The Almanac Singers was an American New York City-based

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

group, active between 1940 and 1943, founded by Millard Lampell, Lee Hays,

Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and social activist. He was a fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s and had a string of hit records in the early 1950s as a member of The Weav ...

, and were joined by

Woody Guthrie Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (; July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer, songwriter, and composer widely considered to be one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes of American Left, A ...

. The group specialized in topical songs, mostly songs advocating an

anti-war An anti-war movement is a social movement in opposition to one or more nations' decision to start or carry on an armed conflict. The term ''anti-war'' can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conf ...

anti-racism Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate ...

and pro- union philosophy. They were part of the Popular Front, an alliance of liberals and leftists, including the

Communist Party USA The Communist Party USA (CPUSA), officially the Communist Party of the United States of America, also referred to as the American Communist Party mainly during the 20th century, is a communist party in the United States. It was established ...

(whose slogan, under their leader Earl Browder, was "Communism is twentieth century Americanism"), who had vowed to put aside their differences in order to fight

fascism Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...

and promote racial and religious inclusiveness and workers' rights. The Almanac Singers felt strongly that songs could help achieve these goals.

History

Cultural historian Michael Denning writes, "The base of the Popular Front was labor movement, the organization of millions of industrial workers into the new unions of the CIO. For this was the age of the CIO, the years that one historian has called 'the largest sustained surge of worker organization in American history'". "By the early 1940s," he continues, "the CIO was dominated by new unions in the metalworking industries--the United Autoworkers, the

United Steel Workers The United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, commonly known as the United Steelworkers (USW), is a general trade union with members across North America. Headqua ...

, and the United Electrical Workers--and '

industrial unionism Industrial unionism is a trade union organising method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union, regardless of skill or trade, thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in b ...

' was not simply a kind of unionism but a kind of social reconstruction". It is in the context of this social movement that the story of the Almanac Singers, which formed in early 1941, ought to be seen. In late 1940 and early 1941 (before America entered World War II) rearmament was putting an end to a decade of unemployment; and labor was at its most militant. As the CIO fought racial discrimination in hiring, it had to confront deep racial divides in its own membership, particularly in the UAW plants in Detroit where white workers sometimes struck to protest the promotion of black workers to production jobs. It also worked on this issue in shipyards in Alabama, mass transit in Philadelphia, and steel plants in Baltimore. The CIO leadership, particularly those in more left unions such as the Packinghouse Workers, the UAW, the NMU and the Transport Workers, undertook serious efforts to suppress hate strikes and to educate their membership. Those unions contrasted their relatively bold attack on the problem with the timidity and racism of the AFL. Almanac members Millard Lampell, Lee Hays,

, and

began playing together informally in 1940 or 1941. Pete Seeger and Guthrie had met at Will Geer's Grapes of Wrath Evening, a benefit for displaced migrant workers, in March 1940. That year, Seeger joined Guthrie on a trip to Texas and California to visit Guthrie's relatives. Hays and Lampell had rented a New York City apartment together in October 1940, and on his return Seeger moved in with them. They called their apartment Almanac House, and it became a center for leftist intellectuals as well as crash pad for folksingers, including (in 1942)

Sonny Terry Saunders Terrell (October 24, 1911 – March 11, 1986), known as Sonny Terry, was an American Piedmont blues and folk musician, who was known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers and occas ...

and

Brownie McGhee Walter Brown "Brownie" McGhee (November 30, 1915 – February 16, 1996) was an American folk and Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaboration with the harmonica player Sonny Terry. Life and career McGhee was bor ...

. Ed Cray says that Hays and Seeger's first paying gig was in January 1941 at a fund-raising benefit for

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

Loyalists at the Jade Mountain restaurant in New York City. According to a 1965 interview with Lee Hays by Richard Reuss, Seeger, Hays, and Lampell sang at an American Youth Congress held at Turner's Arena in Washington, D.C., in February 1941, at which sponsors had requested songs constructed around the slogan "Don't Lend or Lease our Bases" and "

Jim Crow The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation, " Jim Crow" being a pejorative term for an African American. The last of the ...

must Go". Shortly after this, they decided to call themselves the Almanacs. They chose the name because Lee Hays had said that back home in

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the West South Central region of the Southern United States. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma ...

farmers had only two books in their houses: the Bible, to guide and prepare them for life in the next world, and the Almanac, to tell them about conditions in this one." Performers who sang with the group at various times included Sis Cunningham, (John) Peter Hawes and his brother Baldwin "Butch" Hawes, Bess Lomax Hawes (wife of Butch and sister of

Alan Lomax Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music during the 20th century. He was a musician, folklorist, archivist, writer, scholar, political activ ...

Cisco Houston Gilbert Vandine "Cisco" Houston (August 18, 1918 – April 29, 1961) was an American folk singer and songwriter, who is closely associated with Woody Guthrie due to their extensive history of traveling and recording together. Houston was a reg ...

, Arthur Stern, Josh White, Jackie (Gibson) Alper,

Burl Ives Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an American Folk music, folk singer and actor with a career that spanned more than six decades. Ives began his career as an itinerant singer and guitarist, eventually launching his o ...

, (Hiram) Jaime Lowden and Sam Gary. They invented a driving, energetic performing style, based on what they felt was the best of American country string band music, black and white. They wore street clothes, which was unheard of in an era when entertainers routinely wore formal, night-club attire, and they invited the audience to join in the singing. The Almanacs had many gigs playing at parties, rallies, benefits, unions meetings, and informal " hootenannies", a term Seeger and Guthrie learned on an Almanac tour of Portland and Washington. On May day of 1941, they entertained a rally of 20,000 striking transit workers in

Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as the Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh and Eighth Avenue (Manhattan), Eig ...

, where they introduced the song "Talking Union" and participated in a dramatic sketch with the young actress Carol Channing.

Recordings and Reds

The Almanacs' first record release, an album of three 78s called '' Songs for John Doe'', written to protest the

Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, also known as the Burke–Wadsworth Act, , was the first peacetime conscription in United States history. This Selective Service Act required that men who had reached their 21st birthday ...

, the first peacetime

draft Draft, the draft, or draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a v ...

in U.S. history. Recorded in February or March 1941 and issued in May, it comprised four songs written by Millard Lampell and two by Seeger and Hays (including "Plow Under") that followed the Communist Party line (after the 1939

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and also known as the Hitler–Stalin Pact and the Nazi–Soviet Pact, was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Ge ...

), urging non-intervention in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. It was produced by the founder of Keynote Records, Eric Bernay. Bernay, who owned a small record store, was the former business manager of the magazine ''

New Masses ''New Masses'' (1926–1948) was an American Marxist magazine closely associated with the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). It was the successor to both '' The Masses'' (1911–1917) and ''The Liberator'' (1918–1924). ''New Masses'' was later merge ...

'', which in 1938 and 1939 had sponsored

John H. Hammond John Henry Hammond Jr. (December 15, 1910 – July 10, 1987) was an American record producer, civil rights activist, and music critic active from the 1930s to the early 1980s. In his service as a talent scout, Hammond became one of the most in ...

's landmark

From Spirituals to Swing ''From Spirituals to Swing'' was the title of two concerts presented by John Hammond in Carnegie Hall on 23 December 1938 and 24 December 1939. The concerts included performances by Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson, ...

Concert. Perhaps because of its controversial content, ''Songs for John Doe'' came out under the imprint "Almanac Records", and Bernay insisted that the performers themselves (in this case Pete Seeger, Millard Lampell, Josh White, and Sam Gary, an interracial group) pay for the costs of production. ''Songs for John Doe'' attacked big American corporations (such as

J.P. Morgan JP may refer to: Arts and media * ''JP'' (album), 2001, by American singer Jesse Powell * ''Jp'' (magazine), an American Jeep magazine * '' Jönköpings-Posten'', a Swedish newspaper * Judas Priest, an English heavy metal band * ''Jurassic Pa ...

and

DuPont Dupont, DuPont, Du Pont, duPont, or du Pont may refer to: People * Dupont (surname) Dupont, also spelled as DuPont, duPont, Du Pont, or du Pont is a French surname meaning "of the bridge", historically indicating that the holder of the surname re ...

), repeating the Party's line that they had supported

German rearmament German rearmament (''Aufrüstung'', ) was a policy and practice of rearmament carried out by Germany from 1918 to 1939 in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, which required German disarmament after World War I to prevent it from starting an ...

, and during the period of re-armament in 1941, were now vying for government contracts to build up the defenses of the U.S. Besides being anti-union, these corporations were a focus of progressive and black activist anger because they barred blacks from employment in defense work. The album also criticized President Roosevelt's unprecedented peacetime draft, insinuating that he was going to war for

. Seeger later said that he believed the Communist argument at that time that the war was "phony" and that

big business Big business involves large-scale corporate-controlled financial or business activities. As a term, it describes activities that run from "huge transactions" to the more general "doing big things". In corporate jargon, the concept is commonly ...

merely wanted to use Hitler as a proxy to attack Soviet Russia. Bess Lomax Hawes, who was twenty at the time and did not sing on the ''John Doe'' album, writes in her autobiography ''Sing It Pretty'' (2008), that for her part, she had taken the pacifist oath as a girl out of repugnance for what she thought was the senseless brutality of the First World War (a sentiment shared by many) and that she took the oath very seriously. However, she said that events were happening so fast, and such terrible news was coming out about German atrocities, that the Almanacs hardly knew what to believe from one day to the next, and they found themselves adjusting their topical repertoire on a daily basis.

Every day, it seemed, another once-stable European political reality would fall to the rapidly expanding Nazi armies, and the agonies of the death camps were beginning to reach our ears. The Almanacs, as self-defined commentators, were inevitably affected by the intense national debate between the "warmongers" and the "isolationists" (and the points between). Before every booking we had to decide: were we going to sing some of our hardest-hitting and most eloquent songs, all of which were antiwar, and if we weren't, what would we sing anyway? ... We hoped the next headline would not challenge our entire roster of poetic ideas. Woody Guthrie wrote a song that mournfully stated: "I started out to write a song to the entire population / But no sooner than I got the words down, here come a brand new situation".

On June 22, 1941, Hitler broke the

non-aggression pact A non-aggression pact or neutrality pact is a treaty between two or more states/countries that includes a promise by the signatories not to engage in military action against each other. Such treaties may be described by other names, such as a t ...

and attacked the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, and Keynote promptly destroyed all its inventory of ''Songs for John Doe''. The CIO now urged support for Roosevelt and the draft, and it forbade its members from participation in strikes for the duration (angering some in the movement). On June 25, 1941, Roosevelt, under pressure from black leaders, who were threatening a massive march on Washington against segregation in the army and the exclusion of blacks from factories doing defense work, signed

Executive Order 8802 Executive Order 8802 was an Executive order (United States), executive order signed by President of the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 25, 1941. It prohibited ethnic or racial discrimination in the nation's defense indust ...

(The Fair Employment Act) banning racial discrimination by corporations receiving federal defense contracts. The racial situation, which had threatened black support for the peacetime draft, was now somewhat defused (even though the

Army An army, ground force or land force is an armed force that fights primarily on land. In the broadest sense, it is the land-based military branch, service branch or armed service of a nation or country. It may also include aviation assets by ...

still declined to desegregate) and the march was canceled. The Almanac's second album, '' ''Talking Union'''', also produced by Bernay, was a collection of six

labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

songs: "Union Maid", "I Don't Want Your Millions Mister", "Get Thee Behind Me Satan", "Union Train", " Which Side Are You On?", and the eponymous "Talking Union". This album, issued in July 1941, was not anti-Roosevelt but was criticized in a review by ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine, nevertheless. It was reissued by Folkways in 1955 with additional songs and is still available today. The Almanacs also issued two albums of traditional folk songs with no political content in 1941: an album of sea chanteys, ''Deep Sea Chanteys and Whaling Ballads'' (sea chanteys, as was well known, being Franklin Roosevelt's favorite kind of song) and ''Sod-Buster Ballads'', which were songs of the pioneers. Both of these were produced by

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...

, the label that had issued his

Jelly Roll Morton Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe ( Lemott, later Morton; c. September 20, 1890 – July 10, 1941), known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American blues and jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer of Louisiana Creole descent. Morton was jazz ...

recordings in 1940. When the USA entered the European war after Germany's post-

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Reci ...

declaration of war in December 1941, the Almanacs recorded a new topical album for Keynote in support of the war effort, ''Dear Mr. President'', under the supervision of

Earl Robinson Earl Hawley Robinson (July 2, 1910 – July 20, 1991) was an American composer, arranger and folk music singer-songwriter from Seattle, Washington. Robinson is remembered for his music, including the cantata " Ballad for Americans" and songs s ...

, that included Woody Guthrie's " Reuben James" (1942). The title song, "Dear Mr. President", was a solo by Pete Seeger, and its lines expressed his lifelong credo:

Now, Mr. President, / We haven't always agreed in the past, I know, / But that ain't at all important now. / What is important is what we got to do, / We got to lick Mr. Hitler, and until we do, / Other things can wait.//

Now, as I think of our great land . . . / I know it ain't perfect, but it will be someday, / Just give us a little time. // This is the reason that I want to fight, / Not 'cause everything's perfect, or everything's right. / No, it's just the opposite: I'm fightin' because / I want a better America, and better laws, / And better homes, and jobs, and schools, / And no more
Jim Crow The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation, " Jim Crow" being a pejorative term for an African American. The last of the ...
, and no more rules like / "You can't ride on this train 'cause you're a Negro," / "You can't live here 'cause you're a Jew,"/ "You can't work here 'cause you're a union man."//

So, Mr. President, / We got this one big job to do / That's lick Mr. Hitler and when we're through, / Let no one else ever take his place / To trample down the human race. / So what I want is you to give me a gun / So we can hurry up and get the job done.

In 1942, Army intelligence and the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

determined that the Almanacs and their former anti-draft message were still a seditious threat to recruitment and the morale of the war effort among blacks and youth, and they were hounded by hostile reviews, exposure of their Communist ties and negative coverage in the New York press, like the headline "Commie Singers try to Infiltrate Radio". They disbanded in late 1942 or early 1943. It has been suggested that the popularity and credibility of the group were affected by the constantly changing policies of the Communist Party and uncertainty about where their music stood in relation to these changes. In 1945, after the end of the war, Millard Lampell went on to become a successful screenwriter, writing under a pseudonym while

blacklist Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list; if people are on a blacklist, then they are considere ...

ed. In 1943, Woody Guthrie wrote and published his famous semi-autobiographical book "Bound for Glory". Later that year he joined the Merchant Marines with fellow (non-Almanac) folksinger Cisco Houston, and would be drafted into the army until late 1945; Woody afterwards performed solo and with others (but not as part of an organized band) until becoming progressively overcome by Huntington's Disease in the mid 1950s. The other founding Almanac members Pete Seeger and Lee Hays became President and Executive Secretary, respectively, of People's Songs, an organization with the goal of providing protest music to union activists, repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, and electing Henry A. Wallace on the third, Progressive Party, ticket. People's Songs disbanded in 1948, after the defeat of Wallace. Seeger and Hays, joined by two of Hays' young friends, Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman, then began singing together again at fund-raising folk dances, with a repertoire geared to international folk music. The new singing group, appearing for a while in 1949 under the rubric, "The Nameless Quartet", changed their name to

The Weavers The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City originally consisting of Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman. Founded in 1948, the group sang traditional folk songs from ...

and went on to achieve great renown.

Discography

Original studio albums

*'' Songs for John Doe'' (Almanac Records, 1941). *'' Talking Union'' (Keynote, 1941). *'' Deep Sea Chanteys and Whaling Ballads'' (General, 1941). *'' Sod Buster Ballads'' (General, 1941). *'' Dear Mr. President'' (Keynote, 1942). *'' Songs of the Lincoln Battalion'' (Stinson/Asch, 1940). This album was not credited to the Almanac Singers, but to several individuals who were members of the band (Pete Seeger, Bess Lomax, and Butch Hawes) along with Tom Glazer. In 1961, this record was reissued by Folkways Records as one side of an LP entitled ''Songs of the Spanish Civil War'', Vol. 1 (FH5436). The flip side of the LP was a re-release of the 1938 album ''Six Songs for Democracy'', by Ernst Busch and the chorus of the Thälmann Battalion, 11th International Brigade.''Six Songs for Democracy'' was recorded in Barcelona (1938) with bombs falling in the background. It was issued by Keynote in either 1938 or 1940 (Keynote 101). According to Maurice Isserman, it was one of

Eleanor Roosevelt Anna Eleanor Roosevelt ( ; October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the longest-serving First Lady of the United States, first lady of the United States, during her husband Franklin D ...

's favorite albums. The Thälmann Battalion was named for German Communist leader Ernst Thälmann. See Maurice Isserman, ''Which Side Are You On? The American Communist Party During the Second World War'', (Urbana & Chicago: Illini Books, 1993), p. 20.

Singles

*Song For Bridges / Babe of Mine (Keynote, 1941). *Boomtown Bill / Keep That Oil A-Rollin (Keynote, 1942).

Compilations

*'' Talking Union & Other Union Songs'' (Smithsonian Folkways, 1973) *'' Their Complete General Recordings'' (MCA, 1996) *''Songs of Protest'' (Prism, 2001) *''Talking Union, Vol. 1'' (Naxos, 2001) *''The Sea, The Soil & The Struggle'' (Naxos, 2004)

Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Almanac Singers American folk musical groups Woody Guthrie Musical groups established in 1940 Musical groups disestablished in 1942 Musical collectives American political music groups