Folk Music and Civil Rights in the United States (1945-1960).

• Grant number: 11/08989-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: August 01, 2011
• End date: May 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of America
• Principal Investigator: Tania da Costa Garcia
• Grantee: Mariana Oliveira Arantes
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais (FCHS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Franca. Franca , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Throughout the twentieth century, composers and performers of folk music in the United States developed a repertoire of varied themes that ranged from humorous stories, disasters in the world of work, murder and legendary heroes in the songs based on European tradition brought by immigrants, to music of work and adjustments to Protestant hymns performed by african americans. Through live performances, recordings and publications such artists inserted in the repertoire social issues like work, and expressed a political approaches marked by the struggle for equality and civil rights of certain social groups, involving artists in the racial and labor discussions that characterized American society. After 1945, with the development of United States of America as a hegemonic nation in the Occident, the Civil Rights Movement became more visible in the public places and means of communications inside the country. In spite of the propagation of the democratic speech by the nation representatives inside the country the Democracy was restricted, because of the racial discrimination and other ways of social inequality. Particularly the postwar period is central to our research, therefore, our time cutting extends from 1945 to 1960. The proposal of this project have the intention of analyzing the relations between social actors involved in the creation and dissemination of folk repertoire with the Civil Rights Movement. As a printed documentation it'll analize two kinds of magazines dedicated to diffuse the Folk Music songs and singers: People's Song and Sing Out! published between 1945 and 1960. Moreover, it'll be analysed written from Folk Song representatives like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, as well as a sonorous, composed documentary corpus of albums released by record label Folkways Records in the period.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

ARANTES, Mariana Oliveira. Canto em marcha: música folk e direitos civis nos Estados Unidos (1945-1960). 2014. Doctoral Thesis - Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais. Franca Franca.