Fletcher Collins Jr. collection
By: collected by Fletcher Collins
Contributors: Cole, Calvin, performer; Greer, I. G. (Isaac Garfield), 1881-1967, performer; Tate, Dan, b. 1896, performer; Wagoners; Archive of Folk Song (U.S.)
Published: 1935
Language: eng
Number of pages: 1000
Subjects: English Hymns; English Ballads; Ethnomusicological collections; Field recordings; Radio programs; Children's songs, English; English Folk songs; Fiddle tunes; Folk music; Banjo music
Description: The Fletcher Collins Jr. Collection is the result of the Anglo-American folksong collecting activities of Fletcher Collins Jr. from the mid-1930s to the early 1940s in North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. Collins made twenty-one disc recordings of folk songs and ballads at Elon College in March, 1939, under the auspices of the WPA Joint Committee on Folk Arts.  During November and December 1941 he made fifteen recordings, including folk songs and instrumental music with banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, and piano accompaniment for the Library of Congress Archive of Folk Song. Twelve of these discs are part of this collection, which also includes manuscript materials, correspondence, materials for a series on WBIG radio, and transcriptions of songs and tunes donated to the Library by Fletcher Collins in 2002.
Notes: The collection is open for research use.

Field recordings were made at Elon College by Fletcher Collings in March 1939 (AFS 2235, AFS 3769-3788) on aluminum-base lacquer discs. Field recordings were made in November and December 1941 on glass-base lacquer discs with a Library of Congress Presto recording machine in Brown Summit (AFS 6491), Burlington (AFS 6365-6366, perhaps 6494), Elon College (AFS 6492-6493), and Greensboro (AFS 6482-6486), North Carolina; and in Fancy Gap, Virginia (AFS 6487-6490).

Fletcher Collins Jr. Collection (AFC 1939/003), Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Duplication of the collection materials may be governed by copyright and other restrictions.

Fletcher Collins; Donation; 1939, 1942, 2002.

Two discs made by Fletcher Collins in Burlington, N.C., Dec. 8, 1941, were in response to Alan Lomax's call for "man-on-the-street" reactions to the Pearl Harbor attacks the day prior. They are included in a separate American Folklife Center collection, AFC 1941/004 Man-on-the-Street Interviews Collection.

Fletcher Collins Jr. was born on November 19, 1906. He graduated from Yale University (Ph.B. 1928, Ph.D. 1934) and was a professor of English at Elon College in North Carolina (1936-42) and professor of Theater at Mary Baldwin College (1946-1977).  He died in 2005.

Finding aid available in the Folklife Reading Room and online via the American Folklife Center web pages.

Bibliographic information for titles in this collection is found in the online resource, Traditional Music and Spoken Word Catalog from the American Folklife Center. Search for audio titles in the Fletcher Collins Jr. Collection.