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This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the FAQ section for more information.
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Collection Overview
| Size | 9.0 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 3600 items) |
| Abstract | Ronald D. Cohen, professor of history at Indiana University Northwest-Gary, 1970-2005, wrote and edited numerous books and articles, many about American folk music, and co-produced compilations of folk and topical songs. He edited Red Dust and Broadsides: A Joint Autobiography, written by Agnes Cunningham (Sis) and her husband Gordon Friesen. Sis Cunningham was a songwriter and musician who performed with the Almanac Singers, a 1940s group of folk musicians, and the Red Dust Players, a 1939 radical agitprop group that performed plays in aid of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. Gordon Friesen was a newspaper journalist and artist. Cunningham and Friesen fled anti-Communist harassment in Oklahoma and moved to New York City where they founded and published Broadside, a magazine that documented topical and folk songs, beginning in the early 1960s. The collection consists of papers, photographs, and audiovisual materials relating to Ronald Cohen, Sis Cunningham, Gordon Friesen, and Broadside. People figuring prominently in the collection include Barbara Dane, Josh Dunson, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Janis Ian, Ernie Mars, Phil Ochs, Richard Reuss, Malvina Reynolds, Pete Seeger, Irwin Silber, Sammy Walker, Alan J. Weberman, and Izzy Young. Broadside papers, 1957-1999, include original artwork; operations correspondence; transcriptions of songs; articles; press releases; and concert flyers. Cohen papers, 1932-2005, include correspondence; materials related to recording and book projects; and research files documenting his studies of American topical songs and protest songs, the folk revival movement, and McCarthy-era Communism. Sis Cunningham papers, 1914-1998, include correspondence, family memorabilia, and original songs, plays, and writings. Some materials relate to the Red Dust Players. Gordon Friesen papers, late 1930s-1983, include correspondence, drawings, and writings, many documenting his career as a newspaper journalist and novelist. Photographs consist of family photographs of Sis Cunningham, Gordon Friesen, and their family. There are also a few unidentified images of old downtown storefronts and cars. Audiovisual materials include Cohen's collection of audiocassettes with recordings of folk music radio programs, copies of 78 rpm records, interviews, and commercial recordings. Microcassettes include recordings of Cohen's interviews with folk musicians and others associated with folk music. Other audiovisual materials include Cunningham and Friesen's family films and videocassettes documenting the 1991 Richard Reuss Memorial Folk Music Convention. |
| Creator | Cohen, Ronald D., 1940- |
| Language | English |
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Information For Users
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Subject Headings
The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.
These and related materials may be found under the following headings in online catalogs.
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Biographical Information
Ronald Dennis Cohen was born in Los Angeles, Calif. on 3 August 1940. He graduated from North Hollywood High School and attended college at the University of California-Berkeley, graduating with a degree in history in 1962. He continued studying history as a graduate student at the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis, earning a masters degree in 1964 and a PhD in 1967. In 1965, Cohen married his first wife, with whom he had two children. In 1974, Cohen moved to Gary, Ind., where he taught history at Indiana University Northwest, Gary, beginning in 1970.
Ronald Cohen has written numerous books and articles, chiefly on the subjects of education and American folk music. These works include Rainbow Quest: The Folk Music Revival and American Society, 1940-1970 (2002) and Folk Music: The Basics (2006). Cohen also edited many books, including Red Dust and Broadsides: A Joint Autobiography (1999), written by Agnes Cunningham (Sis) and Gordon Friesen.
In 1996, Cohen co-produced (with Dave Samuelson) Songs for Political Action: Folk Music, Topical Songs and the American Left, 1926-1954, a ten-CD Bear Family Records box set. His other recording projects include The Best of Broadside: 1962-1988: Anthems of the American Underground From the Pages of Broadside Magazine, a five-CD box set released on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings in 2000.
Ronald Cohen's other professional activities include serving as president of Historians of American Communism, 2000-2003, and acting as co-director of the Calumet Regional Archives at Indiana University Northwest. He became a Professor of History Emeritus at Indiana University Northwest, Gary, in 2004, and remarried in 2005.
Sis Cunningham was born 19 February 1909 in Watonga, Okla. She grew up in a family of poor sharecroppers, playing and writing music from a young age. Cunningham attended Oklahoma State College for Women and taught music briefly after graduating. In 1931, Cunningham spent a summer at Commonwealth College, a socialist school in Mena, Ark. After leaving Commonwealth, Sis Cunningham organized for the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, then worked briefly as music director at the Southern School for Women Workers in Asheville, N.C. In 1939, she became a founding member of the Red Dust Players, a traveling agitprop group that wrote and performed radical plays with the goal of mobilizing poor workers.
In 1941, Cunningham met and married Gordon Friesen, a radical newspaper journalist and artist also from Oklahoma. Fleeing harassment because of Communist affiliations, Cunningham and Friesen moved to New York City. They moved into Almanac House, a Greenwich Village house shared by topical singing group the Almanac Singers. Sis Cunningham became a member of the Almanac Singers, which included Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Cunningham and Friesen moved to Detroit briefly, returning to New York City in 1944. Cunningham continued her association with the topical song movement, writing and playing songs with People's Songs, while Friesen worked for the Office of War Information. Their daughters, Jane and Agnes, were born in the late 1940s.
Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen founded Broadside, a magazine that documented topical and folk songs, in the early 1960s. Broadside operated on a minimal budget and was published out of Cunningham and Friesen's apartment. Many topical folksingers, including Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Janis Ian, and Tom Paxton, had songs published in Broadside early in their careers, and the magazine played a central role in the folk revival.
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Scope and Content
The Ronald Cohen Collection consists of papers, photographs, and audiovisual materials relating to Ronald Cohen, Agnes Cunningham (Sis Cunningham), Gordon Friesen, and Broadside, a topical song magazine.
Broadside papers, 1957-1999, include original artwork that appeared in the magazine; personal and business correspondence related to Broadside's operation, including correspondence between the magazine's founders, Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen, and its contributors, who included folk musicians Pete Seeger, Janis Ian, Ernie Marrs, and Malvina Reynolds; transcriptions of songs that were printed in Broadside; articles; press releases; and concert flyers.
Ronald Cohen papers, 1932-2005, include personal and professional correspondence; materials related to Cohen's professional career, including recording and book projects; and research files, which document Ronald Cohen's studies of American topical songs and protest songs, the folk revival movement, and McCarthy-era Communism. Included are materials related to Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen's autobiography, Red Dust and Broadsides: A Joint Autobiography, edited by Cohen.
Sis Cunningham papers, 1914-1998, include correspondence, family memorabilia, and original songs, plays, and writings. Some materials relate to Cunningham's role in the Red Dust Players, a 1939 agitprop group devoted to organizing for the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. Gordon Friesen papers, late 1930s-1983, include correspondence, drawings, and writings, many documenting his career as a newspaper journalist and novelist. Photographs consist of family photographs of Sis Cunningham, Gordon Friesen, their two daughters, their parents, and other relatives. Also included are a few unidentified images of old downtown storefronts and cars.
Audiovisual materials include Ronald Cohen's collection of audiocassettes, which contain recordings of folk music radio programs, copies of 78 rpm records, recorded interviews, commercial recordings, and copies of Bear Family Records' Songs for Political Action, 1926-1953. Microcassettes include recordings of Ronald Cohen's interviews with various folk musicians and others associated with folk music. Other audiovisual materials include Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen's family films and videocassettes documenting the Richard Reuss Memorial Folk Music Convention, which took place in May of 1991.
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Series Quick Links
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Series 1. Papers, 1914-2005 (bulk 1940-2005).
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Subseries 1.1. Broadside Papers, 1957-1999.
Arrangement: Alphabetical by subject, then chronological.
Broadside magazine, founded in 1962, documented the topical and folk song movement. Papers relating to the magazine's production were maintained by Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen, Broadside's co-creators. Artwork includes original drawings by Agnes and Jane Friesen, daughters of Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen; other original drawings and photographs that appeared in Broadside; and original paste-up magazine covers and pages, including Broadside's first cover and a page featuring Bob Dylan's song "Train A-Travelin'." General correspondence includes many letters to and from folk singer Pete Seeger. Other correspondence includes responses to a 1974 profile of Sis Cunningham that appeared in Ms. Magazine; letters exchanged with the family members of folk singer Phil Ochs; letters and original articles by "Dylanologist" Alan J. Weberman; and letters from folk musicians Janis Ian, Ernie Marrs, Malvina Reynolds, and Sammy Walker. Legal materials consist of financial statements and documentation of a brief change of Broadside's ownership during the 1980s. Songs include lead sheets, lyrics transcriptions, and sheet music that appeared in Broadside. Writings consist of articles that appeared in Broadside magazine and in volumes of Broadside re-prints. Miscellaneous materials include press releases, newsletters, and concert flyers. Note that additional correspondence appears in series 1.3 and 1.4.
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Subseries 1.2. Ronald Cohen Papers, 1932-2005.
Arrangement: Alphabetical by subject, then chronological.
Processing Note: Papers related to Red Dust and Broadsides: A Joint Autobiography, by Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen, edited by Ronald Cohen, appear in this series. Cunningham and Friesen recorded notes for Red Dust and Broadsides on a reel-to-reel tape recorder in the early 1970s. Transcriptions of these tapes formed the basis of the book's original manuscript, which was edited in the 1970s and re-edited in the 1980s. Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen were unable to find a publisher until Ronald Cohen read and edited the manuscript in the 1990s. Sections of the manuscript in the form of notes, transcriptions, and drafts have been arranged chronologically (most recent to least recent) to the extent possible. Most, however, are undated. Due to the process by which the book was created, it is difficult to determine the chronology of these sections. Original folder titles have, for the most part, been retained. Also note that the name "Cohen," which appears on the original tape transcriptions refers to a Stu Cohen, who manned the tape recorder, not to Ronald Cohen.
Personal and professional correspondence includes correspondence with Broadside creator Sis Cunningham and Folklore Center founder Izzy Young. Materials related to professional projects document Cohen's recording projects, books he authored and edited, and conferences he organized. Research files document Ronald Cohen's interest in American topical and protest songs, the folk revival movement, labor history, and McCarthy-era Communism. These files include published works by and about Sis Cunningham, a copy of Gordon Friesen's FBI file, and various interviews of important figures in the folk music scene in the 1960s and 1970s. Miscellaneous research materials include folk newsletters, record company catalogs, record liner notes, and song books.
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Subseries 1.3. Sis Cunningham Papers, 1914-1998.
Arrangement: Alphabetical by subject, then chronological.
Papers relate to the life and career of Agnes Cunningham (Sis). Materials include photocopied newspaper clippings about Cunningham, correspondence, legal materials, songs, and writings. General correspondence includes letters written and received after 1993; additional correspondence appears in series 1.1. The scrapbook contains blurbs and reviews of Cunningham's songbook "Red Dust and Broadsides." Legal materials consist of song contracts and documentation of copyright disputes involving Cunningham's songs. There are also original plays written and performed by the Red Dust Players, a traveling agitprop group founded in 1939 that wrote and performed plays for the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. Red Dust Players materials also include some correspondence between Cunningham and fellow Red Dust Players member Dorothy Schmidt in later years. Songs and songbooks include materials for Cunningham's songbooks "Wall Street Suite" and "Red Dust and Broadsides," as well as lyrics and sheet music for other original songs, lyrics for traditional songs, and her transcriptions of songs by other songwriters. Writings consist of manuscripts of original stories, plays, and articles. These include "The Northern Star," a play written for a drama club Cunningham founded when she worked for the Children's Aid Society in the Frederick Douglass Housing Project. Notebooks contain political notes, quotations collected by Cunningham, and notes for books and stories. Miscellaneous materials include Cunningham's second grade report card from 1916-1917 and other Cunningham family memorabilia.
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Subseries 1.4. Gordon Friesen Papers, late 1930s-1983.
Arrangement: Alphabetical by subject, then chronological.
Papers consist of correspondence, drawings, and writings. Correspondence includes a transcription of an interview with Gordon Friesen conducted by David Dunaway, who was conducting research for a biography of Pete Seeger, and a photocopied article about Friesen written by Allan Teichroew for the magazine Mennonite Life. Note that additional correspondence appears in series 1.1. Drawings include about 400 original drawings, some of which appeared in Broadside magazine. Writings include a manuscript of Gordon Friesen's unpublished novel "Unrest," probably written in the late 1930s; a photocopy of Friesen's political pamphlet "Oklahoma Witch Hunt"; photocopies and manuscripts of published articles; and typed notes for stories or novels.
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Subseries 1.5. Photographs, 1916-1952 and undated.
Includes photographs of Sis Cunningham, Gordon Friesen, and their children Agnes and Jane Friesen; photographs of Gordon Friesen's parents; photographs of Sis Cunningham's family, including a 1916 photo of Sis Cunningham's first grade class; and other unidentified photographs, probably of Cunningham's and Friesen's families. Also included are a few unidentified images of old downtown storefronts and cars.
| Image P-4626-4692 |
Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen family photographs #20239, Subseries: "1.5. Photographs, 1916-1952 and undated." P-4626-4692 |
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Series 2. Audiovisual materials, 1942-2002.
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Subseries 2.1. Audiocassettes, 1942-2002.
Arrangement: Audiocassettes (FS-7370-FS-7473) are arranged chronologically, by the content of the cassette, then alphabetically for undated cassettes. Note that the original numbered titles of cassettes FS-7448-FS-7463 have been retained. See donor's guide for a more complete listing of the content of these cassettes. Microcassettes (FS-7474-FS-7571) are arranged alphabetically, by interview subject.
Content of audiocassettes dates from 1942-2002 and includes recordings of folk music radio programs from the 1940s to the 1990s; copies of 78 rpm records, chiefly folk and topical songs; taped interviews; commercial recordings; and copies of Bear Family Records' Songs for Political Action, 1926-1953. Recordings of Bob Dylan are included, including what is probably a copy of a reel-to-reel recording made by Dylan for Broadside magazine. Copies of 78 rpm records include recordings by Woody Guthrie, the Almanac Singers, Pete Seeger, and the Weavers. Interview subjects include Phil Ochs, Sis Cunningham, Gordon Friesen, Bernice Reagon, Dave Van Ronk, and Izzy Young. Microcassettes consist of recorded interviews conducted by Ronald Cohen, including interviews with Eric Anderson, Oscar Brand, John Cohen, Sis Cunningham, Country Joe McDonald, Odetta, Studs Terkel, Peter Yarrow, and Izzy Young.
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Subseries 2.2. Films, .
Arrangement: Alphabetical.
Films consist of home movies made by the family of Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen. Most are undated. Note that original film titles and descriptions have been retained. Also note that F-20239/9 is broken, and that F-20239/13 and F-20239/14 contain no labels or descriptions.
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Subseries 2.3. Videocassettes, May 1991.
Arrangement: Alphabetical.
Videocassettes document the Richard Reuss Memorial Folk Music Convention, which took place in May of 1991. Note that original video titles and descriptions have been retained.
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Items Separated
Processed by: Emily Jack, 2006
Encoded by: Emily Jack, January 2006
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