February 25, 2007

Traditional folk singer Emma Dusenbury, shown on the right, moved from Georgia to Arkansas at the age of ten in 1873. She committed to memory untold numbers of songs during her lifetime. Her vast knowledge of traditional music was discovered while she was living near Mena (Polk County) in the late 1920s. Soon, she was visited by a number of folk music collectors. In 1936, the now-blind singer recorded over 100 songs for the Library of Congress Archive of American Folk Songs. Though she died in 1941, her recordings can still be appreciated today.

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