Pistol packin' Mama : Aunt Molly Jackson and the politics of folksong / Shelly Romalis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Romalis, Shelly, 1939-

Series:

Music in American life

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jackson, Aunt Molly.

Singers--United States--Biography.

Singers.

Protest songs.

United States.

Protest songs--United States--History and criticism.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xi, 239 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [1999]

Summary:

Meet Aunt Molly Jackson (1880-1960), one of American folklore's most fascinating characters.

A coal miner's daughter, she grew up in eastern Kentucky, married a miner, and became a midwife, labor activist, and songwriter. Fusing hard experience with rich Appalachian musical tradition, her songs became weapons of struggle.

In 1931, at age fifty, she was "discovered" and brought north, sponsored and befriended by an illustrious circle of left-wing intellectuals and musicians, including Theodore Dreiser, Alan Lomax, and Charles Seeger and his son Pete. Along with Sarah Ogan Gunning, Jim Garland (two of Aunt Molly's half-siblings), Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, and other folk musicians, she served as a cultural broker, linking the rural working poor to big-city left-wing activism.

Shelly Romalis draws upon interviews and archival materials to construct this portrait of an Appalachian woman who remained radical, raucous, proud, poetic, offensive, self-involved, and in spirit the "real" pistol packin' mama of the song.

Contents:

"Hard times in Coleman's mines": coal and community in the Kentucky mountains

"I am a union woman": the Communist National Miners Union comes to Harlan County, Kentucky

"I was born and raised in old Kentucky": Aunt Molly Jackson's first fifty years

"Christmas Eve on the East Side": Aunt Molly moves to New York City

"Girl of constant sorrow": Molly's sister, Sarah Ogan Gunning

"White pilgrims in the foreign heathen country": Molly, Sarah, and the politics of folksong

"Dreadful memories": class-conscious wives, radical mothers

Reflections: "Be a grievin' after me".

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-228) and index.

ISBN:

0252024214

0252067282

OCLC:

39033302