Bess Lomax Hawes
Encyclopedia
Bess Lomax Hawes was an American folk music
ian, folklorist, and researcher. She was the daughter of John Avery Lomax
and Bess Bauman-Brown Lomax, and the sister of Alan Lomax
.
, Bess grew up learning folk music from a very early age, since her father, a former English professor and twice president of the American Folklore Society
, was Honorary Curator of American folk song at the Library of Congress from 1935-48. As a child, she excelled at classical piano, under the tutelage of her mother, and later she learned to play the guitar.
She entered the University of Texas at fifteen and the following year assisted her father John A., her brother Alan Lomax, and modernist composer Ruth Crawford Seeger
with their book, Our Singing Country (1941). She graduated from Bryn Mawr College
near Philadelphia with a degree in sociology. Later, in the 1960s, she was among the first group of students to receive an M.A. in folklore at the University of California at Berkeley, under the guidance of professor Alan Dundes
.
, where she was active on the folk scene. She was an on-and-off member of the Almanac Singers
; she and a fellow Almanac singer, Baldwin "Butch" Hawes, an artist, were married in 1942. Another Almanac member, Woody Guthrie
, taught her mandolin
.
During World War II
Bess Lomax Hawes worked for the Office of War Information preparing radio broadcasts for troops overseas. After the end of the war, she and her family moved to Boston
; while there she wrote songs for Walter A. O'Brien
's 1949 mayoral campaign including "M.T.A.," co-written with Jacqueline Steiner
. The song became a hit for the Kingston Trio in 1959. While her children (Nicholas Hawes, Corey Hawes Denos, and Naomi Hawes Bishop) were attending a cooperative nursery school organized by graduate students at MIT and Harvard:
In the 1950s she moved to California
, where she taught guitar, banjo, mandolin and folk singing through UCLA Extension courses, at the Idyllwild summer arts program and, starting in 1963, at San Fernando Valley State College. She also played at local clubs as well as at some of the larger folk festival
s such as the Newport Folk Festival
and the Berkeley Folk Festival.
In 1968 she became Associate Professor of Anthropology
at San Fernando Valley State College and later head of the Anthropology Department at what is now Cal State Northridge. Her husband, Butch Hawes, died in 1971.
At California State University Northridge Hawes compiled an extensive archive of folk songs that were gathered by student of hers in Los Angeles and abroad. The archive remains in a private sector of the library, with very limited access.
In 1975, Hawes accepted a position in administration at the Smithsonian Institution
, where she was instrumental in organizing the Smithsonian's 1976 Bicentennial Festival of Traditional Folk Arts on the National Mall. In 1977, she was named first director of the Folk and Traditional Arts Program at the National Endowment for the Arts
, and created the National Heritage Fellowships, which recognize traditional artists and performers. During her tenure, funding for folks arts rose from about $100,000 to $4 million, and 50 state or territorial folk arts programs were set up:
She retired in 1992.
Bess Lomax Hawes was the recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of North Carolina
and the National Medal of Arts
awarded in 1993 by President Bill Clinton
. An NEA traditional arts award is named in her honor.
Her memoir, Sing It Pretty, was published by Illinois University Press in 2008.
She died in November 2009, aged 88, following a stroke
.
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
ian, folklorist, and researcher. She was the daughter of John Avery Lomax
John Lomax
John Avery Lomax was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist and folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk songs...
and Bess Bauman-Brown Lomax, and the sister of Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...
.
Early life and education
Born in Austin, TexasAustin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
, Bess grew up learning folk music from a very early age, since her father, a former English professor and twice president of the American Folklore Society
American Folklore Society
The American Folklore Society is the US-based professional association for folklorists, with members from the US, Canada, and around the world. It was founded in 1888 by William Wells Newell, who stood at the center of a diverse group of university-based scholars, museum anthropologists, and men...
, was Honorary Curator of American folk song at the Library of Congress from 1935-48. As a child, she excelled at classical piano, under the tutelage of her mother, and later she learned to play the guitar.
She entered the University of Texas at fifteen and the following year assisted her father John A., her brother Alan Lomax, and modernist composer Ruth Crawford Seeger
Ruth Crawford Seeger
Ruth Crawford Seeger , born Ruth Porter Crawford, was a modernist composer and an American folk music specialist.-Life:...
with their book, Our Singing Country (1941). She graduated from Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
near Philadelphia with a degree in sociology. Later, in the 1960s, she was among the first group of students to receive an M.A. in folklore at the University of California at Berkeley, under the guidance of professor Alan Dundes
Alan Dundes
Alan Dundes, was a folklorist at the University of California, Berkeley. His work was said to have been central to establishing the study of folklore as an academic discipline. He wrote 12 books, both academic and popular, and edited or co-wrote two dozen more...
.
Career in music and folk arts
In the early 1940s she moved to New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where she was active on the folk scene. She was an on-and-off member of the Almanac Singers
Almanac Singers
The Almanac Singers were a group of folk musicians who, as their name indicates, specialized in topical songs, especially songs connected with the labor movement...
; she and a fellow Almanac singer, Baldwin "Butch" Hawes, an artist, were married in 1942. Another Almanac member, Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
, taught her mandolin
Mandolin
A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...
.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Bess Lomax Hawes worked for the Office of War Information preparing radio broadcasts for troops overseas. After the end of the war, she and her family moved to Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
; while there she wrote songs for Walter A. O'Brien
Walter A. O'Brien
Walter A. O'Brien, Jr. was a Progressive Party politician from Boston, Massachusetts, United States in the 1940s.In 1949 O'Brien ran for mayor of Boston...
's 1949 mayoral campaign including "M.T.A.," co-written with Jacqueline Steiner
Jacqueline Steiner
Jacqueline Steiner is an American folk singer, songwriter and social activist. Steiner is known for having written the lyrics to the song "M.T.A.", about a man stuck on the Boston subway because he could not pay the exit fare...
. The song became a hit for the Kingston Trio in 1959. While her children (Nicholas Hawes, Corey Hawes Denos, and Naomi Hawes Bishop) were attending a cooperative nursery school organized by graduate students at MIT and Harvard:
She frequently brought her guitar to the school to perform for the students. Some of the parents, mostly the mothers, asked her to teach them how to play guitar, banjo and mandolin. Bess agreed to charge them one dollar each for each lesson, which lasted several hours, what she called “a whole evening.” She would keep 50 cents for herself to pay for a babysitter and she’d donate the other 50 cents to the nursery school. Word soon spread, and others began to join her classes.
That was how Bess developed her technique for teaching guitar to large groups of people simultaneously, a method for which she became well-known, and which accounts for the fact that over the years, especially after she moved to Los Angeles in 1951, she was able to teach so many people to play guitar. Many of her students, in turn, became guitar teachers, spreading her method - and her enthusiasm for music - which helped catalyze the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s. Bess figured . . . "students learning guitar individually can get intimidated because they can hear their own mistakes. In a group, the students feel bolder about playing, take more risks, enjoy it more, and feel part of something bigger, which sounds better, anyway." Peter Dreier, "Remembering Bess Lomax Hawes", Huffington Post, Nov. 30, 2009.
In the 1950s she moved to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, where she taught guitar, banjo, mandolin and folk singing through UCLA Extension courses, at the Idyllwild summer arts program and, starting in 1963, at San Fernando Valley State College. She also played at local clubs as well as at some of the larger folk festival
Folk festival
A Folk festival celebrates traditional folk crafts and folk music.-Canada:Alberta*Calgary Folk Music Festival*Canmore Folk Music Festival*Edmonton Folk Music Festival*Jasper Folk Festival*Wild Mountain Music FestOntario*Barriefolk...
s such as the Newport Folk Festival
Newport Folk Festival
The Newport Folk Festival is an American annual folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the previously established Newport Jazz Festival...
and the Berkeley Folk Festival.
In 1968 she became Associate Professor of Anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
at San Fernando Valley State College and later head of the Anthropology Department at what is now Cal State Northridge. Her husband, Butch Hawes, died in 1971.
At California State University Northridge Hawes compiled an extensive archive of folk songs that were gathered by student of hers in Los Angeles and abroad. The archive remains in a private sector of the library, with very limited access.
In 1975, Hawes accepted a position in administration at the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
, where she was instrumental in organizing the Smithsonian's 1976 Bicentennial Festival of Traditional Folk Arts on the National Mall. In 1977, she was named first director of the Folk and Traditional Arts Program at the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
, and created the National Heritage Fellowships, which recognize traditional artists and performers. During her tenure, funding for folks arts rose from about $100,000 to $4 million, and 50 state or territorial folk arts programs were set up:
"We're really honoring traditions," Mrs. Hawes told The Washington Post in 1983. "These individuals are the people who've been pushed up by the traditions, they're the lightning rods that we grab onto. It's extremely important for the psychic health and well-being of Americans to maintain all of these little regional distinctions, to establish a cultural pluralism. It's like my brother folklorist Alan Lomax wrote one time: if the cultural gray-out continues around the world, pretty soon there will be no place worth visiting . . . and no particular reason to stay home, either." Patricia Sullivan, "Bess Lomax Hawes, 88, Championed folk arts as performer and NEA official".
She retired in 1992.
Bess Lomax Hawes was the recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of North Carolina
University of North Carolina
Chartered in 1789, the University of North Carolina was one of the first public universities in the United States and the only one to graduate students in the eighteenth century...
and the National Medal of Arts
National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts. It is the highest honor conferred to an individual artist on behalf of the people. Honorees are selected by the National Endowment for the...
awarded in 1993 by President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
. An NEA traditional arts award is named in her honor.
Her memoir, Sing It Pretty, was published by Illinois University Press in 2008.
She died in November 2009, aged 88, following a stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
.
Films
- The Films of Bess Lomax Hawes Four films made at San Fernando Valley State (1964–1970)(now California State University Northridge): Georgia Sea island Singers, Buckdancer, Pizza Pizza Daddy-O, and Say Old Man Can You Play the Fiddle.
Internet Resources
- Bess Lomax Hawes. Smithsonian Folklife Center.
- Dreier, Peter. "Remembering Bess Lomax Hawes". Huffington Post, November 30, 2009.
- Dreier, Peter, and Jim Vrabel. "Banned in Red Scare Boston: The Forgotten Story of Charlie & the MTA". Dissent, Spring, 2008.
- Dreier, Peter, and Jim Vrabel. "Will Charlie Ever Get Off That Train? The true story of the Ballad of the MTA". Huffington Post, February 15, 2009.
- [ Bess Lomax Hawes] at Allmusic