Scope and Content
In 1941 and 1942 the Library of Congress and Fisk University of Nashville, Tennessee, jointly undertook a sociological study of African-American communities centered in Coahoma County, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta region. The project resulted in a number of documents, sound recordings, and motion picture footage now held in several collections at the American Folklife Center and at other institutions.
The study was first proposed to Fisk University administrators in 1940 by faculty member John W. Work III. The idea of a partnership between Fisk University and the Library of Congress formed in April 1941. It appealed to the Archive of American Folk-Song, a section in the Library of Congress Music Division, because of its focus on a single geographic region and ethnicity, a characteristic of the field projects undertaken by Alan Lomax beginning in 1937. Alan’s August 1941 project proposal to Library administrators included the following goals:
To record Negro revivals in the region of Northwestern Mississippi in company with various members of the faculty of Fisk University. This survey recording trip is preliminary to an intensive field study of Negro folk-song in a Mississippi Delta County, to be carried out during the fall and winter by the Fisk University Sociology Department in collaboration with the Archive of American Folksong. I believe that this study will represent the first scientific study in the field of American folk-song. It will be carried out by Doctor Charles S. Johnson and his graduate students in Sociology in collaboration with the Library of Congress.
The Library of Congress would furnish equipment, supplies, and a sound engineer while Fisk University would supply field workers and carry out publications and further studies.
Typically, the Coahoma project fit precariously into Alan Lomax’s other responsibilities. In addition to administering the Archive, through the spring of 1941 Alan wrote and produced two weekly radio programs for CBS. From late-July through mid-August Lomax and other Radio Research Project team members made field recordings in North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia.
On August 25, 1941, Alan Lomax and Elizabeth Lomax arrived in Nashville for consultation and project development with the Fisk University team, led by Lewis W. Jones, Charles S. Johnson, and John W. Work III. The Lomaxes, Lewis Jones, and John Ross then made an exploratory field trip from August 26 through September 3, recording twenty-five 16-inch discs on the Library’s Presto Model Y disc recorder. John Work likely joined the group for at least one of the sessions. Stopping first to record a religious service just south of Jackson, Tennessee, the team continued to Mississippi, recording in Mt. Airy, Stovall, the Morehead Plantation on Texas Island all in Coahoma County, Money in Leflore County, Mound Bayou in Bolivar County, and Lake Cormorant in DeSoto County. The recordings primarily document religious expression, but include historic country blues sessions with McKinley “Muddy Waters” Morganfield and Eddie “Son” House and one extended oral history with George Johnson, a former slave.
The group left Mississippi and drove back to Fisk University around September 6 for further project development. Alan Lomax, Elizabeth Lomax, and Lewis Jones continued toward Washington, stopping on September 7th and 8th to make disc recordings in southwestern Virginia. These recordings were accessioned into the Archive as a related collection. The Lomaxes finally returned to Washington, DC, around September 10, 1941.
The institutions agreed that the project would continue. During the winter, the Fisk University team conducted field work using supplies provided by the Library. As well, the Library authorized duplication of some of John Work’s field recordings and their accession into the Archive.
Alan Lomax was in residence at the Indiana University Summer School of Folklore beginning in late-June 1942. By July 15, however, he returned to Nashville to confer with the Fisk University team about the project. They quickly moved into the field, first to West Memphis, Arkansas, then to various locations in Coahoma County. By the second week in August the team was near Sledge, Mississippi, in the Hill Country. The 1942 component of the project yielded reports, correspondence, field notebooks, and seventy-two 16- and 12-inch discs made between July 15 and August 12, 1942. Religious expression and blues again dominated, but these genres were interspersed with tale telling, children’s songs, dance songs, oral histories, and other genres. Performers who became well-known included McKinley “Muddy Waters” Morganfield, Eddie “Son” House, David “Honeyboy” Edwards, and Sid Hemphill.
Lomax returned to Nashville around August 12. Between August 20 and August 30 he made recording trips to Smithville, Tennessee, Birmingham, Alabama, Marrowbone, Kentucky, and Saltville, Virginia. These recordings were all accessioned by the Archive as separate collections. Alan returned to Washington around August 29, 1942. It was his final recording trip for the Library of Congress. In October 1942 Alan Lomax transferred to the Office of War Information to better assist the war effort.
The project has been the source of extensive publication. The Land Where the Blues Began (1993) gives Alan Lomax’s recollections of the 1941 and 1942 trips. His Rainbow Sign (1959) highlights the sermonizing of Rev. Ribbons from 1941. Lost Delta Found (2005), edited by Robert Gordon and Bruce Nemerov, provides a critical overview of the project and includes a number of primary documents. John Szwed’s biography, Alan Lomax: The Man Who Recorded the World (2010) gives considerable insight into this period of Alan’s life, as does Ronald D. Cohen’s Alan Lomax: Assistant in Charge (2010). Stephen Wade’s The Beautiful Music All Around (2012) devotes a chapter to Bozie Sturdivant’s 1942 recordings. The Library of Congress first published sound recordings from the field trip in 1942. Since then, a steady stream of publications has emerged, including the Muddy Waters: The Complete Plantation Recordings (1993) and Son House, Delta Blues (1991), and Sid Hemphill: The Devil’s Dream (2013).