PUBLICATIONS PMSS CALENDARS 1955

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 17: PUBLICATIONS PMSS
CALENDARS
1955 

1955 Calendar pmss_christensen_card_002


 

TAGS: Pine Mountain Settlement School calendars, Mountain ballads, music, Pine Mountain Settlement School, Harlan County KY, fund-raising, promotional literature, 1955 PMSS CALENDAR, Abbie Winch Christensen, Ruth Elizabeth Campbell, Riddle Song, cherry trees, riddles, 


PUBLICATIONS PMSS CALENDARS 1955 

The 1955 PMSS Calendar returns to the first calendar created in 1947 by Abbie Winch Christensen. Subsequent uses of the Christensen “Mountain Laurel” painting  appear in 1953 and in this 1955 calendar. The small painting by Christensen, who was a worker at the School during the boarding school years, captures the Spring bloom of mountain laurel and the iconic mountain cabin and path. It is a compelling image and it is not remarkable to see it return to illustrate another calendar from the School.

In the original 1947 calendar, a poem of Ruth Elizabeth Campbell accompanied the painting. In this last rendition, the painting is accompanied by a well-known song often heard at Pine Mountain, “The Riddle Song.” The song, sometimes referred to as a lullaby, is indebted to an old English ballad, called Captain Wedderburn’s Courtship, according to the note accompanying it.

In the 1953 PMSS Calendar, the Christensen painting is used in combination with an appeal for donations and a simple calendar for the year. Thus, Abbie Winch Christensen’s painting appears to have been a favorite with staff and Friends of Pine Mountain during the 1950s. 

The use of  the favorite Mountain ballad with the Christensen image, works well. Song, ballad, lullaby, “The Riddle Song” is distinguished from so many mountain ballads that seem to find their subject in murder, deaths, and burials. Perhaps that accounts for its popularity at the School where staff tried to point students to a more gentle side of human nature rather than the pervasive fatalism and legends of murder and revenge so frequently found in mountain ballads.

Evelyn K. Wells, a former staff worker at Pine Mountain, a long-time member of the Board of Trustees of Pine Mountain Settlement School, and later faculty at Wellsley College, transcribed the song in her 1956 book, The Ballad Tree. However, the transcription, taken from Cecil Sharp‘s English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians (1932), does not conform to this version which is listed as a Kentucky folk song. Variants of Appalachian songs abound and within the repertoire of songs and ballads collected by Pine Mountain, there are variants a-plenty.


GALLERY:  1955 PMSS CALENDAR


SEE ALSO: GUIDE PMSS CALENDARS


SEE ALSO: 

ABBIE WINCH CHRISTENSEN Biography

ABBIE WINCH CHRISTENSEN Correspondence 1937
ABBIE WINCH CHRISTENSEN Correspondence 1936
ABBIE WINCH CHRISTENSEN Correspondence 1935
ABBIE WINCH CHRISTENSEN Correspondence 1933
ABBIE WINCH CHRISTENSEN Correspondence 1928

ABBIE WINCH CHRISTENSEN Art
1947 PMSS Calendar

PMSS SONG BALLADS AND OTHER SONGS

See Also: PUBLICATIONS PMSS Calendars

CALENDARS

1914 PMSS CALENDAR

        1937 PMSS CALENDAR

1938 PMSS CALENDAR

        1939 PMSS CALENDAR

1940 PMSS CALENDAR

1941 PMSS CALENDAR

1942 PMSS CALENDAR

1943 PMSS CALENDAR

1944 PMSS CALENDAR

1945 PMSS CALENDAR

1946 PMSS CALENDAR

1947 PMSS CALENDAR

1948 PMSS CALENDAR

1949 PMSS CALENDAR

1950 PMSS CALENDAR

1951 PMSS CALENDAR

1952 PMSS CALENDAR – “A Year of Song”

1953 PMSS CALENDAR

1954 PMSS CALENDAR

1955 PMSS CALENDAR

1956 PMSS CALENDAR

1957 PMSS CALENDAR

1958 PMSS CALENDAR

1959 PMSS CALENDAR

1960 PMSS CALENDAR

1961 PMSS CALENDAR

1968 PMSS CALENDAR

1969 PMSS CALENDAR

1971 PMSS CALENDAR

1972 PMSS CALENDAR

1977 PMSS CALENDAR

1978 PMSS CALENDAR