Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten (1893-1987) was an African American musician who spent much of her life around Chapel Hill, North Carolina, cleaning houses. She taught herself to play guitar and composed songs starting as a pre-teen. When she was in her 40s, she moved to Washington D.C. be with her daughter, who was pregnant. There she met and eventually became a house keeper and child sitter for Ruth Crawford and Charles Seeger, the former a composer and music teacher and the latter an ethno-musicologist (also the parents of folk singers Pete, Mike and Peggy Seeger). After many years with the Seeger family, she rediscovered her love of and ability to play guitar, and began traveling and playing with Mike Seeger in the 1960’s. Her most well-known song is titled “Freight Train.”
One audiocassette of an interview with Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten when she was 86 years old, taking place on the WSU Pullman campus during a Women’s Studies class on “Women and Work” in 1980. The inverview was conducted by Martha Mullen and Dan Maher. The interview focuses on Ms. Cotten’s working life as an African American woman, as well as her love of music and establishing a successful musical career later in life. Audiocassette (both sides) is approximately 55 minutes long.
The oral history in this collection was digitized in November 2020, and the audio file retained as an unedited wav file in MASC’s archival digital storage. The digital file contains both sides of the audiocassette tape.
This collection is open and available for research use.
Copyright restrictions apply.
[Item description]
Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten Oral History Interview, 1980 (Cage 5134)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
Martha Mullen donated this collection to the Washington State University Libraries in 2020 (MS 2020-18).
This collection was processed by Ally Butzke in 2020.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.