Archie Green: Difference between revisions

| name = Archie Green

| image = Archie Green photo.jpg

| image_size = 180px

| caption = Archie Green at home, ca. 1993; photograph by Hazen Robert Walker

| birth_place = [[Winnipeg]], [[Manitoba, Canada]]

| death_place = [[San Francisco, CA]], California, U.S.

| occupation = Folklorist

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]].

Also notable was the 2007 publication of ''[[The Big Red Songbook]]'', featuring the lyrics to the 190 songs included in the various editions of the [[Industrial Workers of the World]]'s ''[[Little Red Songbook]]s'' from 1909 to 1973. Green inherited the project from John Neuhaus, a machinist and Wobbly a (member of the Industrial Workers of the World) who devoted years to collecting a nearly complete set of the IWW songbooks and determining what music the songs had been set to. When Neuhaus died of cancer in 1958, he gave his unique collection of songbooks, sheet music and other materials to Green, who vowed to carry on Neuhaus's vision of a complete edition of IWW songs. Green deposited Neuhaus's original materials in the folklife archive at the University of North Carolina.<ref>Jesse Hamlin, "Historian completes a labor of love -- ''The Big Red Songbook''," ''San Francisco Chronicle'', June 18, 2007, B1, B3.</ref>

At home in San Francisco, Green served as secretary of the nonprofit Fund for Labor Culture & History. Founded in July 2000, the Fund has worked with the [[National Trust for Historic Preservation]] to identify labor landmarks in San Francisco and install commemorative plaques, supported the publication of books on [[Traditional music|roots music]], labor songs and historic labor landmarks, prepared guides to films on skilled union craftsmen, and helped the [[United Mine Workers]] restore the [[Ludlow Monument]] in Colorado.<ref>Fund for Labor Culture and History, Activities List, July 2000 - December 2006, 14 pp.</ref> A visit to Archie Green's home often began with his salutation, "Greetings, fellow worker." He would always assist any researcher or student, but he would likewise always find something for them do go out and do. Green also brought together unionists, activists, scholars, and artists in "Laborlore Conversations," a series of conferences on [[working class culture]]. Green was unable to attend the fourth of these conferences in August 2007, where he was honored with the Living Legend Award from the Librarian of Congress.[[File:ArchieGreen.jpg|thumb|San Francisco, California]]

* In August 2007 he received the Living Legend award from the Library of Congress.[httphttps://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2007/07-150.html]

Archie Green died of [[renal failure]] at his home in [[San Francisco, California]] on March 22, 2009.<ref>[httphttps://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/25/AR2009032503428.html Folklorist Celebrated Working Americans]. ''[[The Washington Post]]'' 26 March 2009. Retrieved on 3 June 2009.</ref>

* [httphttps://www.loc.gov/folklife American Folklife Center]

* [http://www2.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/g/Green,Archie.html Archie Green Papers], Southern Folklife Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]

* [httphttps://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5764742&ft=1&f=1033 Archie Green interviewed on National Public Radio about ''The Big Red Songbook'']

* [httphttps://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102322612 Archie Green Remembered on NPR]

[[Category:AmericanCanadian folkloristslibertarians]]

[[Category:IndustrialDeaths Workersfrom ofkidney failure in the WorldUnited States]]

[[Category:1917Historians birthsof the Industrial Workers of the World]]

[[Category:Folklorists20th-century American musicologists]]