Music at the Juke Joint

Zora Neale Hurston branched into musicology when she worked with John A. Lomax and his son, Alan Lomax. I looked up the origin of the jukebox; which led me to the juke joint; which, played a part in Hurston’s studies.

I have characters discussing booze joints, in one chapter, and this discovery may change some wording.

The left image has the following credits:

State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/107444

• • Gabriel Brown playing guitar as Rochelle French and Zora Neale Hurston listen- Eatonville, Florida

Image Number

• • • FA0514

Year

• • • 1935

Date Note

• • • Photographed in June 1935.

Series Title

• • • General: Folklife Collection.
    • Specific: Folklife Collection Series 1606, RG158, Glossies of photos used for exhibit: Misc glossies; Box 1, Folder 6

General Note

• • L to R: Hurston, French, Brown.
  • Hurston worked for the WPA, collecting folklife and folklore from Floridians throughout the state. She is pictured here collecting music from French and Brown.
  • Photograph was part of a 1985 traveling exhibit called “Pursuits and Pastimes”.
  • Reproduced from the collection of the Library of Congress.

The other image came from Wikimedia and had these credits:

Migratory laborers outside of a “juke joint” during a slack season, Belle Glade, Florida. Photographed by Marion Post Wolcott for the U.S. Farm Security Administration in 1944.

Date:1944

Source: Image is available from the United States Library of Congress‘s Prints and Photographs division under the digital IDfsac.1a34397.

Author: Marion Post Wolcott (1910–1990)