Page "Folk music" Paragraph 46

The American folk music revivalists of the 1930s approached folk music in different ways.

" Traditionalists like Sarah Gertrude Knott and John Lomax viewed folk music as cultural traditions from a bygone era.

Functionalist folklorists like Botkin and Alan Lomax recognize that, though rooted in the past, folk music remained culturally relevant for the communities that maintained the traditions.

Left-wing revivalists like Charles Seeger and Lawrence Gellert interpreted folk music as a grass-roots cultural form that came from the people and was written for the people such that it could be used in ' people's ' struggles for social and political rights.

Despite the revivalists ' various political views and different opinions regarding the nature of authentic folk music, they all shared an understanding of Americanism that grounded the nation's identity in cultural pluralism and political democracy " By the end of the 1930s they along with the musicians and others had turned American folk music into a social movement.