Guide to the Jacob A. Evanson Papers c. 1844-1959
- Repository
- Heinz History Center
- Title
- Jacob A. Evanson Papers
- Creator
- Evanson, Jacob A. (1899-1994)
- Collection Number
- MSS 1011
- Extent
- 4 linear feet (4 boxes + O/S material)
- Date
- c. 1844-1959
- Abstract
- Jacob A. Evanson was a music educator and researcher who served as the special supervisor of vocal instruction for the Pittsburgh Board of Education from the late 1930s to the mid-1960s. The Jacob A. Evanson Papers consist of folk song and hymn compilations (including lyrics and music sheets), correspondence, drafts of Evanson's papers and presentations, audio recordings, and a collection of Civil War broadside songs and ephemera.
- Language
- The material in this collection is in English.
- Sponsor
- This collection has been made accessible as part of an NHPRC-funded Basic Processing grant.
- Publisher
- Heinz History Center
- Address
- 1212 Smallman St.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15222
library@heinzhistorycenter.org
URL: https://www.heinzhistorycenter.org
History
Jacob A. Evanson was a music educator and researcher who served as the special supervisor of vocal instruction for the Pittsburgh Board of Education from the late 1930s to the mid-1960s. Born in North Dakota in 1899, Evanson studied music education at the University of North Dakota and taught at Western Reserve University in the 1920s and at Colombia University's Teachers College in the mid-1930s. In 1937, Evanson moved to Pittsburgh, Pa., where he was appointed to the position of special supervisor of vocal music for the Pittsburgh Board of Education. Evanson designed a music curriculum that incorporated folk songs specific to Western Pennsylvania, and he encouraged music teachers to act as "song-catchers" by recording the songs made and sung by their students.
He compiled western Pennsylvanian folk songs throughout the 1940s and 1950s, and in 1946 he began to solicit the help of the public through newspaper articles that highlighted his research. Evanson received many songs by mail, while others he transcribed from research materials such as books, newspapers, and audio recordings, particularly from the Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress. He also made house-calls during which he listened to Pittsburgh residents recite published and unpublished songs that had been passed down from previous generations. He transcribed the lyrics as well as the melodies and distributed copies of his compilations to music teachers in public schools. The songs were performed before public audiences (often at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland) by student choirs throughout Evanson's tenure as supervisor, which lasted until his retirement in the mid-1960s.
In 1949, Evanson contributed a chapter entitled "Folksongs of an Industrial City" to Pennsylvania Songs and Legends, an anthology of essays edited by George Korson. Evanson's essay provides an historical overview of song-making in Pittsburgh and includes transcriptions of over twenty songs from Evanson's collection.
During summer vacations in the 1940s, Evanson researched folk songs and hymns at Rhode Island State College. The research he conducted there informed the writing of a paper he presented before the American Folklore Society at Indian University in Bloomington in the summer of 1950 entitled, "The Breakdown and Rejuvenation of the Folksong-Making Tradition in Pittsburgh since the Civil War." Evanson returned to Rhode Island in the late 1950s to record resident performances of songs and hymns, often with the help of his son, Jacob "Jock" T. Evanson. In 1958, Evanson co-edited Early Western Pennsylvania Hymns and Hymn Tunes, 1816-1848 with George Swetnam.
To coincide with Pittsburgh's bicentennial in 1959, Folkways Records and Service Corp. released Vivian Richman Sings Folk Songs of West Pennsylvania, the songs of which were selected from Evanson's collection. Evanson also wrote the album's liner notes.
Evanson was married to Mildred Thorne Evanson, a fellow faculty member at Western Reserve University. They had one son, Jacob T. Evanson (1934-2010). Evanson died in 1994 at the age of 95.
Scope and Content Notes
The Jacob A. Evanson Papers are housed in 5 boxes and have been arranged into three series. Series I pertains to Evanson's folk song research and includes correspondence, notes, songs, and drafts of papers and presentations. Series II consists of Civil War broadsides and ephemera that Evanson consulted while researching the history, making, and distribution of American folk songs. Series III consists of audio recordings on record albums and reels of magnetic tape recorded by Evanson while conducting field research in Pittsburgh and Rhode Island.
Series I. Folk Song Research and Assorted Compilations (boxes 1-3), c.1937-1959
Series I primarily consists of songs, notes, correspondence, and drafts of papers and presentations. Many of the songs are written in pencil on paper or music sheets and were variously copied from printed sources (such as books or newspapers) or transcribed from oral performances, while others have been mimeographed along with historical notes. The songs generally include lyrics and musical notation; in some cases, Evanson copied lyrics from printed sources and added musical notations. The songs are arranged into folders according to research subject, of which there are three main categories: Western Pennsylvania folk songs; Rhode Island folk songs and hymns; and general American folk songs.
Songs also appear in Evanson's correspondence with residents of Western Pennsylvania. This correspondence was primarily generated in 1947 after several articles appeared in Pittsburgh newspapers describing Evanson's research and asking readers to contribute regional folk songs to his collection. Some of the songs that he received in response to this publicity were included in Evanson's article, "Folksongs of an Industrial City," which he wrote as a chapter to the anthology, Pennsylvania Songs and Legends, edited by George Korson (1949); while others were used in compilations of songs that Evanson distributed to Pittsburgh music teachers. In addition to several drafts of "Folksongs of an Industrial City" are drafts of presentations Evanson made for the Folklore Conference at the National Folk Festival (1946), the American Folklore Society (1950), and the Pennsylvania Folklore Society (1956).
Box 1 contains drafts and revisions of conference presentations and papers, particularly "Folksongs of an Industrial City"; correspondence with George Korson, editor of Pennsylvania Songs and Legends, from 1948; and folk songs of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania, handwritten as well as mimeographed, including a songbook published by the United Steelworkers of America (Sharon, Pa.) and songs Evanson collected from the National Labor Tribune.
Box 2 contains songs and hymns collected during Evanson's research in Rhode Island, particularly at Rhode Island State College, as well as a copy of a memoir, Memories of Narragansett Pier, by W.H. Taylor (c. 1900).
contains additional songs and hymns collected during Evanson's research in Rhode Island; transcriptions of field recordings from the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress, which Evanson visited in 1943; correspondence with residents of Western Pennsylvania who wished to contribute songs to Evanson's collection (1943-1948); and over a dozen issues of both The Pennsylvania Dutchman (1950-1951), a Dutch folk culture newspaper based in Lancaster, Pa., and American Squares (1948-1949), a magazine about folk dancing.
Series II. Civil War Broadside Songs (box 3), c.1844-1863
Series II consists of Civil War-era ballads and songs printed as broadsides and collected by Ralph Mason, a traveling dry-goods salesman during the middle of the nineteenth century. Mason gathered the broadsides during his travels and mailed them to his family, which eventually settled a few miles south of Pittsburgh. Mason's grandson, O. Ralph Mason, collected the family's songs, of which there are roughly 260, along with other printed ephemera from the Civil war period.
The songs are arranged alphabetically by title. According to Evanson's report and index of the broadside collection, "[127] of the songs are Union songs, 98 are Confederate songs; 17 are general Civil War songs; 9 are pre-Civil War songs; and 10 are general love songs or humorous songs." For more information regarding the provenance and contents of the Mason family's collection of broadsides, see Evanson's "The Breakdown and Rejuvenation of the Folksong-Making Tradition in Pittsburgh Since the Civil War" (1950), which Evanson presented as a lecture before the American Folklore Society at Indiana University in Bloomington and which includes his report and index of the collection.
The Civil War ephemera contained in the Mason family collection includes ten maps (maps 2 through 11) from the report of the chief engineer of the United States to the 39th Congress (1865-1867); Vol. 1, No. 7 of The Camp Kettle, a bulletin published by the Roundhead Regiment commanded by Col. Leasure in Hilton Head, South Caroline (1861); miscellaneous satirical flyers; and assorted pamphlets, including The Mediator between North and South: or the Seven Pointers of the North Star by an anonymous resident of Texas (sixth edition, 1862; 4 pages).
Series III. Audio Recordings, boxes 4-5 and shelf, 1949-1959
Series III consists of audiotape reels and record albums on which Evanson recorded performances of folk songs and hymns.
Box 4 contains audiotapes. Notations on the audiotape containers indicate that at least eleven of them feature folk songs from or about Pennsylvania, recorded between 1957 and 1959, while another seventeen were recorded in Rhode Island in August of 1950. Several of the Western Pennsylvania tapes include performances by Vivian Richman. Three audiotapes are marked as containing children's songs, general American folksongs, and "sounds of the Appalachian dulcimer,"respectively, while another twelve are either unmarked or marked as "blank."
Box 5 contains twenty-two record albums, fifteen of which are indicated as being recorded in Rhode Island or Rhode Island State College in 1949. The remaining seven albums are blank and unused.
Series III also includes two album collections issued by the Library of Congress: Songs from the Iroquois Longhouse from the Archive of American Folk Song, edited by William N. Fenton (1942) and Songs of the Chippewa from the Archive of American Folk Song, edited by Frances Densmore (1950). These items have been wrapped and shelved.
Arrangement
The Jacob A. Evanson Papers are housed in 5 boxes and have been arranged into the following three series:
Series I. Folk Song Research and Assorted Compilations, c.1937-1959
Series II. Mason Family Collection of Civil War Broadside Songs, c.1844-1863
Series III. Audio Recordings, 1949-1959
Conditions Governing Access
Box four is restricted due to the fragility of the audio material. The Library of Congress recordings are available for use. See staff for assistance.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift from Jacob Evanson in 1994.
Archives accession # 1994.xxxx
Preferred Citation
Jacob A. Evanson Papers, c. 1844-1959, MSS 1011 , Library and Archives Division, Senator John Heinz History Center
Processing Information
Preliminary processing by Nick Hartley on 12/11/2013.
Conditions Governing Use
Property rights reside with the Senator John Heinz History Center. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and their heirs. For permission to reproduce or publish, please contact the Library and Archives of the Senator John Heinz History Center.
Related Materials
Songs of Pittsburgh and Region, 1958, MFF 0014, Thomas and Katherine Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center.
Jacob Evanson Collection of Folksongs for Pittsburgh School Students (AFC 1948/007), Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Oral History of Music in Pittsburgh, Music Department, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Oakland (Pittsburgh, Pa.). Evanson is mentioned or discussed in the following recordings: #18, #19, #52, #55, #64, #77, and #147.
Subjects
- Pittsburgh Public Schools.
- Folkways Records.
- Evanson, Jacob A. (1899-1994)
- Evanson, Jacob T. (1934-2010)
- Korson, George.
- Oakland (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
- Highland Park (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
- Composers--Pennsylvania--Pittsburgh
- Hymns, English--Pennsylvania.
- Folk music--Pennsylvania.