During the 1970s and 80s, folk music in Washington state took on greater dimension in the form of new folk music programs – specifically the development of a state songbook to commemorate the 1989 Washington state Centennial. This project, Washington Songs and Lore (WSAL), was a collaborative effort between government entities and folk music communities. Supported by state funding, WSAL was an intermediary between folk music insiders and the general public. Its creation was a site of control over state narrative and identity, and the influence of various stakeholders affected the degree to which it was fully representative of Northwest culture and tradition. Taking a place on the public stage, WSAL facilitated the shift of folk culture to official culture, where local government, institutions, and communities embraced Northwest folk traditions as official markers of identity and belonging. As much as the songbook was contested over representation of certain historical narratives, it was equally a site where citizens made government dollars work towards their own account of state history and experience. These individual efforts, progressive and deeply concerned with diversity, were restricted by entrenched forces that limited the ability of WSAL to truly represent all facets of Washington state history.
Washington Songs and Lore, published in 1989, was the work of Bellingham-based folk singer Linda Allen, regional folksingers, folklorists, state representatives, and the Washington Centennial Commission (WCC). Washington Songs and Lore had its roots in a resolution adopted by the Washington state legislature in 1982 that formed the Washington Centennial Commission. Financed by $157 million of state money, the purpose of the WCC was to organize, fund and coordinate events, art, and publications in honor of one hundred years of Washington statehood. Executive secretary Putnam Barber led the WCC, which was co-chaired by First Lady Jean Gardner and secretary of state Ralph Munro.[1] In accordance with the law, Representative Dick Nelson “spearheaded the Centennial Songbook Project, which resulted in [another] resolution being passed that called for the publishing of a songbook that reflected [Washington state] musical heritage.”[2]
WSAL did not represent a static, exclusively state vision of history despite the fact that it was funded by state government and initiated under the mission to honor Washington’s statehood. Instead, it was the sum of individual motivations, opinions, and beliefs of songbook committee members led by Linda Allen. Allen first became involved with the Centennial Commission through a standard job application and quickly began her work collecting and compiling prospective songs to present to fellow committee members.[3] Wilfred Woods, editor of the Wenatchee World, chaired the songbook committee, which included teachers, musicians, music educators, a state representative, Jens Lund (the official state folklorist), and Putnam Barber. Once formalized, the committee met regularly, typically at the home of Barber, to listen to tapes and evaluate song titles for almost two years.[4] As a means of discovering new folk music material, Allen traveled around the state to hold song sharing workshops, where community members contributed “songs that might have had to do with Washington State, songs they’d written or songs they’d heard.”[5] Allen utilized her personal contacts by writing to “all the folksingers [she] knew that had a Northwest connection and Northwest feel…not just contemporary songs…but [songs that] reached across the border…which included BC.”[6] Allen placed ads on local radio and in national print publications, and wrote to historical societies, museums, and galleries in pursuit of Northwest folk songs.[7] These efforts led to a high volume of submissions. In sifting through the extensive options, Allen felt a responsibility to accurately represent the geographical and cultural breadth of the Northwest region. The concern for accuracy and diversity of representation extended to other members of the songbook committee and was built into the selection process.
In navigating a balance between personal taste and greater appeal, committee members assessed songs for singability, controversy, length, comprehensibility, entertainment value, and longevity. Naturally, the relevance of material to Washington state history and culture was of particular concern. The “Shake Rat Song,” described in committee worksheets as a logging song, had an “authentic spirit” but was “too W. Virginia” and gleaned unenthusiastic scores. Although praised for its adherence to folk music authenticity, it failed to summon appropriate impressions of the Northwest. In opposition to this, “Wet Me Down in Washington” was rated highly as a “clever,” albeit “corny,” song admired for the fact that it “focuses on Washington.” The committee thought it was “much better than “Wash. My Home” due to the “engaging” and “well-constructed” way it evoked Washington state’s primary meteorological feature.[8] This meticulous process of song selection was the cornerstone of WSAL and was necessary to create what the committee understood to be a cohesive, relatable, and historically accurate representation of Washington state.
The debate between committee members surrounding representation was an ongoing dialogue testing the limits of inclusion, a push and pull of conflicting opinions and vested interests. The songbook committee expressed concern over hypothetical governmental intervention, even though there was not much explicit direction from the Centennial Commission. For their own part, state representatives demonstrated an awareness of the power of Washington state folk songs to influence their constituents. For some government officials, Northwest folk songs and WSAL specifically could bolster their own pet political projects by influencing voters. In 1986, State Representative Dean Sutherland (D) threw his hat in the WSAL ring and wrote to Putnam Barber requesting that the song “Our State is a Dumpsite,” an original by Northwest folksinger Dana Lyons, be included in “the official state song book.” Sutherland argued that the song was “a unique way to reach the public about a very serious issue – what to do with nuclear waste,” the focus of Sutherland’s recent appearance at a rally on the Capitol steps in Olympia.[9] With vested interest in the cause, Sutherland understood “Our State is a Dumpsite” was a means to extend his political platform and reach. To this end, he “co-sponsored a house resolution with 14 others to include ‘Dumpsite’ in the state song book.”[10] Sutherland’s push for Lyon’s song generated considerable publicity and reveals his recognition of folk song as a device for influence in his own political undertakings. His efforts to include the song in WSAL also reveals the songbook as a politicized site capable of reflecting and manipulating attitudes in the civic space. To her credit, in a response to Sutherland’s request to include “Dumpsite” in WSAL, Allen, ever cognizant of balance in representation, wrote “please keep your ears open for other good songs…for balance, know any pro-nuclear dumpsite songs??!!??”[11] Ultimately, “Our State is a Dumpsite” was included in WSAL.
While committee members were correct in predicting that the final version of WSAL surely contained material that wasn’t completely politically neutral, significant meddling by the Legislature never ensued. The Centennial Commission believed in the cultural value of WSAL as “a project with universal appeal” and let Putnam Barber, Linda Allen, and their fellow committee members dictate the scope of the project.[12] At the center of the creation of WSAL was representation, and the committee’s deliberations expose which material they believed to be “the most representative, as much as we could” of Washington state history, heritage, and identity.[13]
Throughout the songbook construction process, members paid careful attention to cultural and racial issues. As committee members worked to sift through over 469 songs, Allen filled in “the gaps in areas which have not been adequately represented…ethnic, Native-American, [and] religious” songs.[14]Additionally, Allen at one point reached out to Vi Hilbert, a respected author, speaker, and tribal elder of the Upper Skagit, and the Yakima Nation Cultural Center to request contributions that fairly reflected tribal history. Ultimately, the committee placed two Samish songs, “Welcome Song” and “The Traveling Canoe Song,” in an introductory section titled “My Native Land” alongside two settler-era standards: “Missionary’s Farewell” and “The Old Settler.” Acknowledging their status as the first people of this region was a meaningful nod to Coast Salish sovereignty. However, this format relegated the two Samish songs to a category firmly rooted to the past, silencing Indigenous presence and influence in contemporary culture and survivance.[15]
By omitting defining elements of Washington state history – contributions to Seattle music on the part of minority groups, songs depicting the realities of Japanese American internment or immigration histories – WSAL only went so far to truly reflect “Washington and its people.”[16] The WSAL songbook committee may have spent significant time discussing “ethnic music,” and Allen, to her credit, fought with publishers to include music from Washington’s Hispanic community and publicly voiced dismay over the omission of content related to the Japanese American experience. Regardless, the lack of representative music from all of Washington state’s residents produced historical silences and undermined the principles of committee members. The omission of certain histories in WSAL speaks more to the long history of division and marginalization of minority groups in Washington state and how structures of power excluded these stories from the civic imagination.
Even after WSAL wrapped and was sent to the publishers, it continued to be a site of contention over our state narrative. After receiving Allen’s draft, Melior Publishing rewrote chapter text, omitted certain songs and even accused Allen of plagiarism. Allen’s peers came to her defense. In a letter to the Centennial Commission, folklorist Jens Lund expressed dismay at the extent to which Melior had substantially changed Allen’s manuscript, stating that the publisher had “completely rewritten the text” and that he had never “heard of a publisher taking such license with an author’s draft.” Lund was not only “shocked,” but fervently hoped that “the Centennial Commission will not let them get away with it.”[17] Lund’s letter provides further evidence as to how Allen and other members of the songbook committee, the Centennial Commission, and Melior clashed in a power struggle over the narrative history of the state. The conflict between Melior and Allen reveals the songbook as inscriber of history and narrative, as well as a site of contention over both, and speaks to the gravity that state-sanctioned folk culture held in the public imagination.
Folk songs carried messages as to what historical narratives, elements of regional identity, and ideas of statehood these stakeholders held dearest. It is equally valid to say that these same songs, as celebrations of narrow visions of belonging, were deeply exclusionary. The structural forces at work dictated that Washington Songs and Lore could only represent a relatively rigid set of Northwest experiences, despite the fact that songbook committee members dedicated significant time, energy and expertise into the distinctly opposite goal. Through the process of developing Washington Songs and Lore, state government representatives, folklorists, publishers, and songwriters took up the mantle of folk culture mediator. Collectively, these individuals collaborated to assemble, contextualize, and present folk music culture, transmuting it into broader ideas about identity digestible by a wider public. Through a system of selection and confirmation, the state branded a limited vision of folk culture as acceptable and created a new form of state culture to be venerated and memorialized until the next centennial celebration.
[1] “WAC 100-100-010, The Washington centennial commission – Description,” accessed February 21, 2023, https://app.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=100-100-010;
“Washington Centennial Commission,” accessed February 21, 2023, https://snaccooperative.org/ark:/99166/w68124hs.
[2] “Facts About the Centennial Songbook,” box 2, folder “WSAL Promotion 1988 2/3,” Linda Allen Papers.
[3] During the creation of WSAL, Allen also toured for the Centennial Commission performing folk songs and helping “people write their own folk songs for their own regions of the state,” for “anyone who hasn’t watched too much television or listened to too much radio can write a folk song.” Vance Horne, “Sing out, Washington!” The Olympian, November 8, 1988.
[4] Allen, Washington Songs and Lore, ix-xi.
[5] Interview with Linda Allen, February 24, 2021.
[6] Interview with Linda Allen, February 24, 2021.
[7] There was an item seeking Northwest folk songs in “Sing Out!” in 1986, as stated in Ruth Burnstein to Linda Allen, 6 June 1986. An announcement also aired on KTAC Radio seeking original Northwest songs, Craig Bohan to Linda Allen, 28 July 1986, box 4, folder “Correspondence 1986 July-Dec 4/2,” Linda Allen Papers. See also box 4, folder “Correspondence 1979, 1985, 1986 Feb-June 4/1.” It also appears that Lund had an active habit of mailing Allen postcards and letters with song tips, references, names, and other resources, as evident in box 4, folder “Jens Lund (Folklife Council) and Linda Allen correspondence 1983-87 3/5.”
[8] “Tape 1 – Logging Songs,” box 2, folder “Songbook committee corr. 1985-87 2/8,” Linda Allen Papers.
[9] Dean Sutherland to Putnam Barber, 31 March 1986, box 5, folder “Dana Lyons correspondence, newspaper articles 1985-1987,” Linda Allen Papers.
[10] This was in March of 1986, though the resolution died in committee, Dana Lyons to Linda Allen, 14 April 1987, box 5, folder “Dana Lyons correspondence, newspaper articles 1985-1987,” Linda Allen Papers.
[11] Linda Allen to Dean Sutherland, 16 April 1986, box 5, folder “Dana Lyons correspondence, newspaper articles 1985-1987,” Linda Allen Papers.
[12] Letter from Jean Gardner, Co-chairman WCC, and Ralph Munro, WCC Co-chairman and Secretary of State to Linda Allen, 16 September 1987, box 2, folder “Corr. chiefly with centennial commission members 1985-91 2/4,” Linda Allen Papers.
[13] Interview with Linda Allen, February 24, 2021.
[14] Linda Allen to Putnam Barber, 19 December 1986, box 2, folder “Reports from LA to Putnam Barber, 1986-87 2/6,” Linda Allen Papers.
[15] Gerald Vizenor, ed., Survivance: Narratives of Native Presence (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008). Survivance as a term undermines the “concocted images of the Indian” as essential victims. Survivance highlights the “dynamic, inventive, and enduring heart of Native cultures well beyond the colonialist trappings of absence, tragedy, and powerlessness.”
[16] Allen, Washington Songs and Lore, xi.
[17] Jens Lund to Maura Craig, 23 March 1988, box 3, folder “Melior publications correspondence Dec 1987-Jan 1989 3/2,” Linda Allen Papers.