Administrative Information
Acquisition
In 1970, Sam Eskin donated all of the field and commercial recordings he made between 1940 and 1969 to the folklore department of the Cooperstown Graduate Program (CGP) in Cooperstown, New York. Upon the collector's death in 1974, all personal manuscripts related to the collection of folk music were presented to CGP by his sons. The collection remained there until the discontinuation of the CPG folklore department in 1979. For the next twenty years, Sam Eskin Collection resided at the New York State Historical Association's (NYSHA) archives until 1999. The materials were transferred to the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in 1999.
Graduate students Simon Bronner and Lee Livney were the first to process this collection at Cooperstown Graduate Program. Bronner organized and created a track list and outlined a processing procedure for all of Eskin's reel-to-reel tapes, while Livney arranged and cataloged manuscripts in the collection. When the collection was transferred to the New York State Historical Association, it underwent another partial re-organization. Once at the American Folklife Center, Nora Yeh supervised the final processing of Sam Eskin Collection. In the summer of 2000, Sondra Smolek reorganized, rehoused, and created the database for the manuscript portion of the collection. Patricia Baughman processed the documentation on the reel-to-reel tape collection in the fall of 2000. In the summer of 2001, T. Chris Aplin reviewed the sound recordings, completed documentation on the reel collection, and processed the acetate disk collection. In the fall of 2001, Judy Ng rehoused the sound recordings, updated the collection's finding aid, and updated the collection database.
Preferred Citation
Sam Eskin Collection, 1939-1969 (AFC 1999/004), Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Related Materials
Sam Eskin personally duplicated select original field recordings from his collection for the Library of Congress in 1952 and 1960. The first duplication project was accessioned by the Archive of Folk Culture in June 1952 (AFS 10,501-10,506 or LWO 1923), and consists of 6 10-inch preservation reel-to-reel tape recordings from 31 of Eskin's reel-to-reel tapes. The second duplication project was accessioned by the Archive of Folk Culture in June 1960 (AFS 11,712-11,719 or LWO 2995), and consists of 8 10-inch preservation reel-to-reel tape recordings from 142 of Eskin's acetate discs.
Since some of the original tapes and almost all of the original discs used for both duplication projects can be found in Sam Eskin Collection (AFC 1999/004), cross-references to both sets of duplicated recordings and all information pertaining to original recordings have been incorporated into the collection database (See zip disk in Folder 1, Box 1).
In addition to the materials in this collection, the Library holds eight commercial recordings with ties to Eskin appearing as a performer, contributor, or producer. Refer to the Library of Congress' Online Public Access Catalog ( http://catalog.loc.gov ) for further information on the following recordings: Sea Chanties And Loggers Songs ; American Storytellers ; Marimba Band, Otherwise Known As To Hell With High Fidelity ; Blues And A Guitar ; Caribeana, Hidden Music From The Caribbean Collected From The Shores and Islands ; Harry K. McClintock, "Haywire Mac" ; Songs Of All Times ; and Tiroro, A Real Glossary Of Rhythms .
Some materials related to recordings Eskin made for the Folkways Record label, including clippings, correspondence, record covers, notes, and magazine articles, are held at the Ralph Rinzler Archives at the Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.