Bottomley, Andrew J. “The Ballad of Alan and Auntie Beeb: Alan Lomax’s Radio Programmes for the BBC, 1943-1960.” Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, vol. 36, no. 4, 2016, pp. 604–26, https://doi.org/10.1080/01439685.2015.1105513.
Andrew Bottomley claims in “The Ballad of Alan and Auntie Beeb” that folk music collector Alan Lomax’s work with BBC in the 1940s-1950s, a result of USA-Britain allyship during World War II, spurred the revival of British folk music and encouraged English-speaking audiences to explore transnational collections of folk music. Bottomley cites the co-production of Transatlantic Call: People to People by both CBS and BBC (aired to American and British audiences) and the development of the BBC Radio Ballad as evidence of Lomax’s indelible impact on the expansion of folk music as “world music” (Bottomley 617). Lomax is significant to my project because he met and influenced each co-founder of the BBC Radio Ballad individually, and he also worked on the Radio Research Project, a fundamental program to American radio as discussed in Dgt Hum 187. As an extension of my thesis, I acknowledge Lomax’s coverage of diverse American and British cultures to expand my discussion of cultural differences. Additionally, I reference Lomax because his project The Global Jukebox, a free archive of his work, bears resemblance to Digital Humanities projects.
Cole, Ross. “Industrial Balladry, Mass Culture, and the Politics of Realism in Cold War Britain.” The Journal of Musicology (St. Joseph, Mich.), vol. 34, no. 3, 2017, pp. 354–90, https://doi.org/10.1525/JM.2017.34.3.354.
In his article published in the Journal of Musicology, Ross Cole argues that the early BBC Radio Ballads were an attempt to preserve the voices of folk music and the working class, focusing primarily on the viewpoint of the male laborer, in response to 1950s industrialized modernity in Britain. Cole uses the personal histories of Radio Ballad co-founders Ewan MacColl, Charles Parker, and Peggy Sawyer plus the philosophies of folk singer A. L. Lloyd and theorist Karl Marx as evidence for his argument. This article establishes the overarching political and historical context of Britain in the 1950s and brings to mind questions that are germane to Digital Humanities such as: Is industrialization a threat to the development of folklore? I integrate this article into my thesis about cultural and gender diversity by mentioning the underrepresentation of women in the Radio Ballad. If I discussed the politics of the Radio Ballad in more depth, I would have used this article demonstrate how the BBC Radio Ballads mostly echo MacColl’s personal political beliefs.
Freedman, Jean R. “At Home Abroad.” Peggy Seeger, University of Illinois Press, 2017, pp. 118-132.
In the ninth chapter of her biography on folk singer-songwriter Peggy Seeger, Jean Freedman argues that the role of women was initially understated in the creation of the Radio Ballad – Seeger was especially underestimated in her authorial contributions to the early Radio Ballads of the late 1950s. Freedman points to the presence of female herring workers and the insertion of two songs about women in the third Radio Ballad, Singing the Fishing, as a sign of the diversification of Radio Ballad voices, at least in terms of gender. Freedman’s chapter provides a comprehensive overview of how Seeger was not seen as an impactful co-founder of the Radio Ballad as MacColl and Parker were, despite the evolving gender politics of the radio program. I use this chapter to construct a sub-argument of my thesis: the mere presence of underrepresented groups in the Radio Ballad did not induce a significant shift in how the Radio Ballad makers treated their narrative subjects.
Langhamer, Claire. “The Meanings of Home in Postwar Britain.”Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 40, no. 2, 2005, pp. 341–62, https://doi.org/10.1177/0022009405051556.
In her article in the Journal of Contemporary History, Claire Langhamer posits that working-class and middle-class families of Postwar Britain became increasingly entranced with the romantic dream of the private home and the domestic role of the mother. To further her argument, Langhamer cites survey responses obtained by the British social research program Mass-Observation that asked participants to describe how they envisioned “home.” Langhamer discusses how, on the whole, working-class and middle-class women’s dreams of their roles inside and outside of the home failed to come to fruition in Postwar Britain – the labor of working-class women also became devalued with rapidly growing levels of consumerism. I use this resource to explain the lacking gender diversity in the early Radio Ballads, both in terms of who crafted the Radio Ballads and who contributed their personal narratives as “actuality.”
Winick, Steve. “The Radio Ballads of Ewan MacColl, Charles Parker and Peggy Seeger.” Dirty Linen, no. 88, Dirty Linen, Ltd, 2000, pp. 80–81.
In Steve Winick’s 2000 magazine article about the BBC Radio Ballads, he asserts that the program was a “mixed bag” (Winick 80) of episodes about industrial and social issues. To bolster his argument, he discusses both the vividness of fisherman vernacular featured in Singing the Fishing and the unpleasant detachment of MacColl and Seeger from the polio victims included in The Body Blow. Winick’s criticism and contextualization of the BBC Radio Ballads offers a substantial overview of the general reception of the original eight episodes. I used Winick’s categorization of the eight episodes as “industrial” versus “social” as a key part of my introduction.
Additional Sources Consulted
Hochman, Brian. “Originals and Aboriginals: Race and Writing in the Age of the Phonograph.” Savage Preservation, University of Minnesota Press, 2014, pp. 73-114.
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. “The Power in the Story.” Silencing the Past, Beacon Press, 2015, pp. 1-30.