Recordings and related material of Missouri and Ozark folk musicians and folklorists; primarily Max Hunter, Loman Cansler, and R. P. Christeson. The recordings include songs and discussions on many aspects of folklore.
The Schroeder Collection centers primarily on the work of Missouri's three major folk music collector-performers: Loman Cansler of Kansas City, a native of Dallas County, Missouri, and a well known Midwestern singer-collector; R.P. Christeson of Auxvasse, an authority on fiddle tunes; and Max Hunter of Springfield, an Ozark singer-collector and festival organizer who worked closely with Mary Celestia Parler and Vance Randolph. Cansler, Christeson, and Hunter were interviewed at their homes and recorded in concert and at workshop/lectures at the University of Missouri-Columbia. This collection complements and supplements the Christeson, Cansler, and Hunter collections in the Western Historical Manuscript Collection [now at the State Historical Society of Missouri].
In addition to interviews and performances by Cansler, Christeson, Hunter and other prominent Missouri musicians such as Art Galbraith and Gordon McCann, the collection includes recordings of folk festivals in Columbia, St. Louis, and Springfield, Missouri; Washington, D.C; Eureka Springs, Arkansas; and other locations. A variety of performers, speakers and discussants are featured. Also represented in the collection are programs at the University of Missouri-Columbia which brought nationally known folklorists such as Roger Abrahams, Joseph C. Hickerson, Ellen Stekert, Barre Toelken, and Roger Welsch; cultural historians including Charles van Ravenswaay; and local historians and musicians to the campus.
The bulk of the collection consists of audio cassettes that are, for the most part, arranged by contributor and then chronologically thereunder. In addition to performances of ballads, songs,and fiddle tunes, the audio cassettes include reminiscences of collecting experiences, discussion of collecting approaches and techniques, theories of folklore and folk music survival, contextual information on folklife during the first half of the 20th century, and information on singers and other musicians. Although primarily focusing on the Anglo-American music tradition, the collection includes examples of rural black music, French and German music, and some folk revival music current in Columbia in the 1970s.
Rebecca Schroeder, partially funded by a grant from the Skaggs Foundation, abstracted the audio cassettes in this collection in 1988 and 1989. An alphabetical listing of the songs performed and discussed on the audio cassettes follows this inventory.
Records, audio tapes, video cassettes, and transcripts of some of the material in the collection follow the audio cassettes. Notes in the audio cassettes portion of the inventory indicate if there is related material in the later sections of the collection. Included in the transcripts section are copies of lectures on folk music given by Adolf Schroeder and programs from various folk music festivals. Video cassettes of some of the interviews and performances in this collection are located in the Missouri Origins Project, Collection No. 3852. Notes in the audio cassettes portion of the inventory indicate if there is related material in the Missouri Origins Project. (Note: the dates on the audio cassettes in this collection and the dates on the video cassettes in the Missouri Origins Project that relate to those audio cassettes are not always the same. The video cassettes have been checked to see that they are the ones from which the audio cassettes were made.)
Related collections (additions): CA5648, CA5610, CA5490, CA5410, CA5183, CA5063, CA5033, CA4979, CA4925