Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

During the Great Depression, music helpted to bring communities together and offered fun, diversion, and emotional support during economic hard times. There was also a growing interest in traditional music, spurred by the efforts of ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, who collected thousands of field recordings for the Archive of American Folk Song. "Race records," "hillybilly," and "ethnic" music gained popularity.
By the 1940s swing music heralded a move away from the music of America's rural past to the energized sounds of an industrialized urban society. The Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographs in this kiosk illustrate some of these trends. (exhibited with 200.XX.1.20, 200.XX.1.238, 200.XX.7.21, 200.XX.1.71, and 200.XX.3.29)