California Gold
California Gold offers a compelling cultural snapshot of a diverse California during the 1930s at the height of the New Deal, drawing on the career of folk music collector Sidney Robertson and the musical culture of often-unheard voices. Robertson, an intrepid young woman armed only with her musicological savvy, an eagerness to uncover traditional music-making wherever she went, a car, and the recording equipment of the time proposed and directed a New Deal initiative, the WPA California Folk Music Project, designed to survey musical traditions from a wide range of English-speaking and immigrant communities in Northern California.
The book provides an in-depth exploration into Robertson’s distinctive and quite modern approach to fieldwork, and an examination of the numerous ethnographic documentary materials she gathered with WPA project staff to capture a cross-section of the music that people were actively performing in their communities. Highlighting some of the most notable songs, images, and ephemera of the collection, capturing and contextualizing the diverse musical traditions that California immigrant communities performed during the New Deal Era, the text foregrounds the ethnographic insights and accomplishments of a significant woman folk music collector who has received less attention than she deserves.
Pioneering book on Sidney Robertson” . . . “a model for presenting archival material and the motivations of those who recorded the diversity of music in America in the twentieth century
– Anthony Seeger, Director Emeritus of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.
Vivid study reveals a brilliant woman and gritty field researcher able to overcome prejudice, win scarce funds from grudging bureaucrats, charm wary working-class immigrant performers, and illuminate the unforgettable singing voices of diverse cultural communities essential to the American experience
—James P. Leary, author of Folksongs of another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937-1946.
This book brings us onto the stage of American politics and culture during the 1930s, highlighting issues of gender, technology, ethics, immigration, and artistic labor, demonstrating the formative impact of the New Deal and the WPA on the realization and creation of American culture
—Anne K. Rasmussen, coeditor of The Music of Multicultural America.
2024
“Return to the Appalachians: “Return to the Appalachians: Maud Karpeles and Sidney Robertson Cowell Retrace the Steps of Cecil Sharp in 1950,” Co-authored with Brian Peters, Folk Music Journal, 12 (4): 6-40, Spring 2024.
2023
Song Hunting in the Appalachians with Karpeles and Cowell: In the Footsteps of Cecil Sharp Part 1, December 4, 2023. (Blogpost co-authored with Brian Peters). Folklife Today. American Folklife Center. Library of Congress.
Song Hunting in the Appalachians with Karpeles and Cowell: In the Footsteps of Cecil Sharp Part 2, December 11, 2023. (Blogpost co-authored with Brian Peters) Folklife Today. American Folklife Center. Library of Congress.
Other Selected Publications
2011
Culture at a Crossroads: Mid-Maryland Traditions, Co-authored with Steve Warrick, Catoctin Center for Regional Studies, Frederick Community College, 2011.
“Researcher Considerations for the Long-Term Preservation of Ethnographic Research Materials,” Co-authored with Andy Kolovos, 2011. http://cathykerst.simplyscholar.com/files/03d38db5-0a85-4f9c-b237-f55fa85b6b5a
2010
Calicut University Folkloristics Journal, Guest editor, Inaugural issue, University of Calicut, Kozhikode, Kerala. (Summer 2010)
1997
“The Ethnographic Experience: Sidney Robertson Cowell in Northern California.” California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties Collected by Sidney Robertson Cowell, Framing text created for digital online collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, 1997. https://www.loc.gov/collections/sidney-robertson-cowell-northern-california-folk-music/about-this-collection/
1998
“Outsinging the Gas Tank: Sidney Robertson Cowell and the California Folk Music Project.” Folklife Center News 20, no. 1 (Winter 1998): 6-12.
1994
“Sidney Robertson Cowell and the WPA California Folk Music Project.” The Sonneck Society for American Music Bulletin 20, no. 3 (Fall 1994).