Historic Bibliographies and Reference Aids

Labor and Industrial Folksongs: A Select Bibliography

Compiled by: Susan R. Heffner
Publication Date: June 23, 1978

Adams, James Taylor.
Death in the Dark: A Collection of Factual Ballads of American Mine Disasters. Big Laurel, VA: Adams-Mullins Press, 1941. Reprint edition, Norwood, PA: Norwood Editions, 1974.

Alderson, William.
"On the Wobbly 'Casey Jones' and Other Songs." California Folklore Quarterly, volume 1, number 4, October 1942, pp. 373-376.

Alloy, Evelyn.
Working Women's Music: The Songs and Struggles of Women in the Cotton Mills, Textile Plants and Needle Trades. Somerville, MA: New England Free Press, 1976.

Anderson, Jay, ed.
"George Korson Memorial Issue." Keystone Folklore Quarterly, volume 16, number 2, Summer 1971, pp. 53-113.

Blackard, Malcolm.
"Wilmer Watts and the Lonely Eagles." JEMF Quarterly, volume 5, part 4, number 16, Winter 1969, pp. 126-140.

Bledsoe, Thomas.
Or We'll Hang Separately: The Highlander Idea. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969.

Bontemps, Arna and Jack Conroy.
... They Seek a City. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1945. Revised edition, Anyplace But Here. New York: Hill and Wang, 1966.

Bradley, Francis.
"A North Carolina Factory Rhyme." North Carolina Folklore, volume 9, number 2, December 1961, pp. 29-31.

Brand, Oscar.
The Ballad Mongers: Rise of the Modern Folk Song. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1962.

[no author]
"The Brookside Mine 1974." Southern Exposure, volume 2, number 1, Spring-Summer 1974, pp. 52-55.

Brazier, Richard.
"The Story of I.W.W.'s 'Little Red Songbook'." Labor History, volume 9, Winter 1965, pp. 91-104. Reprinted in The Sounds of Social Change: Studies in Popular Culture, edited by R. Serge Denisoff and Richard A. Peterson, Chicago: Rand McNally, 1972, pp. 60-71.

[no author]
"Bread and Roses." Sing Out!, volume 25, number 1, May-June 1976, pp. 8-9.

Carawan, Guy and Candie.
"They'll Never Keep Us Down: The Strike at Stearns, Kentucky." Sing Out!, volume 26, number 1, May-June 1977, pp. 21-22.

Voices From the Mountains. New York: Knopf, 1975.

Chaplin, Ralph.
Wobbly: The Rough and Tumble Story of an American Radical. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948. Reprint edition, New York: Da Capo Press, 1972.

Coffin, Tristram Potter and Cohen, Hennig, eds.
Folklore from the Working Folk of America. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, 1973.

Conn, Harry.
"Labor Songs: They Are Born of Labor Struggles." RWDSU Record [Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union], volume 3, number 5, March 18, 1956, p. 13.

Cunningham, Agnes.
"The Red Dust Players." Sing Out!, volume 25, number 1, January 1976, pp. 10-15.

Danker, Frederick E.
"Trucking Songs: A Comparison with Traditional Occupational Song." Journal of Country Music, volume 6, number 4, January 1978, pp. 78-89.

Denisoff, R. Serge.
Great Day Coming: Folk Music and the American Left. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971. Reprint edition without notes, Baltimore: Penguin, 1972.

"The Proletarian Renascence: The Folkness of the Ideological Folk." Journal of American Folklore, volume 82, number 323, January-March 1969, pp. 51-65. Reprinted in The Sounds of Social Change: Studies in Popular Culture, edited by R. Serge Denisoff and Richard A. Peterson, Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1972, pp. 105-120.

"Protest Movements: Class Consciousness and the Propaganda Song." Sociological Quarterly, volume 9, number 2, Spring 1968, pp. 228-247.

Sing a Song of Social Significance. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1972.

Songs of Protest, War and Peace: A Bibliography and Discography. Santa Barbara: American Bibliographic Center, Clio Press, 1973.

"'Take It Easy, But Take It': The Almanac Singers." Journal of American Folklore, volume 83, number 327, January-March 1970, pp. 21-32.

[no author]
"Dorsey Dixon: A Place in the Sun for a Real Textile Troubador." Textile Labor, volume 25, number 11, November 1964, pp. 4-5.

Dreiser, Theodore, et. al.
Harlan Miners Speak: Report on Terrorism in the Kentucky Coal Fields. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1932. Reprint edition, New York: Da Capo Press, 1970.

Dunson, Josh.
"Songs of American Labor." Mainstream, volume 15, number 8, August 1962, pp. 44-55.

Emrich, Duncan.
"Songs of the Western Miners." California Folklore Quarterly, volume 1, number 3, July 1942, pp. 213-232.

Evanson, Jacob A.
"Folksongs of an Industrial City." In Pennsylvania Songs and Legends, edited by George Korson, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1949; reprint edition, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1960, pp. 423-466.

Ewen, David.
All the Years of American Popular Music. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1977. "The Troubled Thirties: Workers of America Arise," pp. 409-424.

Federal Writers Project, Nebraska.
"Farmers' Alliance Songs of the 1890s." Nebraska Folklore Pamphlets, number 18, December 1938.

Feldman, Eugene P. Romayn.
"Union Maid Revisited: The Story of Ella May Wiggins." ABC TV Hootenanny, volume 1, number 3, July 1964, pp. 25-26.

Foner, Philip S.
American Labor Songs of the Nineteenth Century. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975.

"Songs of the Eight-Hour Movement." Labor History, volume 13, number 4, Fall 1972, pp. 571-588.

Fowke, Edith.
"Labor and Industrial Protest Songs in Canada." Journal of American Folklore, volume 82, number 323, January-March 1969, pp. 34-50.

Fowke, Edith and Joseph Glazer.
Songs of Work and Freedom. Chicago: Roosevelt University, Labor Education Division, 1960; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961. Reprint edition, Songs of Work and Protest. New York: Dover, 1973.

Friedland, William H.
"American Labor Songs." Free Labor World, number 121, July 1960, pp. 294-300.

Glazer, Joseph.
"America is a Tune." USIA World, volume 10, number 1, July 1976, pp. 1, 11.

"Songs of the Worker's Struggle for Justice." American Labour, volume 23, number 4, April 1968, pp. 11-15.

Glazer, Tom.
Songs of Peace, Freedom and Protest. New York: David McKay, 1970. Reprint edition, New York: Fawcett World Library, 1971.

Green, Archie.
"American Labor Lore: Its Meanings and Uses." Industrial Relations, volume 4, number 2, February 1965, pp. 51-68.

"Born on Picketlines, Textile Workers' Songs Are Woven into History." Textile Labor, volume 22, number 4, April 1961, pp. 3-5.

"A Discography (LP) of American Labor Union Songs." New York Folklore Quarterly, volume 17, number 3, Autumn 1961, pp. 186-193.

"A Discography of American Coal Miners' Songs." Labor History, volume 2, number 1, 1961, pp. 101-115.

"John Neuhaus: Wobbly Folklorist." Journal of American Folklore, volume 73, number 289, July-September 1960, pp. 189-217. Reprinted in Folklore of the Great West, edited by John Greenway, Palo Alto, CA: American West Publishing Co., 1969, pp.312-327.

Only a Miner: Studies in Recorded Coal-Mining Songs. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972.

"Recorded Labor Songs: An Overview." Western Folklore, volume 27, number 1, January 1968, pp. 68-76.

"The Workers in the Dawn: Labor Lore." In Our Living Traditions: An Introduction to American Folklore, edited by Tristram P. Coffin, New York: Basic Books, 1968, pp. 251-262.

Green, Archie, ed.
"Aunt Molly Jackson Memorial Issue." Kentucky Folklore Record, volume 7, number 4, October-December 1961, pp. 129-175.

Greenway, John.
American Folksongs of Protest. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1953. Reprint edition, New York: Octagon Books, 1970.

Hand, Wayland D.
"American Occupational and Industrial Folklore: The Miner." In Kontakte und Grenzen: Probleme der Volks-, Kultur- und Sozialforschung, edited by Hans Foltin, Göttingen: Verlag Otto Schwartz, 1969, pp. 453-460.

Hand, Wayland D. et al.
"Songs of the Butte Miners." Western Folklore, volume 9, number 1, January 1950, pp. 1-49.

Hille, Waldemar.
The People's Songbook. New York: Boni and Gaer, 1948. Reprint edition, New York: People's Artists, 1956. "Union Songs," pp. 66-96.

Joyner, Charles W.
"Up in Old Loray: Folkways of Violence in the Gastonia Strike." North Carolina Folklore, volume 12, number 2, December 1964, pp. 20-24.

Kornbluh, Joyce.
Rebel Voices: An I.W.W. Anthology. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1964.

Korson, George.
"Anthracite Miners as Bards and Minstrels." American Speech, volume 10, number 4, December 1935, pp. 260-268.

Coal Dust on the Fiddle: Songs and Stories of the Bituminous Industry. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1943. Reprint edition, Hatboro: PA: Folklore Associates, 1965.

"Coal Miners." In Pennsylvania Songs and Legends, edited by George Korson, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1949; reprint edition, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1960, pp. 354-400.

Minstrels of the Mine Patch: Songs and Stories of the Anthracite Industry. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1938. Reprint edition, Hatboro, PA: Folklore Associates, 1964.

Songs and Ballads of the Anthracite Miner. New York: Grafton, 1927.

Larkin, Margaret.
"Ella May's Songs." Nation, volume 129, October 9, 1929, pp. 382-383. Reprinted in Sing Out!, volume 5, number 4, Autumn 1955, pp. 6-10.

Lengyel, Cornel.
A San Franciscso Songster. San Francisco: W.P.A. Northern California, History of Music Project, 1939. (History of Music in San Francisco Series, volume 2.) Reprint edition, New York: AMS Press, 1972.

Lomax, Alan, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.
Hard Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit People. New York: Oak Publications, 1967.

Monahan, Kathleen.
"Union Maid." Paid My Dues, volume 1, number 4, March 1975, pp. 26, 36.

[no author]
"Mother Jones and the Singing Miners' Wives." Sing Out!, volume 10, number 1, April-May 1960, pp. 21-22.

Reece, Florence.
"They Say Them Child Brides Don't Last." In Hillbilly Women, edited by Kathy Kahn, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1973, pp. 27-38.

Reuss, Richard A.
"The Ballad of 'Joe Hill' Revisited." Western Folklore, volume 26, number 3, July 1967, pp. 187-188.

"The Roots of American Left-Wing Interest in Folksong." Labor History, volume 12, number 2, Spring 1971, pp. 259-279.

[no author]
Ring Like Silver Shine Like Gold: Folklore in the Labor Press. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, Festival of American Folklife, Working Americans Program, 1976.

Rodnitzky, Jerome L.
"The Evolution of the American Protest Song." Journal of Popular Culture, volume 3, number 1, Summer 1969, pp. 35-45.

[no author]
"Roll The Union On." Fortune, volume 34, number 5, November 1946, p. 184.

Rosen, David.
"The Wobblies." Kord, volume 2, number 2, 1971, pp. 12-20.

Rosenfeld, Morris.
Songs of Labor and Other Poems. Translated from the Yiddish by Rose Pastor Stokes and Helena Frank. Boston: R. G. Badger, 1914.

Rubin, Ruth.
"A Comparative Approach to a Yiddish Song of Protest." Studies in Ethnomusicology, volume 2, 1965, pp. 54-73.

Voices of a People: The Story of Yiddish Folksong. New York: A. S. Barnes, 1963. Second edition, New York: McGraw Hill, 1973.

Schaub, Joe.
"The Chicago I.W.W.: A Singing Union." Come for to Sing, volume 3, number 1, Winter 1977, p. 10.

Scheips, Paul J.
Hold the Fort! The Story of a Song from the Sawdust Trail to the Picket Line. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971. (Smithsonian Studies in History and Technology, number 9.)

Seeger, Pete.
"The Coal Creek Rebellion." Sing Out!, volume 5, number 3, Summer 1955, pp. 19-21.

The Incompleat Folksinger. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972. "Music and Organized Labor," pp. 72-91.

"Whatever Happened to Singing in the Unions." Sing Out!, volume 15, number 2, May 1965, pp. 28-31. Reprinted in The Incompleat Folksinger, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972, pp. 74-77.

Senauke, Alan.
"You've Got to Reap Just What You Sow: Roots of Sing Out! Magazine." Sing Out!, volume 25, number 1, January 1976, pp. 3-7.

Silber, Irwin.
"Sing a Labor Song." Sing Out!, volume 1, number 1, April 1951, pp. 6, 15.

Smith, Gibbs.
Joe Hill. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1969. "Joe Hill's Songs," pp. 15-42.

[no author]
Songs of the Workers.
Chicago: Industrial Workers of the World, 1909. 34th edition, 3rd printing, 1973. Title is Songs of Life for editions 17 to 22.

Stanford, Ron.
"Which Side Are You On?: An Interview with Florence Reece." Sing Out!, volume 20, number 6, July-August 1971, pp. 13-15.

Stavis, Barrie.
"Joe Hill: Poet/Organizer." Folk Music, volume 1, number 1, June 1964, pp. 3-4, 38-50; [number 2], August 1964, pp. 27-29, 38-50.

Stavis, Barrie and Frank Harmon.
The Songs of Joe Hill. New York: People's Artists, 1955. Reprint edition, New York: Oak Publications, 1960.

Stegner, S. Page.
"Labor History in Fact and Song." Caravan, number 20, June-July 1960, pp. 8-16.

"Protest Songs from the Butte Mines." Western Folkore, volume 26, number 3, July 1967, pp. 157-167.

Stegner, Wallace.
"I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night." Pacific Spectator, volume 1, 1947, pp. 184-187.

"Joe Hill, The Wobblies Troubadour." New Republic, volume 118, number 1, January 5, 1948, pp. 20-24, 38.

Tamburro, Frances.
"The Factory Girl Song." Southern Exposure, volume 2, number 1, 1974, pp. 42-51.

Tax, Meredith.
"Women's Songs." Sing Out!, volume 20, number 3, January-February 1971, pp. 11-15.

Tennessee State Library and Archives.
Registers, Number 6: Zilphia Horton Folk Music Collection. Nashville: Tennessee State Library and Archives, 1964.

Thompson, Fred.
The I.W.W.: Its First Fifty Years. Chicago: Industrial Workers of the World, 1955.

Tippett, Tom.
When Southern Labor Stirs. New York: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, 1931.

[no author]
"Troubadours of the Downtrodden." The Carpenter, volume 85, number 8, August 1965, pp. 10-12.

Walgreen, Alexander.
"The Story of 'Hold the Fort'." Sing Out!, volume 5, number 2, Spring 1955, pp. 22-23.

Ward, Harry F.
"Songs of Discontent." Methodist Review, volume 95, number 5, September-October 1913, pp. 720-729.

Welsch, Roger L.
A Treasury of Nebraska Pioneer Folklore. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967. "Songs of the Farmers' Alliance," pp. 57-79.

Whitman, Wanda Wilson.
Songs That Changed the World. New York: Crown Publications, 1969. "Work Songs," pp. 58-75.

Wimberly, Lowry Charles.
"Hard Times Singing." American Mercury, volume 32, number 126, June 1935, pp. 197-202.

Wolfe, Charles K.
"New Light on 'The Coal Creek March'." JEMF Quarterly, volume 12, number 41, Spring 1976, pp. 1-8.

[no author]
"Woody Guthrie and Sarah Ogan: Bards of the Other America." Record Topics, number 2, pp. i-ii, inserted in English Dance and Song, volume 30, number 1, Spring 1968.