1
20
222
-
https://vtfolklife-collections.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/original/6/995/vfc2003-0007_ot2003-3006a-010_a-maidens-wish_sh.mp3?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAW2BZMHQCSRC2LNUC%2F20240329%2Fus-east-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240329T053707Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=600&X-Amz-Signature=29df5874d3544052252c1a5999c4d1f73bb5719a43d0e73e16f5b75d8fd9e712
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
A Maiden's Wish
Location
The location of the interview.
Marlboro, Vermont
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:19
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
A Maiden's Wish (OT2003-3006-010)
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3006, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bruce, Natalie
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1962-04-18
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3006-010
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Vermont (state)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/985">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3006</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
-
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6882813ef9cea7d4665a2d710c4b35b4
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
A Man Named Cable
Location
The location of the interview.
Ascutney, Vermont
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:28
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
A Man Named Cable (OT2003-3010-026)
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3010, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Curtis, Josiah
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1963-05-27
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3010-026
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Vermont (state)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Format Of
A related resource that is substantially the same as the described resource, but in another format.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/1059">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3010</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
-
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1638a7c01684495119ca6e78d9b240f8
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
Almost There
Location
The location of the interview.
Marlboro, Vermont
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
3:43
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Almost There (OT2003-3013-027)
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3013, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Atwood, Fred
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1964-07-16
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3013-027
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Vermont (state)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/1138">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3013</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
-
https://vtfolklife-collections.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/original/6/1154/vfc2003-0007_ot2003-3013a-016_answer-to-the-gypsys-warning_sh.mp3?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAW2BZMHQCSRC2LNUC%2F20240329%2Fus-east-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240329T053707Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=600&X-Amz-Signature=26bfa3be7da3a6e48e53ff8d0f26fc4ae49beffa15cabc4d2710ced1a5c0e200
05fd46ecc236e9c4eae99176d31e81d3
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
Answer to the Gypsy's Warning
Standard Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by the standard
reference work employed in cataloging or by Composer or Lyricist. Maps to DC Title
Reply to the Gypsy's Warning
Standard Title Reference
Citation, in standard format, for the Standard Title. Maps to DC Relation/IsReferencedBy
Folk Music Index (http://www.ibiblio.org/folkindex)
Location
The location of the interview.
Marlboro, Vermont
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
3:08
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Answer to the Gypsy's Warning (OT2003-3013-016)
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3013, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Atwood, Fred
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1964-07-16
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3013-016
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Vermont (state)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/1138">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3013</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
-
https://vtfolklife-collections.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/original/6/951/vfc2003-0007_ot2003-3004a-008_aunt-jemima_sh.mp3?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAW2BZMHQCSRC2LNUC%2F20240329%2Fus-east-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240329T053707Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=600&X-Amz-Signature=bf8a122d9069649464f08a5ff2c5ac525f431db48e864b8b70444cb0280532d8
def5149f0c2b4970900628f43c1bfb18
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
Aunt Jemima
Location
The location of the interview.
Guilford, Vermont
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:10
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Aunt Jemima (OT2003-3004-008)
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3004, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Nichols, May
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1961-10-05
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3004-008
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Vermont (state)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/943">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3004</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
-
https://vtfolklife-collections.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/original/6/1011/vfc2003-0007_ot2003-3007a-002_aunt-rhody_sh.mp3?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAW2BZMHQCSRC2LNUC%2F20240329%2Fus-east-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240329T053707Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=600&X-Amz-Signature=4add273ed5f531e34c664ae7879e2cada6501692075de7745e4c1d8b545ab248
a200a8e1cda331bc68feaec63cd68926
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
Aunt Rhody
Standard Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by the standard
reference work employed in cataloging or by Composer or Lyricist. Maps to DC Title
Go Tell Aunt Rhody/Rhodie
Standard Title Reference
Citation, in standard format, for the Standard Title. Maps to DC Relation/IsReferencedBy
Folk Music Index (http://www.ibiblio.org/folkindex)
Location
The location of the interview.
Marlboro, Vermont
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:25
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Aunt Rhody (OT2003-3007-002)
Alternative Title
An alternative name for the resource. The distinction between titles and alternative titles is application-specific.
Go Tell Aunt Rhody
Grey Goose
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3007, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
MacArthur, Megan
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1962-05-30
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3007-002
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Vermont (state)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/1009">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3007</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
-
https://vtfolklife-collections.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/original/6/1117/vfc2003-0007_ot2003-3011b-028_baby-cradle-song_sh.mp3?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAW2BZMHQCSRC2LNUC%2F20240329%2Fus-east-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240329T053707Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=600&X-Amz-Signature=6bc1d7573bdd335cf7df8762933612931f8f2c222fe7688578a005620a8c17f3
c3c7e3852152fc907505a1835c1ba09e
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
Baby Cradle Song
Location
The location of the interview.
Wilmington, Vermont
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:31
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Baby Cradle Song (OT2003-3011-028)
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3011, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hicks, Dawn
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1964-10
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3011-028
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Vermont (state)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/1089">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3011</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
-
https://vtfolklife-collections.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/original/6/1129/vfc2003-0007_ot2003-3012b-010_barbara-allen_sh.mp3?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAW2BZMHQCSRC2LNUC%2F20240329%2Fus-east-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240329T053707Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=600&X-Amz-Signature=0ffd5afb08ffcd8c2dcb8145d3215038c4ef28eeeecca4171426b692f5dfc2c3
d1fd66d368b29ba39edd2a3674e0d2ce
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
Barbara Allen
Standard Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by the standard
reference work employed in cataloging or by Composer or Lyricist. Maps to DC Title
Barbara/Barbry Allen
Standard Title Reference
Citation, in standard format, for the Standard Title. Maps to DC Relation/IsReferencedBy
Folk Music Index (http://www.ibiblio.org/folkindex)
Transcription
[Most of recording is MacArthur and Atwood talking about music and the song. Singing begins at 1:46, but Atwood cannot recall lyrics]<br /><br />In Charlotte-town where I was born<br />There was a fair maid dwelling<br />[hums line]<br />And her name was Barabara Allen
Location
The location of the interview.
Marlboro, Vermont
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
2:00
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Barbara Allen (OT2003-3012-010)
Alternative Title
An alternative name for the resource. The distinction between titles and alternative titles is application-specific.
Bonny Barbara Allan
The Ballet of Barbara Allen
Barbara Allen's Cruelty
Barbarous Ellen
Edelin
Hard Hearted Barbary Ellen
Sad Ballet Of Little Johnnie Green
Sir John Graham
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3012, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Atwood, Fred
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1964-07-15
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3012-010
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Vermont (state)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/1119">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3012</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
-
https://vtfolklife-collections.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/original/6/1144/vfc2003-0007_ot2003-3013b-006_barbara-allen_sh.mp3?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAW2BZMHQCSRC2LNUC%2F20240329%2Fus-east-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240329T053707Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=600&X-Amz-Signature=e6a5c42b4aca5cd3468f8bb264e3f04a77c08d521899e61826d43ab14a7034ff
4a95a6f1445f21ec7d1e22e04f26b073
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
Barbara Allen
Standard Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by the standard
reference work employed in cataloging or by Composer or Lyricist. Maps to DC Title
Barbara Allen
Standard Title Reference
Citation, in standard format, for the Standard Title. Maps to DC Relation/IsReferencedBy
Folk Music Index (http://www.ibiblio.org/folkindex)
Coffin, Tristam P. (1950). The British Traditional Ballad in North America. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The American Folklore Society.
Transcription
Twas in the merry month of May<br />When all the fields were blooming<br />A young man on his death bed lay<br />For the love of Barbara Allen<br /><br />He sent his little 'prentice boy<br />To the place where she was dwelling<br />Saying "Master says you must come home [Atwood stutters] here<br />If your name be Barbara Allen"<br /><br />So slowly she put on her clothes<br />So slowly she went to him<br />And all she said when she came there<br />"Young man I think you're dying"<br /><br />"For death is sprinkled on your face<br />And sorrow in your dwelling<br />But better off should I be there<br />If her name was Barbara Allen"<br /><br />"Don't you remember the other day<br />Back at the last station<br />You drank your health to the maids all round<br />And slighted Barbara Allen"<br /><br />He turned his face unto the wall<br />His back unto the maiden<br />"Adieu adieu to my friends all<br />And woe to Barbara Allen"<br /><br />She had not gone three miles from town<br />She heard the church bell tolling<br />And every toll it seemed to roll<br />"O cruel Barbara Allen"<br /><br />She looked east and she came west<br />And saw a funeral coming<br />Saying "Set thee down the cold corpse of clay<br />That I may look upon him"<br /><br />"For cruel is my name" said she<br />"And cruel is my nature<br />I might have saved this young man's life<br />By doing my endeavor"<br /><br />The fairest young man in all New York<br />Died for John Allen's daughter<br />The fairest young lady in this town<br />Will soon follow after<br /><br />He dug [Atwood stutters] "Go dig my grave both long and deep<br />Go dig it straight and narrow<br />This young man died for me today<br />I'd die for him tomorrow<br /><br />The young man was buried<br />And she was buried beside him<br />And out of his grave grew a bright red rose<br />And out of her grew a briar<br /><br />They grew up to the mountaintop<br />Where they could grow no higher<br />They tied them in a true lover's knot<br />And withered away together<br /><br />References:<br /><ul><li>"Barbara Allen," typewritten lyrics owned by Margaret MacArthur, archived at the Vermont Folklife Center.</li>
</ul>
Location
The location of the interview.
Marlboro, Vermont
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
4:15
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Barbara Allen (OT2003-3013-006)
Alternative Title
An alternative name for the resource. The distinction between titles and alternative titles is application-specific.
Bonny Barbara Allan
The Ballet of Barbara Allen
Barbara Allen's Cruelty
Barbarous Ellen
Edelin
Hard Hearted Barbary Ellen
Sad Ballet Of Little Johnnie Green
Sir John Graham
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3013, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1964-07-16
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3013-006
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Vermont (state)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/1138">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3013</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
-
https://vtfolklife-collections.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/original/6/1055/vfc2003-0007_ot2003-3009b-015_barber-and-the-monkey_sh.mp3?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAW2BZMHQCSRC2LNUC%2F20240329%2Fus-east-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240329T053707Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=600&X-Amz-Signature=35fc349f419e1acf13f8a65dca9306fcb954720c8bb8fced07c3d3b10d0df03b
945ea7722424a76d7c63365b74b55cca
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
Barber and Monkey
Location
The location of the interview.
Shelburne, Vermont
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
2:06
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Barber and Monkey (OT2003-3009-015)
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3009, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
New, Lillian
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1963-01-03
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3009-015
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Vermont (state)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/1040">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3009</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
-
https://vtfolklife-collections.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/original/6/1045/vfc2003-0007_ot2003-3009b-005_battle-of-fredricksburg_sh.mp3?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAW2BZMHQCSRC2LNUC%2F20240329%2Fus-east-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240329T053707Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=600&X-Amz-Signature=6d3c924fd4c9ca3530f5a5474723278d3349643167b6620cf88913185b508e95
60f757c0707173c60d8e5bc7ffc6a711
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
Battle of Fredricksburg
Location
The location of the interview.
Wardsboro, Vermont
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
2:25
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Battle of Fredricksburg (OT2003-3009-005)
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3009, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1962-12
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3009-005
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Vermont (state)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/1040">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3009</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
-
https://vtfolklife-collections.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/original/6/1198/vfc2003-0007_ot2003-3014a-011_bird-song_sh.mp3?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAW2BZMHQCSRC2LNUC%2F20240329%2Fus-east-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240329T053707Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=600&X-Amz-Signature=42703fe3f2ccbccecdc1fc1a8f7d7f8991fa6618dfd4961d0e3330979f57d75b
e6909eae5a57a78429cc7a390829ee04
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
Bird Song
Standard Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by the standard
reference work employed in cataloging or by Composer or Lyricist. Maps to DC Title
The Leatherwing Bat
Standard Title Reference
Citation, in standard format, for the Standard Title. Maps to DC Relation/IsReferencedBy
Folk Music Index (http://www.ibiblio.org/folkindex)
Transcription
<strong>References</strong>
<ul><li>Laws index number L9. Laws, G. Malcolm. <em>Native American Balladry.</em> University of Texas Press (1964).</li>
<li>Macarthur, Margaret. 2011. "The Search for More Songs from the Hills of Vermont." CDSS News, Summer 2011. <a href="http://www.cdss.org/tl_files/cdss/newsletter_archives/supplements/summer%202011_coldbrook_macarthur.pdf">http://www.cdss.org/tl_files/cdss/newsletter_archives/supplements/summer%202011_coldbrook_macarthur.pdf</a>Last accessed on 04/03/2013.</li>
</ul>
Location
The location of the interview.
Marlboro, Vermont
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:23
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Bird Song -- Woody Queristers (OT2003-3014-011)
Alternative Title
An alternative name for the resource. The distinction between titles and alternative titles is application-specific.
Old Man at the Mill
Crow Song
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3014, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Atwood, Fred
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1964-07-17
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3014-011
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/1187">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3014</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
-
https://vtfolklife-collections.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/original/6/999/vfc2003-0007_ot2003-3006b-014_bird-with-a-broken-wing_sh.mp3?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAW2BZMHQCSRC2LNUC%2F20240329%2Fus-east-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240329T053708Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=600&X-Amz-Signature=69096544fbe3a232dff2b6a75a9bbe90955c27804c6f4cd10b271477cdc27fa5
ccf6401d3260a13b1deb2b070c1aff0f
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
Bird with a Broken Wing
Standard Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by the standard
reference work employed in cataloging or by Composer or Lyricist. Maps to DC Title
Bird with a Broken Wing
Standard Title Reference
Citation, in standard format, for the Standard Title. Maps to DC Relation/IsReferencedBy
Folk Music Index (http://www.ibiblio.org/folkindex)
Location
The location of the interview.
Wilmington, Vermont
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:27
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Bird with a Broken Wing (OT2003-3006-014)
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3006, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Putnam, Karma
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1962-04-18
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3006-014
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Vermont (state)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/985">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3006</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
-
https://vtfolklife-collections.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/original/6/1001/vfc2003-0007_ot2003-3006b-016_birdies-ball_sh.mp3?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAW2BZMHQCSRC2LNUC%2F20240329%2Fus-east-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240329T053708Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=600&X-Amz-Signature=ed0e3fa502347631a9a01333772ed24813b1ed022f52ad31afbba191a15e6770
f7deac57d7f80c5d9a04e94a2b2d822d
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
Birdies Ball
Location
The location of the interview.
Readsboro, Vermont
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:29
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Birdies Ball (OT2003-3006-016)
Alternative Title
An alternative name for the resource. The distinction between titles and alternative titles is application-specific.
Birdies' Ball
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3006, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bailey, Alice Snow
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1962-05-07
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3006-016
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Vermont (state)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/985">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3006</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
-
https://vtfolklife-collections.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/original/6/1031/vfc2003-0007_ot2003-3007b-022_birdies-ball_sh.mp3?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAW2BZMHQCSRC2LNUC%2F20240329%2Fus-east-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240329T053708Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=600&X-Amz-Signature=0e48d0de89ddd7d1e9f950f28019433bf11e01a4b1fdb1adcdda97243a3e9cac
697b7a1f0c3b49c80040baa1f6451db1
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
Birdies Ball
Location
The location of the interview.
Readsboro, Vermont
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:29
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Birdies Ball (OT2003-3007-022)
Alternative Title
An alternative name for the resource. The distinction between titles and alternative titles is application-specific.
Birdies' Ball
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3007, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
McGinn, Barbara Landman
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1962-10
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3007-022
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Vermont (state)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/1009">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3007</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
-
https://vtfolklife-collections.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/original/6/1178/vfc2003-0007_ot2003-3015a-007_birds-in-tree_sh.mp3?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAW2BZMHQCSRC2LNUC%2F20240329%2Fus-east-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240329T053708Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=600&X-Amz-Signature=a534dcd7e11947ec715c9496155e914b647f0c62623d6c2bea7db58848026244
939e109ed2166d84aab65e7b40af304c
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
Birds in the Tree
Location
The location of the interview.
Windham, Connecticut
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:41
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Birds in the Tree (OT2003-3015-007)
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3015, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Atwood, Fred
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1967-07-28
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3015-007
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Vermont (state)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/1171">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3015</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
-
https://vtfolklife-collections.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/original/6/1155/vfc2003-0007_ot2003-3013a-017_black-hills_sh.mp3?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAW2BZMHQCSRC2LNUC%2F20240329%2Fus-east-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240329T053708Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=600&X-Amz-Signature=0c051b5f4ef5d477f5eafc3ed3871ec034f11e7827b44ad850f0db994154b778
a365493b2ca166f4dec01e7034f7a4bb
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
Black Hills
Transcription
Come gentlemen listen to a pitiful tale<br />I'm an object of pity and looking quite pale<br />For I left far my bills at selling Wright's Patent Pills<br />To go a-gold digging out to the black hills<br /><br /> Don't go I say, stay if you can<br /> Far from that city they call it Cheyenne<br /> [?] will come and build<br /> And take your [?] off of the dreary black hills<br /> <br />When first in the black hills no gold could I find<br />I thought of North Adams I left far behind<br />Through the cold forests and snowboards I wept to the gills<br />They call me the orphan boy of the black hills<br /><br />And the Round House at Ceyenne is filled every night<br />With people of every description and sight<br />With no clothes to their backs, and their pockets no bills<br />But still they keep going out to the black hills<br /><br />Now gentlement listen to this story I told<br />Don't go to the black hills a-looking for gold<br />For the railroad speculator will pocket your bills<br />When you go to go digging out to the black hills<br /><br /> Don't go I say, stay if you can<br /> Far from that city they call it Cheyenne<br /> [?] will come and build<br /> And take your [?] off of the dreary black hills<br /><br />References:<br /><ul><li>Irwin Silber, Earl Robinson. <em>Songs of the Great American West</em>. Courier Dover Publications, 1967. 151-2.</li>
<li>John Lyons. "Musical Heritage of the American Pioneer". Marty College, South Dakota. 1985. 11-2.</li>
</ul>
Location
The location of the interview.
Marlboro, Vermont
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:40
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Black Hills (OT2003-3013-017)
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3013, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Atwood, Fred
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1964-07-16
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3013-017
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Vermont (state)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/1138">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3013</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
-
https://vtfolklife-collections.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/original/6/1146/vfc2003-0007_ot2003-3013b-008_blow-gentle-winds--willie-at-sea_sh.mp3?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAW2BZMHQCSRC2LNUC%2F20240329%2Fus-east-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240329T053708Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=600&X-Amz-Signature=cdb03d5fb248f54df8045aa21e3a1abcefd5b1f8bd3b16f6e70493effc38ba46
64267b3720eab6848def2a8863f0d5f2
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
Blow Gentle Winds -- Willie at Sea
Location
The location of the interview.
Marlboro, Vermont
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:50
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Blow Gentle Winds -- Willie at Sea (OT2003-3013-008)
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3013, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Atwood, Fred
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1964-07-16
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3013-008
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Vermont (state)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/1138">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3013</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
-
https://vtfolklife-collections.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/original/6/1103/vfc2003-0007_ot2003-3011a-014_bold-fisherman_sh.mp3?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAW2BZMHQCSRC2LNUC%2F20240329%2Fus-east-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240329T053708Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=600&X-Amz-Signature=c13c15739118b829ba74e4c452f632cfa4507de06921c1bc616f6d3eab7a7cdd
c08982c4c87a68151a398ebc2bd0d5a5
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
Bold Fisherman
Standard Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by the standard
reference work employed in cataloging or by Composer or Lyricist. Maps to DC Title
Bold Fisherman
Standard Title Reference
Citation, in standard format, for the Standard Title. Maps to DC Relation/IsReferencedBy
Folk Music Index (http://www.ibiblio.org/folkindex)
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:41
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Bold Fisherman (OT2003-3011-014)
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3011, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Linden, Barbara
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
undated
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3011-014
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Vermont (state)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/1089">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3011</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
-
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b7d84452caa479b515a19c24f6feeafd
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Margaret MacArthur Collection (VFC2003-0007)
Description
An account of the resource
The Margaret MacArthur Collection consists of 16 audio field recordings on analog reel-to-reel tape, approximately 20 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 250 print volumes created and collected by Marlboro, Vermont-based field recordist and performer, Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 26, 2006). The Vermont Folklife Center Archive also holds additional unaccessioned audio recordings, papers and books donated by the MacArthur family.
SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE COLLECTION
The content of the Margaret MacArthur collection focuses on narrative and lyrical song from New England, the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as materials on dulcimer, harp and zither.
Included among the print materials are scholarly works on folk song, popular song books, sheet music collections, songsters and pamphlets ranging in date from the mid 19th century through the late 20th century.
Manuscript holdings include teaching materials, performance-related notebooks and a complete set of lyric transcriptions given to Margaret by Helen Hartness Flanders drawn from Flanders own collection.
The audio recordings represent Margaret’s work to document and preserve regional song tradition in Vermont and New England. Most of these recordings are performances, although a handful are extended interviews and stories. Between 1960 and 1968 Margaret regularly travelled Vermont and New England with her Wollensak reel-to-reel tape deck in tow with the goal of collecting New England songs and ballads that had been passed down through family lineage and social occasion. In her first months of creating field recording she focused on the older generation’s first-hand knowledge, eliciting performances from Vermonters like John Hooper, James Farrington, and Minnie Stetson–-all over eighty years old at the time. But soon she began interviewing the subsequent generation, asking if they could recall any songs sung by their own parents, friends, or relatives.
During her interviews, Margaret duly noted the geographic origin of the songs she collected, and often attempted to make sense of their narrative meaning and historical context. She recorded people of all ages and backgrounds. From some interviewees, she made only a few recordings; others (such as Lester Fairbanks and Winfred Landman) she revisited to fill additional reels. The performances she captured vary greatly in style and represent many genres: English broadside ballads, yeoman poetry, early American popular music and minstrelsy, schoolyard rhymes, juba dance, and others.
Fred Atwood is the best-represented performer in the collection; his sessions comprise eighty-one of the tracks. His parents, James and Mary Atwood of Dover, knew many old English songs and several American ballads. Edith Sturgis and Robert Hughes transcribed some seventy songs which the Atwoods knew, and published twelve of the arrangements in the 1919 collection Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Margaret was well-acquainted with the slim book and aspired to locate the unpublished songs. The daughter of Edith Sturgis, Susan Goodale, was able to provide her with some of their texts and melodies. Ultimately, Margaret tracked down the surviving Atwood sons, Frank and Ernest, in search of a first-hand source.
By recalling his father’s singing and referencing his own longhand lyrical transcriptions, Fred Atwood was able to provide MacArthur with the melodies and words to many songs, ballads, and poems which might have otherwise have been lost along with their historical context. Margaret initially corresponded with him for several months. In 1964 he stayed at her family home in Marlboro for a three-day visit, during which she recorded over sixty songs. Atwood was eighty at the time. She recorded him a second time in 1967, this time at his residence: now an assisted living home in Windham, Connecticut. Upon visiting him again later that year, she was informed by his ex-wife that Atwood had since passed away.
At this time the online version of Margaret MacArthur Collection includes only the content of the 16 field recordings. Each audio recording is available in its entirety as well as in the form of 282 individual entries.
CUSTODIAL HISTORY
In 2003 MacArthur gifted 16 audio tapes to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. Following MacArthur’s death in 2006, her family donated MacArthur’s manuscripts and books to the Vermont Folklife Center Archive. The following year a box of audio recordings, including studio recordings and a large number of identified tapes, were donated as well.
PROCESSING HISTORY
In 2004 under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities all 16 of MacArthur’s original field recordings were digitized. VFC Archivist Andy Kolovos worked with MacArthur to identify individual songs and performers on the recordings and created a rough index to the content of the recordings.
In 2010 Middlebury College student Caroline Grego re-housed the materials gifted to MacArthur by Helen Hartness Flanders, removing them from binders and placing them in acid free folders and boxes.
In 2013, we revisited this index, correcting errors, addressing oversights and expanding the descriptions of individual songs to include references to standard song titles. In addition, we used the revised index to create new audio excerpts of individual song performances.
RELATED MATERIALS
A collection of several analog reel-to-reel tapes of recordings made in Kentucky with singer Florence Fowler reside at the Kentucky Historical Society.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Margaret MacArthur (1928-2006) was an American folk musician and a field collector of traditional music in Vermont, Kentucky and New England. Over the course of her life MacArthur, along with her children and friends, released over 10 commercial recordings.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, her family moved multiple times during her childhood following her step-father’s employment in the US Forest Service. As a girl Margaret spent time in Northern Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana Southern Missouri and Southern California, absorbing traditional music in all the communities in which her family lived. In 1944 Margaret entered the University of Chicago where she met, and eventually married, fellow student John MacArthur. In 1948 John accepted a teaching position at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret first moved to Newfane, VT and ultimately settled in a 200 year old farmhouse Marlboro, VT. John and Margaret had five children, John, Patrick, Dan, Gary and Megan. Margaret died at home Tuesday, May 23rd 2006.
As a performer Margaret toured nationally and internationally, appearing regularly at many festivals including Inverness, University of Chicago, Mariposa, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Old Songs, Champlain, Eistedfod at University of Southern Massachusetts, Louisville, Fox Hollow, Southern Acoustic Music, and Pine Mountain, Cranberry, Black Swamp, and Memphis Dulcimer Festivals. Margaret twice performed at the Kennedy Center at the Library Congress, in 2006 and 1997.
In 2002 she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the Vermont Arts Council. Yankee Magazine, July/August 2001, selected her CD Vermont Ballads & Broadsides as one of the Yankee Top 40 of all time. In 1988 she received a commendation from the American Association of State and Local History, an honor from the California Traditional Music Society, and the Eistedfod Award from the University of Southern Massachusetts, North Dartmouth. The 1985 University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Art Biennial Committee named her a ‘New England Living Art Treasure.’ She received the Midsummer Festival Award in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1984, and a Citation of Recognition from the Vermont Council of the Arts in 1973.
NAMES
Allen, Nellie
Atwood, Fred
Bailey, Alice Snow
Bills, Gertie (Mrs. Emery)
Blanchard, Shirley Curtis
Brown, Hildreth
Bruce, Natalie
Chase, Jean
Chase, Mrs. Philip
Chase, Philip
Clogston, Mary
Curtis, Josiah
Derry, Olive
Edson, Delia Harding
Fairbanks, Lester
Farrington, James
Fish, Lena Bourne
Fletcher, Edna
Graves, Charles
Greenwood, Florence
Hastings, Ethel
Hicks, Dawn
Hinman, Bernice Mrs.
Hooper, John
Humphries, Mrs.
Ingram, Helen
Kuhn, Anna
Lamorder, Henry (Pete)
Landman, Winfred
Linden, Barbara
MacArthur, Megan
Manchester, Letitia
McGinn, Barbara Landman
McGinn, Phyllis Landman
Mondel, Leone
New, Lillian
Nichols, Austin
Nichols, May
Palmer, James
Pierce, Timmis
Putnam, Karma
Reed, Jane
Robinson, Ruby
Schroeder, Henry
Stetson, Minnie
Swain, Martha
Toomey, David
Turner, Frederick
Turner, Tinkie (Katherine)
Waters, Lela
Watson, Mrs. George
Watson, Susan
West, Mrs.
White, Nora
Wilbur, Frank
Wright, John
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Magaret
Song
Local Title
Title assigned to the song or poem by singer, interviewer or scribe. Maps to DC Title
Bondville Fair
Location
The location of the interview.
Londonderry, Vermont
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:25
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Bondville Fair (OT2003-3007-021)
Subject
The topic of the resource
folksongs (AFS ET)
Folk songs, English--Vermont (LCSH)
Description
An account of the resource
Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3007, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
McGinn, Barbara Landman
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1962-10
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MacArthur, Margaret
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
sound tape reel (analog)
digital audio file (MP3)
Language
A language of the resource
en
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3007-021
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New England (general region)
Vermont (state)
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Vermont Folklife Center
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/1009">VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3007</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/collections/show/6">Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007</a>. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.