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Frank Clyde Brown Recordings

A guide to the digital collection.

Introduction

The Frank Clyde Brown Recordings digital collection at Duke University Libraries is the product of a multi-year CLIR/Mellon Digitizing Hidden Collections grant to digitize and make accessible the field recordings Brown made with musicians and storytellers across North Carolina from the late 1910's to the early 1940's.  These recordings form the backbone of the seven-volume Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, a landmark work in folk scholarship published between 1952 and 1964.  This guide is intended to provide users with background on the collection and with additional resources for further study.

Frank Clyde Brown demonstrating his mobile recording studio, circa 1940.  Duke University Archives.