Sharp's North American collection is regarded as a landmark in folk music fieldwork and here we are making available online access to Cecil Sharp's only surviving personal diaries in which he describes his collecting experiences in the Appalachian Mountains.
For context, please see Mike Yates' article on the Musical Traditions website, or the English Folk Dance and Song Society publication Dear Companion for an equally detailed essay on Sharp in America.
The diaries are browsable by year:
A note about racism
Cecil Sharp travelled, along with Maud Karpeles, to the Appalachians in search of survivals of British ballads and folk songs, so they restricted their collecting work to settlements which were recognised as having roots in Britain. They did not visit communities whose people they believed to come largely from other parts of the world.
They clearly shared the negative opinions of black people common at the time, and this is reflected in some of Sharp’s diary entries. We have decided not to cut these instances out of the diary transcriptions as that would be falsifying the historical record.
Racism has no place in the folk arts of England today. At the English Folk Dance and Song Society we stand firmly against inequality and prejudice in all its forms.
Many thanks to Cecil Sharp’s grandchildren, Briony Jose and Richard Sharp, for allowing the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) to host the diaries online; to the managers of his estate, Bird & Bird; to Chris Roche and The Shanty Crew for sponsoring the digitisation project, and the Country Dance and Song Society (CDSS) for sponsoring the transcription project.
The transcripts linked to the digital images were researched and made by Dr Christopher Bearman and edited and prepared for the website by Kate Faulkner MSc MCLIP.
This project is dedicated to the memory and contributions of John M (‘Jack’) Langstaff. It has been underwritten by The Ithaka Foundation, The Langstaff family and William L Ritchie.
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