American Folksongs of Protest Hardcover – October 27, 2012

This volume, a major scholarly study, shows that American folksongs of protest are a legitimate part of conventional folk material. Although Dr. Greenway admits that protest songs tend to be ephemeral, they should not for that reason be excluded from the main body of genuine folk culture, for they provide a poignant historical view of the growth and development of the United States. ...The songs of all groups involved in the American social and economic struggle are represented. Dr. Greenway gives the text of two hundred songs - thirty with music. Nor does he neglect the song makers, providing brief biographies of such folk singers as Ella May Wiggins, who was murdered during a textile strike, Aunt Molly Jackson, Woody Guthrie, Joe Glazer, and others. An appendix lists more than three hundred songs of protest, most of them folksongs, available on phonograph records. Read more