Restrictions to Access

Use of videotapes may require production of viewing copies.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Susan Massingale Collection #20278, Southern Folklife Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Susan Massingale in August 1997 (Acc. 97177).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

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.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Baker, Etta, 1913-2006.
• Black Mountain College (Black Mountain, N.C.)
• Blues (Music)--North Carolina.
• Burt, Thomas, 1900-1987.
• Cherokee Indians--North Carolina.
• Documentary films.
• Dugan, Joyce.
• Films.
• Greenville (N.C.)--History.
• Guitar Slim, 1901-1972.
• Massingale, Susan.
• Musicians--North Carolina.
• North Carolina--Songs and music.
• Phillips, Cora.
• Pough, Anthony.
• Roscoe, Moses.
• Thomas, Junior.
• Thompson, Joe, 1918-
• Thompson, Nate, 1916-1997.
• Thompson, Odell, 1911-1994.

The Susan Massingale collection consists of 243 videotapes from four documentary productions, 1987-1995. Massingale co-produced and co-directed one of the productions, Step It Up and Go: Blues in the Carolinas, with Glen Hinson. The other productions are Boogie in Black and White, a film about the Cherokee Indians, and another film about Black Mountain College. Massingale's connection to these three documentaries is unclear, but they appear to related to UNC-TV and are chiefly about North Carolina. Videotape formats include Betacam, Umatic, and VHS.

Step It Up and Go: Blues in the Carolinas traces the development of blues music in the Carolinas through interviews with musicians and still photographs of them. North Carolina musicians talk about how they learned to play and perform different styles on the banjo, fiddle, guitar, piano, bottle, and spoons. Performers include Odell Thompson, Nate Thompson, Joe Thompson, Etta Baker, Cora Phillips, Junior Thomas, Thomas Burt, Guitar Slim, Moses Roscoe, and Anthony Pough. Formats include Umatic, Betacam, and VHS.

The UNC-TV documentary Boogie in Black and White is a film about the making of Pitch a Boogie Woogie, a film shot in Greenville, N.C., in 1947 by John W. Warner, then owner of Greenville's Plaza Theatre. Pitch a Boogie Woogie, released by Lord-Warner Pictures, Inc., in 1948, was the first movie made by a production company based in North Carolina. It had an all-African American cast of mostly local Greenville musicians and actors and enjoyed success in the Carolinas, but was never shown outside that area. Format is Umatic.

The Cherokee Indian production appears to be mostly about Joyce Dugan, who was elected Principal Chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in 1995. She was the first woman to hold that position. Format is Betacam.

The Black Mountain College production appears to be about the history of Black Mountain College in Black Mountain, N.C. Black Mountain College was founded in 1933 and guided by the principle that the study of art was central to a liberal arts education. Black Mountain College closed in 1957. Format is Betacam.

Note that descriptive information was chiefly taken from original labels.