In 1930, the Committee on Traditions and Ideals of the Vermont Commission on Country Life appointed Helen Hartness Flanders (1890-1972), of Springfield, Vermont, to spearhead a project to document the traditional music of Vermont. Mrs. Flanders, daughter of former Governor of Vermont James Hartness, and wife of Ralph Flanders, a leader in the Vermont machine-tool industry and later Republican Senator from Vermont from 1946-1959, was a trained musician, writer, and arts patron. With the assistance of George Brown of Boston, a member of the Springfield Symphony, Mrs. Flanders traveled throughout the state, sought out singers of old ballads, wrote down and, as technology developed from wax cylinder, to disk, to reel-to-reel magnetic tape, recorded traditional New England folksongs and ballads as sung by native Vermonters and other New Englanders.
For more background on this episode, please visit: https://vermonthistory.org/collecting-old-songs-helen-hartness-flanders-1930
Episode 51: Railroads
Episode 50: School Consolidation
Episode 49: The First Vermonters, the Abenaki
Episode 48: Act 250
Episode 47: Back to the Land: Communes in Vermont
Episode 46: The VT/NY Youth Project
Episode 45: The Aiken Formula
Episode 44: Dowsing in Danville
Episode 43: Democrats Rising
Episode 42: High Tech Comes to Vermont
Episode 42: Consuelo Northrop Bailey
Episode 39: The Case of Alex B. Novikoff
Episode 38: Maple Sugaring
Episode 37: Town Bands
Episode 36: Senator Ralph Flanders
Episode 35: Electricity Comes to Rural Vermont
Episode 34: World War II at Home
Episode 32: Fighting Silicosis, Dust Control in the Granite Industry
Episode 31: The OWLS, Vermont's Women Legislators
Episode 30: Legislative Reapportionment
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