After a 2008 visit to Utah State University, Peggy Seeger, a prolific collector, presenter and performer of traditional music, made her collection of more than 200 items available to the school's library archives.
Special Collections at Archives division at the Merrill-Cazier Library recently purchased the Peggy Seeger Folk Song Collection, believing it contains "important volumes on international and American folk song scholarship," said USU folklore curator Randy Williams. "The collection makes an excellent addition to our folk-song ballad collections."
Seeger has gathered the books, CDs, cassette tapes and music books, over the years due to their emphasis on protest and social reform.
USU is home to one of the strongest repositories of American folklore, including folk song, ballad and cowboy poetry in the world, Williams said.
With her husband and music partner, Ewan MacColl, Seeger collected, performed and produced more than 200 folk songs, with an emphasis on songs of protest and social reform. She helped to produce a series of musical documentaries for the BBC, which can still be heard today. MacColl's song "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," made famous by Roberta Flack, was written for Seeger.
Some of USU's new volumes include bookplates and inscriptions and annotations written by Seeger and MacColl inside.
– Wendy Leonard