Scope and Content Note
The Joint Army and Navy Committee on Welfare and Recreation, Sub-Committee on Music was established in 1941 to attend to the morale of military personnel through the provision of music materials and the support of bands at various levels – camp, fort, field unit, and individual performer. Library of Congress Music Division chief Harold Spivacke served as the Sub-Committee chairman. These files document his role and that of his staff in this war effort.
The Sub-Committee performed a wide array of duties including providing music, instruments, and recording and playback equipment to military personnel; obtaining rights and permissions for use of music by bands and social service organizations to entertain the troops; facilitating soldier entertainment; and training band and song leaders. These activities are extensively documented. There is also discussion of the role of music in hospitals and post-war rehabilitation.
The bulk of the collection consists of alphabetically arranged Correspondence and Subject Files. Spivacke received quite a bit of personal correspondence, especially letters from servicemen (some known to him, others not). Some of these individuals reported on music in their camps, while others discussed their disappointment at the roles that they had been selected for. There are also offers of service and requests for employment; these came from musicians, composers, conductors and academic deans. Among the many correspondents are Milton Babbitt, Samuel Barber, Arthur Fiedler, Nathan Gottschalk, Roy Harris, Joseph Jordan, Miklós Rózsa, and Beryl Rubinstein.
Other communications are from original Sub-Committee members, including Fred Birnbach, secretary of the American Federation of Musicians; C. V. Buttelman, executive secretary of the Music Educators National Conference; Noble Sissle, president of the Negro Actors Guild of America, Inc.; and music publisher Harry Fox. There are also carbon copies of letters to many other well-known musical personalities of the era such as Aaron Copland, Leonard Feist, Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern, Erich Leinsdorf, Alan Lomax, and Walter Toscanini.
Beyond the correspondence, the collection contains a sampling of the Sub-Committee's Administrative Files that provide insight into its workings. Included are meeting minutes, memoranda and reports, and an extensive set of lists of best selling recordings from the war years.
A number of Publications provide evidence of the types of materials created and disseminated by the Sub-Committee on Music as well as the materials they drew from to create them. Among these items are instructional manuals, music, programming materials, resource materials, and songbooks.
Interfiled within the collection are related materials designated "for War Collection, Music Division" that were given to the Library of Congress Music Division on June 24, 1943, by the Industrial Service Division, Bureau of Public Relations, War Department, Washington, D. C. Wherever possible the original file folder identification and filing order as maintained by Sub-Committee staff was preserved in the initial processing of this collection.
Attempts were made to identify the first names of female correspondents; when a first name could not be found their names were given as "Smith, Mrs. John". In such instances, if you believe you know a woman's full name, please contact us. There are a few items in this collection that contain minstrelsy sketches and songs. There is offensive language about and portrayals of Japanese people in a military training guide.