The cover of the album A Grain of Sand

Charting the Music of a Movement

Galvanized by an act of racial violence, the band A Grain of Sand brought a new version of Asian American activism and identity to the folk music scene.
Connie Converse

Connie Converse Wasn’t Just a Folk Singer. She Was a Scholar, Too.

The disappeared—but recently rediscovered—folk musician edited and published in academic journals under the name Elizabeth Converse.
An illustration for Jesse James at Long Branch in the magazine Log Cabin Library, 1898.

The Murder Ballad Was the Original True Crime Podcast

The 1896 version of crime sensationalism also taught the victim-blaming lesson “Stay Sexy, Don’t Get Murdered.”
A postcard showing three trolleys at the Public Gardens Portal in Boston sometime before 1914

The Folk Song That Fought against Fare Hikes

"M.T.A." is a humorous ditty about a never-ending subway ride. But it began in Boston's progressive political circles.
Woody Guthrie

How “This Land Is Your Land” Went From Protest Song to Singalong

Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” has lost a bit of its protest oomph—in part because of a decades-long denial of its later verses.
Sidney Robertson Cowell

A Bag of Old Songs from Elsewhere

Sidney Robertson Cowell might be starting to get the attention her rich life, first-rate writing, and broad work as an ethnomusicologist deserve.