Scope and Content
Field notebooks, correspondence, publications, and photographs, related to Willard Rhodes' field expeditions to Native American communities between 1938 and 1952 on behalf of the Library of Congress and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The notebooks contain Rhodes' field notes, transcriptions, translations, and some musical notation, relating to audio recordings of Native American songs. Correspondence (1948-1979) relates primarily to the ten albums of Native American music recorded and edited by Rhodes in the Music of the American Indian series. Tribes recorded by Rhodes include Apache, Bannock, Caddo, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Chinook, Choctaw, Comanche, Creek, Delaware, Hopi, Kiowa, Klallam, Lummi, Navajo, Omaha , Paiute, Pawnee, Potawatomi, Pueblo, Quinault, San Ildefonso, Seminole, Shaker, Shoshone, Sioux, Skagit, Taos, Tewa, Tlingit, Tsaiyak, Ute, Washo, Wichita, and Zuni songs. The collections also includes 8 government and mission publications from Sioux communities.
Photographs of native peoples of Washington State were taken by Juel E. Lange in conjunction Willard Rhodes’ fieldwork. Selected photos were published in the booklet accompanying the original edition of Music of the American Indian: Northwest (Puget Sound) AFS L34. Photographs of Sioux and Pueblo children appear to have been taken by Willard Rhodes. Included in the collection are three 8 x 10 in. black-and-white photographic prints from the Bureau of Indian Affairs of BIA schools.