People's Songs

People's Songs was an organization founded by Pete Seeger, Alan Lomax, Lee Hays, and others on December 31, 1945, in New York City, to "create, promote, and distribute songs of labor and the American people." The organization published a quarterly Bulletin from 1946 through 1950, featuring stories, songs and writings of People's singers members. People's Songs Bulletin served as a template for folk music magazines to come like Sing Out! and Broadside.

History

Seeger's work with the Almanac Singers and trips around the country playing banjo for Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) benefits and other progressive organizations in the 1940s cemented his beliefs that folk music could be an effective force for social change. He conceived creating an organization to better disseminate songs for political action to Labor and other progressive organizations around the country. These plans were put on hold as Seeger was drafted into the army during World War II. Upon his discharge from the Army in 1946, Seeger finally got a chance to realize his plans, and convened a group of interested people for a meeting in the basement of his in-laws' apartment in Greenwich Village. People's Songs' founding committee included several former members of the Almanac Singers and other notable members of the folk community in New York and included Woody Guthrie, Lee Hays, Horace Grenell, Anges "Sis" Cunningham, Burl Ives, Millard Lampell, Alan Lomax, Bess Lomax Hawes, Josh White. and Tom Glazer. Also attending the first meeting were, Jackie Gibson, Ronnie Gilbert, Irwin Silber and David Sear. They elected Pete Seeger president and Lee Hays executive secretary and collected money to rent a small office located at 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY, which also housed shared a radical drama group Stage for Action.