John Cohen collection, circa 1950-2009

Title Page | Collection Summary | Biographical/Organizational Note | Scope and Contents | Arrangement

Access restrictions apply. Some or all content stored offsite.

Collection Summary

Title	John Cohen collection, circa 1950-2009
Span Dates	circa 1950-2009
Call No.	AFC 2011/059
Creator	Cohen, John,1932-2019
Extent	14,525 items.
Extent	107 containers.
Extent	18 linear feet.
Extent (manuscripts)	26 containers ; 8,400 items.
Extent (graphic materials)	121 photographs : film negatives, black-and-white and color ; 35 mm
Extent (graphic materials)	approximately 1750 photographic prints : black and white.
Extent (graphic materials)	1,271 photographs : digital, TIFF files.
Extent (sound recordings)	62 sound cassettes : analog.
Extent (sound recordings)	107 sound wire reels : analog.
Extent (sound recordings)	552 sound tape reels (5 in., 7in., 10 in.) : analog.
Extent (sound recordings)	456 sound discs : analog, 45 rpm ; 7 in.
Extent (sound recordings)	6 sound discs (CD-R) : digital ; ‡c 4 3/4 in.
Extent (moving images)	approximately 1800 film elements in 900 containers from 16 finished films.
Language	Collection materials in English.
Location	Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Finding Aid Permalink	Cite or bookmark this finding aid as: https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/eadafc.af020003
LCCN Permalink	LC Catalog record: https://lccn.loc.gov/2014655562
Summary	Collection of manuscripts, sound recordings, graphic images, and moving images created and collected by John Cohen. The materials document Cohen's parallel careers as a musician (member of the New Lost City Ramblers) and writer during the 1960s American folk music revival, and his celebrated work as a documentary photographer and filmmaker, producer, and artist from the 1950s to the present. Includes interviews made by Cohen with John Hartford, Harry Smith, Roger McGuinn, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Gary Davis, John Summers, Cousin Emmy, Roscoe Holcomb, Charlie Higgins, Wade Ward, Friends of Old Time Music, High Atmosphere, and photographs of these and others including E. C. Ball, Clancy Brothers, Elizabeth Cotten, Willie Dixon, Jack Elliott, Woody Guthrie, Mary Frank, Lilly Brothers, Alan Lomax, Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, Mike Seeger, Stanley Brothers, Belle Stewart, Stony Mountain Boys, Merle Travis, Muddy Waters, Doc Watson and many others. The collection includes documentation of Greenwich Village and Harlem, New York City; Cohen's travels to Paris and Spain in the 1950s; and later to England, Wales, Scotland, Germany, Italy and Japan, and other countries. Notable is his research for his master's thesis on Peruvian textile weaving, and subsequent fieldwork in Peru. Cohen visited Peru eight times between 1956 and 2005. Subsequent projects in Peru incorporated sound recordings of Andean music, and films as well as books about weaving, music, festivals, and dance. The majority of Cohen's Peru photographs were taken during his first three trips there and focus primarily on indigenous Andean people in the Q'ero region.