Gellert, Lawrence

Composer and author.

From the description of Papers, 1927-1978. (Indiana University). WorldCat record id: 708580886

Very little information on Lawrence Gellert is available. He was born in Budapest, Hungary, on 14 September 1898, came to the United States when he was seven, and grew up in New York City. For health reasons, he moved to Tryon, N.C., probably in the late 1920s or early 1930s.

From 1933 to 1937, Gellert traveled through North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, collecting folksongs of black Americans. He compiled and published two anthologies of these songs in the 1950s, including Negro Songs of Protest, which was re-released on Rounder Records in the late 1980s.

Gellert, along with his brother Hugo, was a frequent contributor to the magazine Masses (later New Masses ) from 1930 to 1947, writing mainly about traditional black American music.

Lawrence Gellert died in 1979.

From the guide to the Lawrence Gellert Scrapbook, 1930s, (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.)