Ballads

Abstract

The collection comprises correspondence, official documents, song transcriptions and notes and recordings created during Olney’s tenure as primary field collector and curator of the Helen Hartness Flanders Ballad Collection during its greatest period of growth at Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, 1941-1960.

Scope and Contents Series contains correspondence, original field notes and photographs of informants, research materials for Flanders' many publications, and song indexes and texts. The materials reflect Flanders' wide ranging interest in folk songs over a period of thirty years (1930-1960). Although the songs were recorded from the 1930s to the 1960s, the origins of this music may predate the recordings by a hundred years or more. Consequently, much of the material reflects Flanders' attempts to...