The Rowan Tree: The Lifework of Marjorie Edgar, Girl Scout Pioneer and Folklorist, With Her Finnish Folk Song Collection “Songs from Metsola.”

Abstract

Songs of Camp Minnesota for Girl Scout Leaders (Zimmerman Print, 1925) contained twelve songs from diverse ethnic groups. her success at teaching singing at Girl Scout camps led to a request from the national organization to com- pile a ballad book, which she at first turned down but eventually published as Old Songs and Balladry for Girl Scouts (Girl Scouts, inc., 1930). these were not scholarly collections, but were designed for practical use. edgar collected and arranged songs from various published sources, as well as her own transcriptions. There was a complex relationship between the nationally recognized folklorist robertson and the local folklorist edgar. on the one hand, edgar was publishing, performing, and lectur- ing about this material herself, so she was some- what reluctant to share it, but also she knew the importance of national collection to preserve these local traditions. in the end, with edgar's help and cooperation, robertson made some of the earliest recordings of Finnish and Gaelic music from northern minnesota, preserved today at the library of congress. in the early 1940s, edgar was hired by the minnesota branch of the Federal Writers Proj- ect to work on a comprehensive history and ethnography under the title "iron men: