Restrictions to Access

Use of audio materials may require production of listening copies.

Restrictions to Use

No usage restrictions.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Becky Blackley Collection #20282, Southern Folklife Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Becky Blackley in March 1996 (97182).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: Kyle Jordan and Melissa Johnson, November 2004

Encoded by: Melissa Johnson, November 2004

Updated by: Anne Wells, May 2018

Updated by: Nancy Kaiser, February 2021

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Autoharp music.
• Autoharp.
• Blackley, Becky.
• Carter Family (Musical Group)
• Carter, Maybelle, 1909-1978.
• Folk music.
• Folk musicians.
• Green, Archie.
• Macon, Uncle Dave, 1870-1952.
• Moore, Doyle.
• Musical instruments--Construction.
• Musicians--Interviews.
• Old-time music.
• Oral history.
• Peterson, Glen.
• Scruggs, Louise.
• Seeger, Mike, 1933-
• Snow, Kilby, 1905-
• Stoneman, Ernest V.
• Toomey, Welby.
• Zimmerman, C. F.

As a writer, collector, and performer, Becky Blackley is a well-known autoharp expert and enthusiast. She attended the University of California at Santa Barbara and completed her graduate studies at the University of British Columbia in Canada. From 1980 to 1993, Blackley served as editor of The Autoharpoholic, an international quarterly journal that was dedicated to the autoharp. In addition, she has written extensively on the subject of the autoharp, and her articles have been featured in a number of publications, including Frets and Bluegrass Breakdown. In 1981, she published Harp! the Herald Angels Sing!, a book of Christmas songs arranged for the autoharp. In 1983, she published The Autoharp Book , a comprehensive history of the instrument, its origins and evolution. Becky Blackley performed professionally as a member of Woodshed, a Bay Area bluegrass band. Additionally, she has both recorded and produced her own music, conducted autoharp workshops across the United States, and served as a consultant to instrument maker Oscar Schmidt-International during the development of the diatonic autoharp. She currently works as a Russian-to-English translator.

The collection consists primarily of materials compiled by writer, collector, and performer Becky Blackley while researching the history and evolution of the autoharp for the writing of The Autoharp Book (1983). Correspondence, photographs, copies of patents, catalogues, advertisements, newspaper clippings, notes, articles, songbooks, instruction manuals, journals, recorded interviews with major autoharp musicians, and sound recordings comprise the bulk of the collection. Materials also include research conducted by Doyle Moore for an article he wrote on the autoharp. Collectively, these materials trace the history of the autoharp from its earliest incarnations in the late nineteenth century to modern models manufactured in the late twentieth century. Some materials relate to autoharp inventor C. F. Zimmerman, Kilby Snow, Mike Seeger, the Carter Family (including photographs), Maybelle Carter (including interview, 1962), Ernest Stoneman (including interviews, 1962-1963), Louise Scruggs, Glen Peterson, and Archie Green. There are also copies of old-time music recordings featuring Ernest Stoneman, Welby Toomey, the Carter Family, Uncle Dave Macon, and others, and photographs of autoharps players and instruments.

• Audio recordings (CD-20282/4394; FS-20282/7069-7073; FT-20282/11829-11833)
• Oversize images (OP-P-20282/1-12)