W.P.A. California Folk Music Project collection, 1936-1991

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Biographical Note

1903	Born Sidney William Hawkins in San Francisco, California on June 02
1924	B.A., Romance Languages, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California Married Kenneth Robertson (divorced 1933)
1935	Henry Street Settlement
1936	Music assistant to Charles Seeger, KL Division, Music Unit, Special Skills Division, Resettlement Administration (RA). Accompanied Frank C. Brown and John A. Lomax on recording trip to western North Carolina where she received training in using a portable sound recording machine and assisted in recording Anglo American melismatic singing and African American singing in chain gang camps for the RA. Travelled on her own to collect traditional English-language music in Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia for the RA.
1937	Regional representative, Special Skills Division, Resettlement Administration. Collected recordings in Minnesota and northern Wisconsin (including Warde Ford and his extended family, many of whom moved to California to work in the CCC camps at the Shasta Dam where they were recorded by Robertson for this WPA collection). Community relief community manager, Special Skills Division, Resettlement Administration. Recorded Finnish, Serbian, and Gaelic performers; recorded Swedish, Lithuanian, Norwegian, and Finnish performers at the 4th National Folk Festival held in Chicago, recorded lumberjacks in Michigan.
Late 1937	Traveled to Washington, D.C. and California to explore plans for developing and funding folk song collecting projects through New Deal arts organizations and private grants organizations. Began to do folk music research in her native California.
Early 1938	Received endorsement from the Music Division at the Library of Congress and 200 blank acetate discs for recording folk music in California, under the provision that the Library's Archive of American Folk Song receive copies of the original field recordings she made. She also received approval from the Department of Music at the University of California, Berkeley, for co-sponsorship for their support in providing office space.
Late 1938	Through the sponsorship of the Library of Congress and the University of California, Berkeley, Robertson was able to apply for and receive WPA (Work Projects Administration) approval for her California Folk Music Project through the Berkeley office of the Northern District of the WPA in California. As such, she received help from twenty persons on the labor relief rolls. The CFMP opened officially on October 28, 1938.
1940	The CFMP was brought to a close, due to a lack of the renewal of WPA funds, which were intended to allow for the collection of Asian and Middle Eastern folk music in California during an additional two years. During this year, she compiled and publishedThe Gold Rush Song Book with Eleanora Black.
1941	Married Henry Cowell and began to use her married name, Sidney Robertson Cowell.
1942	PublishedThe Bibliography of American Folk-Song and Folklore with Alan Lomax.
1950	With Maud Karpeles, traveled during the fall to seek out and re-record singers and their families who had performed for Cecil Sharp in Appalachia in 1916-1917.
1953	Recorded American Folk Music Concert, Columbia University, at the 6th Annual Festival of Contemporary American Music; bagpipe tunes and Scottish Gaelic singing on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia; Spanish and Persian singing in Alameda and Berkeley, California; and the Shady [New York] Methodist Church Choir.
1955-56	Traveled for fourteen months to Europe and Asia, recording in the Aran Islands, Ireland in June 1955, and again in June 1956. Included travel to record traditional music in Iran, Thailand, Pakistan, and Malaysia.
1995	Died February 23 at her home in Shady, New York.