ordered songbooks from Cooperative Recreation Service.  Sing Along, or the owner of CRS, Lynn Rohrbough, did not offer popular gospel songs like “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” or the “Old Rugged Cross.” It certainly did not include the raucous ones like “Do Lord.  The closest the songbook came was “Green Grow the Rushes.”

Spirituals may have been used as a substitute for the popular religious songs. [16]  “Kum Ba Yah” had the good fortune to be presented in the “Folk Song” section where it replaced “As the Sun Goes Down” as the token African song.

Since the Y was a Protestant organization, it was interested in converting the heathen of Asia, rather than Spanish-speaking Roman Catholics.  Thus, the editors were still trying to find songs from China, Japan, and Korea that were singable by girls trained in western music.  There were 5 from Asia and 6 from Latin America.

The interest in Jewish settlements in the Holy land continued with “Shalom Chaverim” and “Zum Gali Gali.”  The first still only had the English words by Zanzig, and so was not the source for that song in tradition.

Performers
Vocal Soloist: single melodic line

Credits
African (Angola)

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: Five-line music at top and bottom of with YWCA logo at bottom left

Color Scheme: the cover uses dark blue ink on medium gray stock; inside the pages employ faded navy ink on white paper

Plate: The songster was reprinted several times, and each time the plate change.  The first issued had the one made by Jane Keen for Indianola Sings.

Notes on Performers
Lura Marie Barnes was born in 1897, [4] and raised in Topeka, Kansas, where she sang in the chorus of The Messiah in 1915. [5]  She married Byron Mohrbacher in 1921, when he was working for the Santa Fe Railroad.  At the time, they planned to attend Kansas State Agricultural College.  She expected she would study music and home economics. [6]

The next public notice came in 1924 when they were living in Wichita, Kansas, where he managed the United Warehouse.  They both were singing in glee clubs. [7]  By 1942, they were living in Ithaca, New York.  He ran the Cooperative Consumers Society grocery store there. [8]

Her first known contact with the YWCA came in 1943, when she wrote a letter to Oliver that said the composer of “Witchcraft” had been her accompanist in 1940. [9]  This song is mentioned in the post for 5 December 2021.

Around 1945, the Mohrbachers moved to Hazardville, near Enfield, Connecticut, where they remained. [10]  She was representing the Y on colleges in 1949, when she was a member of the national music committee. [11]  In 1950, she put on a program for the Y in Hartford where she sang and played accordion. [12]  The following year the soprano gave a concert in Thompsonville, a village near Enfield. [13]

Her first known contact with CRS came after 1954, when she set down an Indonesian song she heard at the Y’s summer school.  Rohrbough’s wife, born Katharine Ferris, translated it and he copyrighted it in 1956. [14]

After that she disappears from public view.  She died in 1977. [15]

I could find nothing about Mary B. Wheeler.  It is a common name.  Posts about Zanzig are listed in the index to the right.

Availability
Songbook: “Kum Ba Yah.”  7 in Sing Along, edited by Mary Wheeler, Lura Mohrbacher, and Augustus D. Zanzig for the National Board of the YWCA in New York.  Delaware, Ohio: Coop. Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service, 1957.

End Notes
1.  Sing Along.  61.  Chansons is discussed in the posts for 27 November 2022 and 4 December 2022.

2.  Sing Along, edited by Mary Wheeler for the National Board of the YWCA in New York.  Delaware, Ohio: Coop. Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service, 1965.  Inside front cover.

3.  Earlier YWCA songbooks are discussed in the posts for 5 December 2021, 13 March 2022, and 20 March 2022.

4.  “Lura Mohrbacher.”  Ancient Faces website.

5.  Item.  The Topeka Daily Capital, Topeka, Kansas, 8 April 1917.  3.  Uploaded to the internet by fritzabq on 18 January 2015.

6.  Item in “Among Ourselves.”  The Santa Fe Magazine, 13:96:1921.

7.  Item.  The Marysville Advocate, Marysville, Kansas, 24 April 1924.  5.  Uploaded to the internet by araywatson on 4 August 2020.

8.  Ithaca Directory, 1942.  Bellows Falls, Vermont: H. A. Manning Company, 1942.  237.

9.  Marie Oliver.  Let’s Have Music.  1945.  47.  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.

10.  Lura Mohrbacher.  “Three Stories about Music and People.”  Music Journal 9(6):15:1 October 1951.

11.  “Sara Swartz Heads Membership Week Committee for S. C. M.”  The Etownian, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, 44(1):3:15 September 1947.

12.  “About Town.”  Manchester Evening Herald, Manchester, Connecticut, 13 September 1950.  14.
 
13.  “Plan Concert.”  The Thompsonville Press, Enfield, Connecticut, 72(27):5:4 October 1951.

14.  “Sarimandé.”  39 in Sing Along.

15.  Obituary for Lura Mohrbacher.  Manchester Journal Inquirer, Manchester, Connecticut, 10 June 1977.

16.  The one group who used evangelistic songs was Pioneer Girls.  As mentioned in the post for 4 December 2022, their songbook, Pioneer Girls Sing, contained no spirituals.  It had more hymns than many CRS songsters along with the words to a Fanny Crosby song.  “Good-bye, Our God Is Watching O’er You” was composed by Wendell P. Loveless.  He lived in Wheaton, Illinois, and had a radio program on the Moody Bible Institute’s station in Chicago. [17]

17.  “Wendell P.  Loveless.”  Hope Publishing company website.  

 

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.

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.

Although it has many of the subheadings used by Roe, like “Girl Reserve Songs” and “Folk Songs,” only 16 of the 103 songs are in either the Roe or the Ireland collection. [19]  Of those, only seven are unique to the YWCA.  Three are general (“As the Bright Flame Ascends,” [20] “Each Camp Fire,” and “Follow the Trail” [21]) and four served organizational needs (“Follow the Gleam,” [22] “For the year that came from Thee,” [23] “Gracious I will be in manner,” [24] and “O God grant our daily bread.” [25])  It included one new Y song that entered the traditional girls’ camp tradition, “Witchcraft.” [26]

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.