Custodial History
The Library of Congress has enjoyed a long and mutually supportive relationship with Henry and Sidney Robertson Cowell that began in the 1930s and continued until Sidney’s death in 1995. Their donations to the Library have allowed researchers and scholars to study most of Henry Cowell’s music manuscripts, view materials that provide an exhaustive account of Sidney’s life and work, and better understand the Cowells’ professional contributions and personal lives.
Sidney Robertson first visited the Archive of American Folk Song, then housed in the Library’s Music Division, in 1936, to discuss some points about American folksong. Her interest led to meetings with Charles Seeger, who hired her to collect and record folk music for the New Deal’s Resettlement Administration. Through her work with Seeger, her ties to various Archive heads, and with Harold Spivacke, chief of the Music Division, were strengthened. Much of the fieldwork done at the Resettlement Administration is now part of the Library’s collections.
The Work Projects Administration California Folk Music Project, conceived and managed by Sidney Robertson Cowell, was jointly sponsored by the Music Department of the University of California, Berkeley and the Library of Congress. Harold Spivacke provided important support by supplying Cowell with blank acetate discs on which to record--with the provision that these recordings be given to the Library—and offering cataloging guidance. The original field recordings became part of the Archive of American Folk Song in 1939 and 1940. These recordings and other materials from the project form the core of the American Folklife Center's W.P.A. California Folk Music Project Collection. In addition, some of the recordings that Sidney made on field trips at home and abroad, including Rockefeller Foundation trips to Asia with Henry, reside in the American Folklife Center.
Henry Cowell began depositing his music manuscripts with the Library in the 1940s. Through Henry and Sidney’s generosity, the Music Division would ultimately hold the majority of Henry Cowell’s holograph music manuscripts, which number about 1100 items and date from 1907 to 1965, the year he died. The other repository holding any sizable number of these is the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, which also holds most of Henry Cowell’s personal papers. His music manuscripts at the Library of Congress have been cataloged under the Library of Congress call number ML96.C823, with the exception of works commissioned by various Music Division foundations and a group of folksongs, with accompaniments in Henry Cowell’s hand, located in the Sidney Robertson Cowell Collection. Additional material relating to Henry Cowell, including correspondence and some writings, can be found in numerous collections throughout the Music Division.
Sidney kept in close contact with former Library of Congress Music Division chiefs Harold Spivacke and Don Leavitt, and others within the division, throughout the remainder of her life. Not only did she oversee the Henry Cowell manuscript donations, but she regularly made donations of her own personal and professional papers which comprise the Sidney Robertson Cowell Collection in the Library of Congress and are described in this finding aid.