Gordon, Robert Winslow

Robert Winslow Gordon was one of the first and foremost authorities on American folksong. Gordon was born on September 2, 1888 in Bangor, Maine. He was the eighth descendant in a direct line from Alexander Gordon, a Scotsman who came to the colonies as a political prisoner in 1652.

In 1906 Gordon attended Harvard University on scholarship to the English Department. By 1912 he was teaching within that department and he then began his research into folk poetry. Gordon's initial course work was in the ballad, but curiosity soon led him to the collection of folksongs in his spare time. He began experimenting with cylinder recordings, an uncommon practice even among established folk scholars of the time.

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