Archie Green: Difference between revisions

Born Aaron Green in [[Winnipeg]], [[Manitoba]] he moved with his parents to [[Los Angeles|Los Angeles, California]] in 1922. He grew up in southern California, began college at [[UCLA]], and transferred to the [[University of California at Berkeley]], from which he received a bachelor's degree in political science in 1939. He joined the [[Civilian Conservation Corps]] and spent his year of service in a camp on the [[Klamath River]] as a road builder and firefighter. He then worked in the [[San Francisco, California|San Francisco, California]] [[shipyard]]s and served in the [[United States Navy|U.S. Navy]] during [[World War II]]. He was a member of the [[United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America]] for over sixty-seven years and was a Journeyman Shipwright. His pro-labor orientation owed much to his upbringing. His parents were Jewish-Ukrainian immigrants from [[Chernigov]], where his father had participated in the uprising against the Russian czar in 1905. When that revolution failed, they escaped to Canada. In the U.S., Green's father, a socialist, supported [[Eugene V. Debs]], the campaign of [[Upton Sinclair]] for governor of California in 1934, and became a supporter of President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]'s [[New Deal]]. While living in Los Angeles, Green regularly heard political speeches in Pershing Square. Describing himself as an "[[anarcho-syndicalist]] with strong libertarian leanings," or a "[[left-libertarian]],"<ref>Robert Cantwell, "Introduction" to Green, ''Torching the Fink Books'': xv.</ref> Green combined a sensitivity for working people, an abiding concern for democratic processes, and a pragmatic willingness to lobby for reforms. He spent his career not only collecting material from laborers, but encouraging workers themselves to document and preserve their own lore.

In 1942 Green purchased the album ''Work Songs of the U.S.A.'' performed by folk singer [[Lead Belly|Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter]]. His love of music and especially the song "Old Man" sparked his interest in folkloristics, but it was to be nearly two decades before he returned to formal academia.

Green enrolled in graduate school in 1958, earning an M.L.S. degree from the University of Illinois in 1960 and a Ph.D. in folklore from the [[University of Pennsylvania]] in 1968. He combined his support for labor and love of country music in the research that became his first book, ''Only a Miner''. In the same period he recorded "Girl of Constant Sorrow," an LP of songs sung by [[Sarah Ogan Gunning]], the sister of coalminer, songwriter, and labor leader [[Jim Garland]]. Green joined the [[University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign]] in 1960, where he held a joint appointment in the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations and the English Department until 1972. Working as a senior staff associate at the [[AFL-CIO]] Labor Studies Center in the early 1970s, he initiated programs presenting workers' traditions at the [[Smithsonian Institution]]'s Festival of American Folklife on the [[National Mall]], and from 1969 to 1976 he left academia to live in Washington, D.C., where he led the successful legislative campaign to enact the American Folklife Preservation Act.<ref>Benjamin Feline, ''Romancing the Folk: Public Memory & American Roots Music'' (The University of North Carolina Press, 2000), pp. 179-180.</ref> He became known for his work on occupational folklore and on early [[hillbilly music]] recordings. In 1975 he joined the faculty of the [[University of Texas at Austin]]. He was awarded the Bingham Humanities Professorship at the [[University of Louisville]] in 1977, and was a [[Woodrow Wilson Center]] fellow in Washington, DCD.C., in 1978. His articles have appeared in ''Appalachian Journal'', '' Journal of American Folklore'', ''Labor's Heritage'', ''Musical Quarterly'', and other periodicals and anthologies. He retired from the University of Texas at Austin in June 1982, and established an archive for his collected materials in the [[Southern Folklife Collection]] at the [[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]].

[[Category:Deaths from kidney failure in the United States]]