City folk: Survival strategies of tradition-bearing

organizations§

Kerry Dobransky *

Northwestern University, 1810 Chicago Avenue, Evanston, IL 60208, USA

Available online 10 October 2007

Abstract

Tradition-bearing organizations are those organizations in which the explicit mission is the preservation

and protection of a tradition that is purported to transcend the organization. These organizations

institutionalize specific definitions of polyschematic traditions. Such organizations face unique obstacles

when adapting to changes in their environment. Through an in-depth case study of one such organization,

the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, Illinois, USA, this paper examines the strategies available to

tradition-bearing organizations in such circumstances. Tradition-bearing organizations may choose to

abandon their mission of preserving tradition in order to survive. For those dedicated to retaining their

tradition-bearing status, strategies available include embodied identification, in which the organization is

equated with the tradition it bears, making whatever it does tradition. This allows a shift in authenticity

claims, which in turn legitimates expansion and translation. With these strategies an organization may retain

its tradition-bearing status and still adapt to its environment.

# 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Anyway, folk music. . . it’s just that (A) folk music is kind a loose term, but (B) it does seem

to suggest and sum up a lot of what is involved in, the teaching of what goes on at the

School. Uh, it may have contributed to the folk craze; it may have benefited from it. It was

certainly a part of it. But, then, what do you do when the national consciousness goes on to

something else? And there were probably some lean years. How do we keep getting

students?

-Leo1

www.elsevier.com/locate/poetic

Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261

§ An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2004 American Sociological Association annual meeting.

* Tel.: +1 773 743 0037; fax: +1 847 491 9907.

E-mail address: k-dobransky@northwestern.edu.1 All interviewees’ names are pseudonyms.

0304-422X/$ – see front matter # 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2007.08.001

Folk music is a tradition. Like all traditions do, it has gone through considerable change,

resulting in tensions and lack of clarity about what constitutes it. These issues are often played

out in the organizations created to preserve and carry these traditions. For folk music, one such

organization is the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, Illinois, which has seen virtually

every major folk music performer since 1957 pass through its doors or on its stages and is the

largest independent community arts organization in the United States.

The quotation above is from Leo, who has been involved with the Old Town School (OTS)

from before it opened in 1957 through 1995, the last year covered by this study. His response to

the interview question ‘‘What is the role of the Old Town School in folk music?’’ reveals his

ambiguity as to what folk music is. It turns out, however, that it is very common. One may think

that such lack of clarity would lead to problems for an organization dedicated to preserving a

tradition. One would be right, but it is not that simple. As will be shown in this paper, change and

conflict over time characterize any tradition and lead to problems in clearly defining and

preserving it. At the same time, however, if an organization can capitalize on that broad nature of

tradition, it may ensure its survival.

The key question investigated by this study is highlighted by the last sentence of Leo’s

statement: ‘‘[W]hat do you do when the national consciousness goes on to something else?’’ This

study addresses the problems of a certain class of organizations – tradition-bearing organizations

(TBOs) – through a case study of one such organization. Conceptualizing tradition as a cultural

structure, it will examine how TBOs, as instantiations of specific sets of schemas, deal with

changes in their environment when their version of tradition is no longer suited to that

environment. I identify three strategies used by TBOs to deal with such circumstances: embodied

identification, expansion, and translation. Embodied identification allows a shift in authenticity

claims, in turn allowing the organization to alter its institutionalized version of tradition, thus

adjusting to its environment while maintaining its status as a TBO.

After discussing tradition and tradition-bearing organizations, I will give a brief history of the

OTS. Next, I will discuss in turn each of the strategies identified. Finally, I will discuss evidence

of the strategies in other TBOs and the implications of the findings of the study.

2. Tradition-bearing organizations

Sociological inquiry into tradition can be traced back at least to Max Weber and his

discussion of traditional social action and traditional legitimate authority (Weber, 1968 [1922]).

Couched within his wider overall perspective, traditional action and authority are characteristics

of traditional society, counterposed to rational, modern industrial society. For Weber, societies

and social action based on tradition are motivated and legitimated by ‘‘that which has always

been’’ (36), as opposed to that which is most efficient, for example. Importantly, from this

perspective, ‘‘[r]ules which in fact are innovations can be legitimized only by claim that they

have been ‘valid of yore,’ but have only now been recognized by means of ‘Wisdom’. . .’’ (227).

In the 1960s, sociologists began to critique the traditional/modern split (see Bendix, 1967;

Gusfield, 1967; Shils, 1971, 1981), noting that traditions persist and are even created in modern

society. Along these lines, Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) examine new and dredged up

traditions, particularly those used by states to garner support from the populace. They term such

traditions ‘‘invented’’ because the connection to the past is manipulated and ‘‘factitious’’

(Hobsbawm, 1983a: 2). Thus Hobsbawm (1983b) shows how parts of the Scottish Highland

tradition were constructed to serve nationalist ends. Tradition remains tradition because people

see and protect it as such.

K. Dobransky / Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261240

Problems arise when changes in tradition lead to divergent views of what is ‘‘genuine’’ or

‘‘authentic’’ tradition. One need look no further than the Protestant Reformation or the fatal battle

between Trotsky and Stalin to see that over time, different interpretations of a given tradition can

take hold, and those that hold each vie against one another for dominance. Realizing that traditions

change and split, the work of maintaining traditions must be recognized as just that—work.

In modern civil society, this work has been funneled through tradition-bearing organizations.

Starting with Stinchcombe’s (1965) definition of organizations as ‘‘set[s] of stable social

relations deliberately created, with the explicit intention of continuously accomplishing some

specific goals or purposes’’ (142), the stated goal of a TBO is the perpetuation and preservation of

a tradition. Viewing tradition as a cultural structure made up of mutually constitutive interpretive

schemas and instantiated resources (Sewell, 1992), I conceptualize TBOs as resources that give

material form to specific sets of schemas of the tradition. Traditions are, however, polyschematic,

that is, made up of different schemas or frames,2 each related to but distinct from others within

the tradition. In the case of the folk music tradition, for instance, there are schemas that see

commercial folk music as legitimate and others that see commercialization as antithetical to true

folk music; other variations in folk music schemas focus on whether authentic folk music is

political or apolitical (and, if political, whether it is conservative or leftist), and whether it is the

‘‘pure,’’ unadulterated expression of a particular group or dynamic and popular.

The centralization and institutionalization a TBO offers allow it to function as a custodian of

tradition. Organizational structure and policies reflect the institution’s definition of the tradition,

its unique combination of the various schemas available in the broader tradition. The

organization functions as an instantiation – but not the only possible instantiation – of the

tradition. That is, any one organization’s structure and practices are not the only way to carry out

tradition, but they are one way to do it. For example, which parts of the Bible a particular

Christian church emphasizes and how Biblical texts are translated into action or organizational

structure portray a particular definition of Christianity.

Although all organizations may be seen as having their own traditions that they hold dear and

protect, TBOs are different from other organizations in at least two respects. First, the tradition

protected is purported in some sense to transcend the institution that protects it. Secondly, the

protection of the tradition is ostensible and central to the organization, often explicitly stated in

its mission. So, if a mode of working with customers or doing business is developed in an

organization and then explicitly protected as a tradition, this does not make the organization that

does so tradition-bearing. Furthermore, organizations may reflect the preferences and values of

different groups in society (e.g., DiMaggio, 1982; Beisel, 1993), but if the organizations are not

explicit about purveying those values and traditions, they are not necessarily tradition-bearing as

defined here. Examples of TBOs include churches and other religious organizations, political

K. Dobransky / Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261 241

2 Throughout this paper, I will use the terms ‘‘schemas,’’ ‘‘frames,’’ and ‘‘frameworks’’ interchangeably. Indeed,

Sewell’s (1992: 8) use of Giddens to define schemas as ‘‘generalizable procedures applied to the enactment/reproduction

of social life,’’ is similar to Goffman’s (1974: 21) definition of frameworks as enabling one ‘‘to locate, perceive, identify,

and label a seemingly infinite number of concrete occurrences defined in its terms.’’ Although Goffman’s definition

emphasizes the interpretation of reality itself while Sewell’s focuses on the behavioral implications of that interpretation,

Goffman himself recognized that frameworks underlie and motivate action:

When the individual in our Western society recognizes a particular event, he tends, whatever else he does, to imply in this

response (and in effect employ) one or more frameworks or schemata of interpretation of a kind that can be called primary

(Goffman, 1974: 21).

Moreover, Snow et al. (1986), building on Goffman, examine the effect of frame alignment on behavior in the context of

social movements.

parties, ethnic cultural centers, and many arts organizations. Although such organizations often

fall into the nonprofit sector – goals of efficiency are usually secondary to those of legitimacy in

TBOs, and these priorities are more feasible in the nonprofit sector (DiMaggio and Anheier,

1990) – they exist in the for-profit sector as well: blues and folk music clubs, as well as some folk

arts organizations, are examples.

At the same time the organization works to achieve its stated goal of carrying on tradition, it

must also direct attention and resources to remaining viable as an organization. These different

goals do not always function harmoniously, especially when the resource base of the organization

is threatened because a certain view of a given tradition is no longer attractive to current or

potential patrons. When any organization is faced with an uncertain environment, the natural

thing for it to do is to attempt to adapt and insulate itself from the uncertainty (Thompson, 1967).

At times, this can lead to the primary goal of the organization being displaced by the goal of

organizational survival (Blau and Meyer, 1971; DiMaggio, 1986; March and Simon, 1958). Thus

faced with the prospect of insolvency, one option for TBOs is to abandon the goal of protecting

tradition and to shift their focus to something more marketable. It is not uncommon for

organizations, even those with long-standing and established images such as Brooks Brothers, for

instance, to change their image and products to suit fluctuating market demands (Zukin, 2004:

Chapter 8). However, for TBOs, this can lead to a particular set of problems.

Adaptation by a TBO can lead to a crisis of legitimacy, producing internal and external

dissension and threatening valuable assets, while new assets may be uncertain in coming. This is

because the organization’s aura of authenticity and its particular version of tradition can be

exactly what makes it appealing to those that support it. Changing this core can alienate what

little support remains for a struggling organization, in terms of both patrons and other TBOs. For

those institutions dedicated to remaining bearers of tradition, the challenge is to both find a way

to garner the resources needed for survival and to define what they do as upholding tradition.

They need to make the tradition itself attractive.

TBOs deal with these conflicting pressures in different ways. Some organizations focus inward,

altering organizational structures and policies in order to insulate the organizations from the effects

of external pressures. Glynn’s (2000) study of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, for example, shows

that some organizations can deal with change by adopting ‘‘hybrid’’ identities, and Alexander’s

(1996a) work on museums shows that they can use the strategy of ‘‘resource shifting’’ both to

protect what they see as their core mission and to appease revenue sources. At times, however, such

measured responses cannot solve problems of resource flows, either because divisions within the

organization are so severe that organizational operation is impeded, or because sources of revenue

require more change from the organization than that for which resource shifting could compensate.

These extreme pressures can therefore lead to fundamental changes in the structure and functioning

of the organization. We lack an organizational-level explanation of how TBOs legitimate these

changes and thus avoid both financial insolvency and internal strife.

In addition to focusing inward, another strategy open to a tradition-bearing institution is to

turn its focus outward in an attempt to convince potential patrons that the organization is the place

to which they should direct their resources. Each TBO makes an argument that its version of the

tradition is the authentic version. As both Grazian (2003) and Peterson (1997) demonstrate, such

claims of authenticity are social constructions, but have real consequences for both producers and

consumers of cultural objects and products. The organization must convince cultural consumers

engaged in the ‘‘search for authenticity’’ (Grazian, 2003) that its version of the tradition is the

‘‘true’’ or ‘‘right’’ one, a task involving impression management (see Hughes, 2000). As Peterson

(1997) shows, there are many bases on which to make such claims, and audiences for the claims

K. Dobransky / Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261242

may be convinced by different claims in different times and places. This can lead to problems

when other internal or external groups see any change in the organization’s conception of

tradition as inauthentic.

Impression management by TBOs does not end there, however. Some potential patrons may

not be interested in authenticity or in tradition at all. Authenticity claims by TBOs would not be

effective in gaining the resources these patrons have to offer. Due to this fact, organizations must

find other ways to draw in consumers, and once they are drawn in by one aspect of an

organization, the institution must convince them to partake in others in order to sustain its

resources. This is a common problem faced by many types of organizations, but for TBOs, such

concerns are always compounded by the organization’s primary goal of preserving tradition.

This paper argues that a strategy taken by TBOs in order to resolve such issues is embodied

identification: organizations attempt to equate themselves with the tradition they bear, so that the

organization is no longer simply the protector of the tradition; rather, it is the tradition. The

organization can thus shift the reference point from the history of the tradition it bears to the

organization itself. As Sewell (1992) argues, while schemas are virtual, resources are actual. This

actuality allows a focal point. The organization works to use this to its advantage by repeatedly

tying its physical and linguistically nominative existence to countless other referents of the

tradition. If this schema-resource identification – this embodied identification – is successful, the

basis on which claims of authenticity are made is shifted from characteristics of the tradition to

the TBO itself as authenticator.3 Whatever the organization does is defined as an instantiation of

tradition, so the organization has leeway in adapting to its environment while maintaining its

status as a TBO. Though all TBOs, as resources, can be seen as embodiments of cultural schemas

(Sewell, 1992), in embodied identification, this fact is made explicit, expanded upon, and used to

mobilize both internal and external sources of support.

This paper identifies three processes involved in embodied identification, each at work in the

Old Town School of Folk Music. First, the TBO identifies itself with the tradition’s past by

creating a collective memory of itself as the source of the tradition’s past vitality and activity. In

addition, it identifies itself with the tradition’s present through affiliation and interaction with

other resources – individuals and organizations, wide and far – of the tradition. Finally, the

organization identifies itself with the tradition through rhetorical equivalence, equating reference

to the organization with reference to the tradition, and vice-versa.

With the TBO’s status as authenticator secured, however, not all problems are solved; the TBO

must use that status both to attract new patrons and to keep those it already has. Not unlike the

‘‘frame alignment’’ of social movements Snow et al. (1986) discuss, the TBO must work to make

itself as palatable as possible to potential participants without losing its central focus. In my

research, I identified two key processes these organizations use, both of which are grounded in

embodied identification: expansion and translation.

Not everyone who is attracted to the organization’s cultural products is initially attracted for

the same reasons. Belief in a particular schema does not necessarily mean interest in the

organization (especially if it is a newly included schema), and interest in a particular product does

not necessarily mean interest in tradition or the organization at all, for that matter. Community

members may attend a holiday program put on by a church they have never attended, and people

may attend a particular artist’s show at a blues club even though they claim not to like the blues.

Expansion and translation, based in embodied identification, allow the organization to tie these

K. Dobransky / Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261 243

3 In terms of the categories of authenticity claims covered by Peterson (1997: 205–209), this is a shift to the first –

‘‘Authenticated, not Pretense’’ – from any of the other five.

disparate consumer experiences together and maximize both the organization’s status as TBO

and organizational solvency.

In the first process, the TBO expands the definition of the tradition it bears, including

previously neglected or denigrated schemas, in order to widen its appeal. Somewhat loosely

speaking, this process can be seen as an institutionalized version of Snow et al’s (1986) ‘‘frame

extension,’’ a version in which new schemas are instantiated in the organization. Because

traditions are inherently polyschematic, there is rarely a shortage of schemas or frames from

which to draw; however, TBOs cannot change their schemas easily without alienating those

wedded to existing sets of schemas. Those who provide vital resources to the organization may be

more dedicated to the current form of the tradition than they are to the organization itself, and

thus changing the tradition could cost the organization their support. This is why embodied

identification is so important. It allows the organization to act as authenticator, legitimating

change in the tradition and the incorporation of new schemas.

In order to tie together different schemas that may appeal to different sets of patrons, the

organization translates the expanded, disparate threads of the tradition for the distinct audiences it

attracts through expansion. Echoing many of Snow et al’s (1986) types of frame alignment, in this

process, the organization works to reframe the participants’ experience of the organization into one

that will both subsume the experience under the umbrella of the tradition and open them up to all of

the other products the organization offers. Again, however, success hinges on embodied

identification.

3. Data and methods

The data for this study come from two types of sources. First, I interviewed 25 people involved

with the Old Town School and/or the Chicago folk music scene throughout its history. Nine of the

respondents were women and 16 were men, and their ages at the time of the interviews ranged

from mid twenties to early eighties. The interviewees had diverse roles in organizations:

founders, students, performers, administrators, teachers, volunteers, and relatives of adminis-

trators. Many of the respondents played multiple roles: a student and volunteer became a member

of the board of the OTS, for example, and many current teachers started as students. The length of

time of the subjects’ involvement with the Old Town School ranged from less than a year to the

entire span of the School’s history. Interviews ranged in length from 20 min to 2 h. I asked the

interviewees about how and why they first became involved with the School and/or folk music,

about the roles they have played in the School, about their view of the folk music tradition and the

School’s place in that tradition. For those involved with the School for longer periods of time, I

asked about their experience of the changes the School has gone through over time.

Secondly, I conducted archival research on the School. The Resource Center at the OTS

contains a wealth of information spanning the School’s history. The following resources were

extremely useful: administrative papers, annual reports, internal and public newsletters, press

releases, and course and program listings. I also made use of the large number of articles in

periodicals that have been written about the School over the years. The data gathered from both of

these sources were then coded and analyzed for common themes.

4. The Old Town School as a tradition-bearing organization

The Old Town School of Folk Music was founded in 1957 by Win Stracke, Frank Hamilton,

and Dawn Greening. Stracke had been part of the Chicago folk music scene for years, and though

K. Dobransky / Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261244

he was blacklisted for his political activities (which he often mixed with his musical activities)

(Terkel, 1999), he had a successful children’s television show. Hamilton was a young folk singer

from California who had learned teaching methods for group instruction from Bess Lomax

Hawes—sister to folk music luminary Alan Lomax and herself a member of the folk group the

Alamanac Singers (Grayson, 1992, interview with Frank Hamilton). Dawn Greening, a suburban

housewife, was an enthusiast of the Chicago folk music scene and friends with many of the

established folk performers. Many folk singers who came to Chicago to perform at such folk

clubs as the Gate of Horn would stay at her and her husband’s home (Stracke, 1967; Grayson,

1992, interview with Frank Hamilton).

The three came together when Hamilton played at the Gate of Horn and met Stracke and

Greening, and then began teaching guitar and banjo in Greening’s living room, adapting the

method he had learned from Bess Lomax Hawes. He would teach the same song to students who

had been put in separate groups throughout the home based on their skill level. After a period of

time, the different groups would come together in the living room to enjoy refreshments provided

by Greening and play together, everybody at his or her own level. This part of the evening became

known as the ‘‘Second Half.’’ Stracke and Hamilton made an agreement to start a school based on

the ‘‘living room’’ method (Stracke, 1967; Grayson, 1992). Stracke was Director, Hamilton,

Dean of teachers, and Greening became administrator of the school in 1958. The mission of the

school, as stated in its original charter, reads as follows:

The mission of the Old Town School of Folk Music is the cultivation of an interest in and an

understanding of folk music and its related forms that have evolved from this traditional

base (quoted in Grayson, 1992: 16).

Though this mission statement does not give many details as to what constitutes folk music, in

practice the staff at the School did take some stands. My analysis of School documents,

interviews, and administrators’ statements in periodicals from this period yielded four key

themes in the School’s conception of folk music in the organization’s early days. From this

perspective, folk music is

� The expression of lived experience, particularly that of a distinct regional or cultural group.

� Accessible.

� Not part of the commercial music industry.

� To be learned, played, and experienced in an informal, social, and spontaneous atmosphere.

In this early period, the organization attempted to instantiate a particular combination of

schemas of the folk tradition. What is striking is that despite the Gate of Horn’s role in the creation of

the School and the founders’ continued strong ties not only to it but also to other clubs and to some

performers, the founders viewed what went on at the School as distinct from the folk music

performed at the clubs. For instance, Stracke (1959: n.p.) thought that though ‘‘much excellent folk

music is performed’’ in clubs, the pressures of professional performance indelibly alter both the

production and reception of the music in a negative way, a problem the OTS corrected:

There is, I believe, a direction in which folk music night clubs can go to overcome their

shortcomings, but it would require some pretty drastic changes in size, price structure, and

the relation between performer and audience.. . . [T]he Old Town School of Folk Music has

settled down to the function of giving amateurs and dilettantes expert assistance in the

performance and enjoyment of folk music (Stracke, 1959: n.p.).

K. Dobransky / Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261 245

One way the performers could redeem themselves from this perceived problem of club

performance and gain legitimacy was to come to the OTS, sit in on some classes, and teach some

songs, as artists such as Big Bill Broonzy and Pete Seeger did. Demonstrating that this view of the

School was not only internal, a 1966 report on the Chicago folk music scene in the folk music

magazine Sing Out!, while calling the club Mother Blues ‘‘the BIG PLACE to go,’’ and

proclaiming folk music’s profitability in pointing out upcoming performances in large Chicago

venues, stated that at the OTS, ‘‘things move along in a quietly solid traditional vein’’ (Plummer,

1966: 28–29).

The leaders of the School were in a position to impart this conception of folk music and the

School to its clientele because doing so did not threaten the School’s livelihood. Folk music’s

popularity was strong and growing. Folk clubs such as the Gate of Horn and Mother Blues were

thriving, and despite the conceptual divisions the School drew between itself and other folk music

venues, students flocked to the organization. From 150 to 200 students in the first couple of years

(Browning, 1958; Henehan, 1958), reported enrollment at the School grew to 500 by the end of

the 1960s (Bach, 1967). The School was able to build a consistent base of students, teachers, and

affiliates. It became, as Leder (1982) puts it, ‘‘the center from which things grew [in Chicago]. It

was all things to all folkies’’ (38, emphasis in original).

By 1970, Frank Hamilton had left the School to join the Weavers and Win Stracke,

beleaguered by health problems, turned over the directorate of the organization to instructor and

Dean of Students, Ray Tate. Over the next decade, the organization would experience both

tremendous growth and severe hardship. It would also experience a marked change in direction—

away from the School’s status as a TBO. In the process, a sharp division would occur within the

OTS, alienating many of those that had sustained the organization since its inception.

The first 5 years of this period were marked by prosperity. By the mid seventies, not only was

the Lincoln Park neighborhood in which the School sat beginning a gentrifying ‘‘boom’’ with the

School at its center (Grazian, 2003; Swanton, 1974), but the School itself was also expanding

beyond the neighborhood. Extensions of the School opened in suburban Mount Prospect,

Beverly, Skokie, and even Madison, Wisconsin (Chicago Daily News, December 20, 1973;

Grayson, 1992). By 1975, the School was serving a steady stream of 1000 students (Davis, 1975)

and in 1977 there were 30–40 teachers (Hafferkamp, 1977), 50% of whom were former students

of the School (Davis, 1975).

During the second half of the decade, economic hardship began hitting the organization as

never before. Even though the popular conception of what constituted ‘‘folk music’’ had

broadened to include artists that simply had a ‘‘folky,’’ acoustic feel such as James Taylor, punk

and disco came to dominate the musical scene and ‘‘folky’’ artists were no longer particularly en

vogue (Garofalo, 2002). The broader folk music scene in Chicago was floundering, with folk

music clubs changing genres (such as the Earl of Old Town’s change to a primarily blues format)

and closing. Rising utility bills and harsh winters would join accusations of mismanagement to

help explain the School’s financial troubles (Leder, 1982; McLeese, 1982). In the late seventies,

enrollment dropped to 300–400 students (Jim Hirsch quoted in Grayson, 1992); by the time Tate

left in 1982, it had dropped to 130 (Jim Hirsch quoted in Leder, 1982).

Throughout this decade of fortune and hardship, both the programming and vision of the school

were undergoing change. In order to bring more students in the doors, the School offered more

classes outside the folk idiom as it was originally instantiated in the School’s programming,

incorporating country and bluegrass. Eventually, the OTS broadened further, going outside folk

music altogether, offering instruction and nearly any musical style. As Tate put it, ‘‘Times have

changed and we have changed to accommodate different styles. . .’’ (quoted in Lauerman, 1977: 3).

K. Dobransky / Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261246

Many within and outside the School took issue with this expansion in style, seeing it as breaking

with the folk music tradition of the OTS. The folk music magazine Come for to Sing, which had

been housed in and financed by the School, left. Individuals began finding other venues for folk

music, such as house concerts and other small groups and organizations – Aural Tradition and

Hogeye Music, for example, which promoted concerts by ‘‘traditional’’ folk music acts (Sawyers,

1988) – leaving the School behind.

Jim Hirsch, director of the School’s Evanston branch, took the helm of the main branch of the

School in 1982, inheriting a plethora of financial, administrative, philosophical, and public

relations issues. Enrollment was down, and the School was operating with a $50,000 deficit on a

$250,000 budget (Leder, 1982). It became apparent that the management and funding procedures

that had brought the School to this point were not going to work anymore. Those who had been

the School’s core constituency were now alienated from the School. The two big questions were:

Should the organization be dissolved? and If it stays open, what will the goals of the organization

be? Kenton Morris, president of the School’s board of directors, admitted that the School’s name

– and its status as a TBO – were unclear at the time:

I don’t know whether the word ‘folk’ in our name forces us into a narrow avenue. The point

is that as a business, we’re much larger. We have to decide whether we can survive

vacillating from one position to the other (quoted in Leder, 1982: 38).

By the end of 1995, the School had resolved these issues more successfully than anyone could

have imagined. Its status as a TBO was firmly in place; it was still the Old Town School of Folk

Music. It was also on solid financial ground. According to the School’s 1997 Annual Report, its

1995 operating budget was over $2.2 million and it was operating on a surplus. The School’s

building, which had undergone a $650,000 renovation in 1987, was operating at 100% capacity,

as was a building they had purchased to handle the overflow. And, as an article in the Chicago

Reader put it, ‘‘Old friendships and networks with the rest of the folk community have been

revived’’ (Rand, 1986: 54).

How were these problems resolved? How was the School able to remain the bearer of the folk

tradition and still remain solvent? The answer to this question will allow us to uncover some

fundamental processes used by TBOs to endure environmental changes and internal conflict.

5. Embodied identification

In confronting the challenges of diminishing resources and a problematic image in the early

1980s, the OTS worked to address both problems through embodied identification, a concerted

effort of impression management with both internal and external targets. The process involved

three components, all involving identification of the organization with the tradition it bore:

identification with the past, identification with the present, and identification through rhetorical

equivalence.

First, in identification with the past, the OTS created a collective memory of itself as the

physical locus of all incarnations of the folk music tradition. Thus the School began offering

public workshops and classes to teachers and to corporations – anyone who wanted to know – in

how to teach guitar using its distinct method, and tied that method to the folk music tradition. A

press release from the archives of the OTS dated August 3, 1982 bears the headline ‘‘Legendary

Old Town School Of Folk Music Method of Group Guitar Instruction To Be Offered To The

Public.’’ Use of the term ‘‘legendary’’ demonstrates that the School is portraying the method as

tradition (cf. Zerubavel, 1994). The OTS had to convince not only the public of the connections

K. Dobransky / Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261 247

between what it does and the folk music tradition, but also itself. In the ‘‘Brief History’’ of the

organization written into the School’s 1985–1989 Multi-Year Plan, the teaching method is

described in the following way:

The Founders used a methodology of teaching that combined aspects of the oral tradition

(the passing of music from person to person, through the oral tradition, generation to

generation) with more contemporary teaching methods. . ..

Here we see the connection of the School’s own tradition – the teaching method – to the larger

folk tradition—the oral transmission of music. In a similar fashion, course catalogues during the

1980s described the Second Half as ‘‘America’s last hootenanny.’’ In a more openly instrumental

medium, a pamphlet produced to request individual donations for the 1987 renovation of the

School’s building was entitled ‘‘Rebuilding the Home of Folk Music.’’ There are no

qualifications to this title; the OTS is ‘‘the Home’’ – the embodiment – of the folk music tradition.

The OTS also maintained focus on the organization’s history through the celebration of the

anniversary of the organization’s founding—every 5 years. Hobsbawm (1983b) has noted the use

of anniversary ceremonies in ‘‘inventing’’ state traditions and mobilizing the populace in Europe

in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Boorstin (1961) argues that ‘‘pseudo-events’’ such as

these are intentionally engineered to garner media attention and, importantly, to be self-fulfilling

prophesies. The fact that the OTS emphasized its connection to the folk music tradition, then, was

intended to connect it to the folk music tradition. The 30th anniversary coincided with the

unveiling of the remodeled School, and was planned that way prior to construction even

beginning, according to the 1985–1989 Multi-Year Plan.

The 35th anniversary served as the culmination of the construction of the collective memory

of the School. That year, 1992, the School published a slim book entitled Biography of a Hunch:

the History of Chicago’s Legendary Old Town School of Folk Music (Grayson, 1992).4 Again, the

term ‘‘legendary’’ is instructive. The book is full of glossy photographs of the School over the 35

years it covers. It includes folk luminaries such as Doc Watson and Pete Seeger, as well as local

Chicago folk singers such as Steve Goodman and Tom Paxton, establishing the School as the way

station through which all folkies must pass. To be sure to connect the School to the history of the

folk tradition, however, there is a section of the book entitled ‘‘Ties to Rural Folk Traditions.’’

During these various anniversary celebrations, people involved with the OTS from the

beginning were brought back to talk about the School’s founding. One of these was Frank

Hamilton, who had lost contact with the School during the 1970s. Jill, a student at the School in

the late seventies who moved into administration during this period, describes her experience

with the process: ‘‘I remember, I was standing outside with Jim [Hirsch] and he said ‘I found

Frank Hamilton.’ I said, ‘Who?’’’ (interview).

In addition to identifying the organization with the tradition’s past, embodied identification at

the OTS involved identifying with the tradition’s present, through networking with other

organizations that were themselves bearers or supporters of the folk music tradition. This

K. Dobransky / Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261248

4 The School used anniversary celebrations before this period, but during the 1980s and 1990s they were used in a

concerted effort of collective memory construction as never before. The closest the OTS had come in the past was Win

Stracke’s effort in 1967, the 10th anniversary of the School. That year he produced a pamphlet (Stracke, 1967) entitled

‘‘The Old Town School: It’s First Ten Years or The Biography of a Hunch’’ (from which the name of the later book was

taken). The text of the pamphlet, which emphasized the OTS’s connection to the folk music and Chicago communities,

was used in an appeal for funds to buy the building the School came to move into. The effort, though successful (and

foreshadowing), was short-lived, and was not incorporated into a larger effort like the one analyzed here that occurred

later in the School’s history.

involved an unprecedented engagement in fundraising through the landing of key grants from

organizations with track records of granting money to arts – and specifically ‘‘folk’’ arts –

organizations. Success in this area gave the organization not only financial resources, but

philosophical ones, as well.

The most significant achievement along these lines for the OTS was an ‘‘Advancement

Award’’ from the National Endowment for the Arts’ Folk Arts Program. This $75,000 grant was

accompanied by a mentoring component, wherein a consultant from the NEA helped the School

‘‘develop the sophisticated managerial and fundraising skills needed to achieve long-term

stability,’’ according to an NEA press release about the grant. As arts organizations and those that

supported them were putting increased emphasis on administration at this time, such training and

expert oversight became increasingly common (Peterson, 1986), and thus this reorganization

gave the Old Town School legitimacy within the nonprofit organizational field. However, along

with this, the NEA grant also gave the OTS legitimacy as the embodiment of the folk tradition.

Bess Lomax Hawes, who was head of the NEA’s Folk Arts Program (and who, as mentioned

before, had mentored Frank Hamilton before his time at the School), was direct in her positioning

of the OTS at the center of the folk music tradition in a 1985 Chicago Tribune article:

There are so very few schools where you can go and learn folk music in this country. Of

those that exist, the Old Town School is the most venerable and fabled of them all (quoted

in Lipinski, 1985: n.p.).

Thus established folk organizations backed the OTS’s portrayal of itself as the embodiment of

folk music tradition—through both money and words. Along with (and perhaps because of) this

endorsement, other support – financial and otherwise – came to the School. For instance, another

folk arts-oriented grant for $17,450 came from the Illinois Arts Council Organizational

Development Panel in the Ethnic and Folk Arts Category.

The School’s incorporation of academic folklore studies and ethnomusicology into its

programming and staff also enhanced its ties to contemporaries in the folk music tradition. In

1987, the Scholl Museum of Folk Culture opened in the OTS. The small exhibition area held

exhibits in the music and cultures of many ethnic and regional groups. Some exhibitions came on

loan from local and national museums and universities, such as the Field Museum in Chicago and

the University of New Mexico. The OTS made contacts with and opened itself up to folklore

departments and folk arts organizations for internship placements, and it hired staff and

administrators, such as the curator of the museum, with advanced degrees from folklore and

ethnomusicology departments.

In addition to the affiliations already mentioned, the organization attempted to incorporate –

or co-opt (Selznick, 1984 [1949]) – individuals active in the local folk music scene into the staff

of the School as well. As Rand (1986) states, ‘‘After a decade of alienating a large section of the

professional folk musicians in town, the OTSFM now employs them as teachers. . .’’ (54). The

fact that museums allowed exhibitions, organizations placed interns at the School, and

professional musicians worked there supported the OTS’s claim to be the embodiment of the folk

music tradition.

Finally, the OTS worked to establish itself as the embodiment of tradition through rhetorical

equivalence, linguistically equating the organization with folk music. The School framed any

success in garnering resources – whether they were generic grants or increases in student

enrollment – as support for the folk music tradition. The success of the OTS was the success of

the folk music tradition because the OTS is the embodiment of the folk music tradition. This is

evident in a press release dated March 7, 1986, reporting that the John D. and Catherine T.

K. Dobransky / Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261 249

MacArthur Foundation had granted the School $40,000. At the end of the release, Jim Hirsch is

quoted as saying, ‘‘We are delighted that the MacArthur Foundation has chosen once again to

support folk music in the city of Chicago.’’

In addition to framing success in fundraising as success for folk music, the OTS also framed

increases in use of the School in much the same way. For example, the conclusion to the School’s

1994 Annual Report states, ‘‘The interest in traditional and contemporary folk music has never

been greater, as witnessed by the growth of the School’s audience.’’ Regardless of whether

interest in folk music had grown, framing increased audience as increased interest in folk music

frames the School as the embodiment of the folk tradition.

The culmination of all of these efforts was that there was a shift in focus at the OTS. Rather

than eschewing or denigrating other areas of the folk music tradition and claiming its own

particular brand as authentic, as it had done in the past, the School tied itself to a wide array of

past and present instantiations of the tradition, so that in the overlap, the organization could be

seen at the tradition’s center. Through this process and rhetorical equivalence, the OTS could

become equated with the tradition itself. This solved many problems for the organization.

Internally, it functioned as a form of organizational ‘‘identity work’’ (Snow and Anderson,

1987) quelling crises and dissension regarding the organizational mission. Rather than the

‘‘hybrid identity’’ of the kind Glynn (2000) describes, the identity of the OTS was unified as

that of a folk music TBO. Externally, those who had no longer affiliated with the organization

because of its movement away from folk music were able to be brought ‘‘back into the

family,’’ as Jill put it (interview). For instance, an October 1985 School newsletter notes that

the OTS was ‘‘proud to cosponsor a concert with Hogeye Music,’’ which, as mentioned

earlier, had been a refuge for those disenchanted with the School. Folk returned to the Old

Town School; the Old Town School was folk.5 As will be shown below, this process of

embodied identification was key to making sense of other changes that took place at the OTS

during this period.

6. Expansion

Faced with changing tastes in music in the 1970s that led people away from folk music and

thus the OTS, the organization attempted to adapt by expanding its programming. Initially, this

strategy was problematic for the School in that it not only led to an internal identity crisis for the

organization, but also failed to bring in sufficient resources. These problems would be resolved in

the 1980s and 1990s, when the School leveraged its role as authenticator of folk music gained

through embodied identification to frame expansions in programming as changes within the folk

idiom. This allowed a wider range of programming to be offered to patrons while maintaining a

unified vision.

An examination of the way the School changed during the 1970s reveals that over the course

of this period, folk music became less of a focus at the School. Popular and diverse musical styles

were incorporated into the repertoire and curriculum. Compare Tables 1 and 2, which report the

schedule of classes from 3 years in the 1960s and 2 years during the 1970s, respectively. The

1973–1974 schedule very much resembles the schedules from the 1960s in its core offerings: the

K. Dobransky / Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261250

5 The point here is not that there was no dissension left in the Chicago folk music community, nor is it that all within the

community affiliated with or deferred to only the Old Town School to the exclusion of all other organizations or groups.

Rather, it is that the Old Town School was able to gain legitimacy and/or authority with enough people and institutions to

ensure organizational survival as a TBO, which is the central concern of this study.

foundational classes in guitar and banjo are still central. The addition of jazz guitar demonstrates

the beginnings of an expansion in programming to styles outside the folk idiom. In the 1978–

1979 schedule, the major development is the addition of individual lessons. Not only is there the

addition of piano – an instrument not generally associated with folk music – but lessons are also

offered in basically any style, not just folk. A staff newsletter dated November 25, 1975 shows the

OTS offered a class titled ‘‘Yoga for Musicians,’’ as well. These modifications are problematic

only if those running the School are determined that it maintains its status as a TBO. During this

period, however, this very goal itself was threatened.

As folk music as a genre fell from public favor, it also fell from its central place in the OTS’s

focus. What remained was the vision of the School as a premier educational institution. With

hard times facing those organizations that sought to support themselves through folk music in

the late 1970s, the School considered abandoning its status as a TBO and establishing it as an

educational organization: demand for courses became a major part of policy considerations for

the School, regardless if the classes met the litmus test of folk legitimacy. Though some folk

K. Dobransky / Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261 251

Table 1

Courses listed in three Old Town School class schedules from the 1960s

Year Classes Special classes/workshops

1960–1961 Guitar I–IV Folk dance circle

Banjo I–III

Recorder I–III

1965–1966 Guitar I–VI Introductory mandolin

Banjo I–IV Blues guitar

Traditional Banjo I Classical guitar

Plectrum Banjo Basic singing techniques

Beginning bagpipes

Beginning dulcimer

Bluegrass banjo

Folk dance circle

1968–1969 Guitar I–V Mandolin I–II

Banjo I–III Classical guitar

Traditional Banjo I Flamenco guitar

Plectrum Banjo Fundamentals of music theory

Blues guitar

Bluegrass banjo

Folk dance circle

Table 2

Courses listed in two Old Town School class schedules from the 1970s

Year Classes Special classes/workshops Individual Lessons

1973–1974 Guitar I–V Autoharp, 5-string banjo, Bottleneck Blues guitar,

classical guitar, country fiddle, dulcimer,

fingerpicking, flatpicking, Blues harmonica,

jazz guitar, mandolin, music theory,

sight singing and ear training, vocal workshop

NA

Banjo I–III

1978–1979 Guitar I–VI (Reported from 1977–1978) Guitar, autoharp,

Blues harmonica, theory, songwriting, voice,

fiddle, mandolin, dulcimer ‘‘and others’’

Guitar (folk, blues, jazz,

pop, rock, classical, electric bass),

mandolin, fiddle, piano, dobro, voice

Banjo I–IV

remained in the school, it was quickly being subsumed under a new identity as an educational

institution.

As Ray Tate describes, folk music was coming to be seen as an albatross, and thus the School

considered leaving the name – and the tradition-bearing status – behind.

Mention the Old Town School to a lot of people and they automatically think we’re talking

about courses in ‘‘John Henry’’ and ‘‘Barbara Allen.’’ Maybe what we need to do is change

our name to something like the Old Town School of Performing Arts. . .. We’re always

trying new things around here; that’s why we have introduced jazz and blues and electric

instruments to our curriculum. (quoted in Hafferkamp, 1977: n.p.)

On one hand, as the quotation shows, the School had an image as an institution that dealt in

folk music, which was much less popular than in the past. This prevented the average consumer

from seeing the expansions in programming. On the other hand, the expansion in programming

was alienating the few core patrons already involved with the School. Stan, who joined the school

as a student in the 1970s and became a staff member and administrator, spoke of these ‘‘old

school people’’:

The people who were affiliated with the school [at the time] were pretty much frowning on

the use of electric instruments and frowning on a lot of things. . . It was that Sing Out!

crowd that kept things going for a long time (interview).

As previously described, these staff and patrons found other outlets for their view of folk

music, leaving the OTS behind. The combined result was extreme hardship for the organization.

In the 1980s, those running the School realized a change in direction was needed. Jim Hirsch

talks of how, despite the problem having the word ‘‘folk’’ in the name presented, instead of

removing it, the goal became to use the School’s status as authenticator to ‘‘educate’’ people

about folk music and to help them develop a conception that would make the School more

palatable:

We thought, well, the name ‘Old Town School of Folk Music’ puts us in a genre we’re not

sure we’re comfortable with. A lot of people didn’t understand what the term folk music

meant. You can either respond to people’s perceptions or try to change them through

education instead of shying away from the term. [Keeping ‘‘folk’’ in the name] was the

right decision to make. Plus, there’s just so much damn history in the place (quoted in

Sawyers, 1992/1993: 44).

Compare this quotation regarding the OTS’s name with that from Ray Tate above. With Jim

Hirsch, the problem was not that people did not realize that the School did things other than folk

music, as it was with Ray Tate; rather, the problem was that what the School did was folk music,

but people did not realize what folk music really is—and how expansive it is. The OTS, as the

embodiment of the folk tradition, would work to change that.

Based on the embodied identification of the OTS with the folk tradition, expansion became a

much more successful strategy. Using its status as authenticator of folk music, and calling on both

the organization’s own history and previously neglected schemas from the folk music tradition,

the School redefined its vision of folk music to include ethnic music. This re-conceptualization

involved the academic vein of folklore studies that had developed in the 1950s and had led to the

founding of the field of ethnomusicology. Folk music, in this view, is music that flows from the

authentic cultural experience of any culture, not just Appalachian and Scottish/English/Irish

cultures, as was the focus of the School during the 1970s. The OTS institutionalized this view by

K. Dobransky / Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261252

including ethnic music in the School’s mission statement (Moore, 1999). The new mission

statement, according to the School’s 1985–1989 Multi-Year Plan, read as follows:

The mission of the Old Town School of Folk Music is to serve as a local and National [sic]

resource for the teaching, performance and encouragement of folk music and folk culture

of all countries; to collect, preserve, and display folk music and folk-related materials; and

to reach out to new audiences of all ages, cultures, and abilities by appealing to the

universal human need for music self-expression.

As written in that same organizational plan, ‘‘The 1980 Census summary shows that Blacks

and Hispanics are the two largest minority population segments in Chicago. Priority will be given

to these two segments during the school’s program expansion.’’ So in 1984, the School began a

sustained effort to appeal to the latter population by organizing a concert of Latino music (Moore,

1999). The concert was a huge success, both in overall attendance and in the fact that ‘‘45–50% of

the audience was Hispanic; 55% had never been to the Old Town School before. . .’’ (Rand, 1986:

54). The School continued to offer Latino concerts, as well as concerts with more appeal to the

African American community, such as Sweet Honey in the Rock.

Also, in the School’s Scholl Museum of Folk Culture, the organization held exhibits in Latin

American folk culture and a banjo exhibit that tied the instrument to an African origin. Over

time, an international focus was added to the School’s curriculum. Table 3 shows the growth of

ethnic programming in a sample of course catalogues from the 1982 to 1996. From having no

culture-specific classes and only two blues classes – blues being a traditionally African

American musical form – in 1982–1983, we see that in 1995–1996 the School had 14 classes

specifically relating to Latino music, 4 classes in African music, 3 classes that are specifically

international in focus, and 11 classes dealing with the blues.6 In addition, the far right-hand

column of the table shows that the Appalachian/Scottish/English/Irish definition of folk came to

be a smaller and smaller proportion of the School’s overall programming. Through these efforts,

the School expanded its concert audience from 3% ethnic and minority in 1985 to 20% in 1990,

according to its 1990 Annual Report. The School’s 1997 Annual Report states that the

percentage of non-White students had tripled in the previous 5 years to 17% of the total student

body.

In addition to broadening the definition of folk the School offered through the inclusion of

ethnic music, the organization also brought popular and commercial music into the folk idiom.

Unlike in the 1970s, however, the inclusion of such music in the repertoire and programming of

the organization appears not to have resulted in internal tensions. Unlike previously, when the

OTS broadened its repertoire without legitimizing this expansion and thus threatened its status as

a TBO, beginning in the 1980s, the School legitimized this expansion through embodied

identification, framing changes as expansions within the folk idiom. The way Stan discussed the

need to incorporate the popular material provides insight into how such legitimation worked.

K. Dobransky / Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261 253

6 Blues music shared a somewhat ambiguous relationship with the OTS during the period covered in this study. Early in

the School’s history, acoustic, ‘‘folky’’ blues was very much considered part of folk music, as Big Bill Broonzy’s

involvement demonstrates. Moreover, throughout the organization’s history, blues as a genre was always taught at the

OTS. However, the blues tradition is itself diverse, incorporating not only acoustic, but also more flamboyant and electric

elements. Thus, its role in the School likely did not escape the electric/acoustic rift from the 1960s and 1970s noted above,

perhaps limiting the amount of depth and range of blues incorporated. Yet, to the degree such splits existed they appear to

have been left behind in the 1980s and 1990s, when the blues played a major role in expansion efforts. The OTS’s 1990–

1991 Course Catalogue even announces the opening of a ‘‘Blues School’’ that brought in a variety of top classic and

contemporary blues artists to teach advanced students.

Instead of frowning on the incorporation of popular material as in earlier periods, many involved

with the School came to encourage the inclusion of popular music, as Stan describes:

It was like, ‘‘Let’s umph this. Let’s get people in here. People don’t want to learn this

[traditional music], they want to learn REM. . . Show them what the relationship to folk

music and traditional roots music is. But you gotta hook ‘em in there with that type of

thing’’. . . So [the School] started these ensembles and these specialty classes. This was

around the time the Unplugged thing was popular on MTV. . . (interview).

So the School created a class called Unplugged, in which students learned acoustic versions of

popular music on guitar. Stan said it was important to

[make] the place a fun place to be, within the realm of that tradition, keeping the Second

Half going, keeping the old tunes around, you know, keep playing the old tunes, you know,

K. Dobransky / Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261254

Table 3

Adult classes in a sample of course catalogues from the Old Town School 1982–1996

Year Generala Culture-specific Genre-specific Total Non-music/dance Mainstream folkb

1982–1983 11 NA Blues-2 13 NA –c

1986–1987 22 2 5 29 NA 13

Irish-1 Bluegrass-2

International-1 Blues-2

Clog Dancing-1

1990–1991 27 4 21 52 4 16

Irish-1 Doo-Wop-1

African-2 Old-Timey-1

International-1 Bluegrass-1

Clog

Dancing-1

Blues-12

Rock-1

Jazz-2

‘‘Folk’’-2

1995–1996 37 28 24 89 NA 22

Irish-5 Tap-1

Latin-14 Bluegrass-2

African-4 Jazz-6

English-1 Blues-11

International-3 Doo-Wop-1

Asian Indian-1 ‘‘Traditional’’-1

Rock-2

Old-Timey-1

Jug-Band-1

a General classes focus on a particular instrument or musical/dance skill without emphasizing a particular genre, style or

culture.b Mainstream folk is a compilation of classes from the English and Irish culture-specific classes; classes with

Appalachian ‘‘folk’’ instruments—fiddle, mandolin, banjo, dulcimer, and autoharp; and classes from the Old-Timey,

‘‘traditional,’’ bluegrass, country blues and acoustic blues, and clog dancing classes. Omission of general guitar classes

and other blues classes will lead to an underestimation of the influence of these classes in the School.c Due to the small number of classes and lack of breadth of programming, the Mainstream Folk category is omitted from

the 1982–1983 row.

showing conviction to it. I remember doing ‘‘Tell Old Bill.’’ It was like, ‘‘Let’s do this like

we were Nirvana,’’ you know7. You kinda go, ‘‘Oh wow, these are the same chords as

[singing], ‘I got an easy friend, I dooooo.’’’ Whatever that song is.8 So, yeah, just keeping

that connection between now and the past was an important thing (interview).

The broader definition of ‘‘folk’’ was further legitimated using a quote from Big Bill Broonzy,

the previously mentioned folk blues artist involved in the early days of the School, after whom the

performance hall of the School was named. Broonzy said something to the effect of ‘‘if folks play

it, it’s folk music.’’ Several interviewees used or paraphrased this statement, as did Jim Hirsch

(Kening, 1990). As Broonzy was strongly tied to the School through embodied identification, the

legitimation was effective.

7. Translation

With the definition of folk music and programming in general at the School broadened to such

a large degree, it is understandable that those who came into contact with the School may have

had varying conceptions of what folk music is about. Some may have thought it an academic

concern. Others may have thought it was what people who live in the Appalachian Mountains

played on their front porches. The last major strategy the School undertook was to translate the

conceptions of folk music held by users of the School into a conception that increased

involvement of users. Envision the Old Town School as a folk music library. If the strategy of

expansion involves adding a large number of items to the library’s catalogue, then translation

involves introducing library patrons, who likely have been exposed to only a small proportion of

the catalogue, to as much of the rest of the library’s collection as possible. However, undergirding

both processes is embodied identification, through which the OTS assumed the legitimating role

of folk music librarian.

A major goal of the translation strategy at the School was to tie many different elements or

conceptions of what constitutes ‘‘folk’’ together into an all-encompassing experience. Scholars,

concert goers, and students each would come with their own conceptions of both folk music and

the School, and they would each be introduced to other aspects of what the School offers and

other aspects of the definition of ‘‘folk music.’’ The goal, as stated in numerous strategic plans

and annual reports, was ‘‘cross-promotion’’ and increasing ‘‘points of entry’’ to the School, what

Hannigan (1998) refers to as ‘‘synergies.’’ From 1983 to1986, the School was the site of a

nationally syndicated folk music radio program on National Public Radio called ‘‘The Flea

Market.’’ Performers who were in town for a concert often would appear on the show, possibly

introducing fans to the OTS. In addition, a specific action detailed in the 1989–1993 Five-Year

Plan was to

Present 2–3 ‘‘mixed bill’’ concerts using artists from different traditions, i.e., a concert

using a bluegrass headliner with a Latin opening act, as a means of introducing and

educating audiences to other types of music.

When enough translation has occurred and the School is established as the embodiment of all

the threads of the folk tradition, then all involved in the School will be attracted to any concert the

School presents. The 1989–1993 Five-Year Plan continues:

K. Dobransky / Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261 255

7 Nirvana had released a hugely popular Uplugged video/album in 1994.8 The song is Nirvana’s ‘‘About a Girl,’’ a version of which is on the Unplugged album.

Our long-term goal in this regard is to be able to attract audiences more on the basis that the

School is presenting an artist than on the ‘‘name recognition’’ of the artist to the general

public.

This strategy echoes ‘‘branding’’ strategies of retailers (see Zukin, 2004); however, within the

context of TBOs with a basis in embodied identification, the OTS brand has a specific meaning.

The OTS aimed to have the focus on it as an organization, and to have its stamp legitimizing

whatever it presented to its patrons, not only as something they may be interested in, but as folk

music that they may be interested in.

Translation was closely intertwined with expansion, working in tandem. Again focusing on

the area of concerts, the School’s 1990 Annual Report included the aims of ‘‘[r]epositioning

traditional music in the public’s mind by presenting it in venues associated with classical or

popular music,’’ and ‘‘‘capturing’ these new audiences by marketing other OTS programs to them

through direct mail.’’ The School attempted to make what it did relevant and salient to potential

audience members and to maximize its relevance and salience to current audience members.

Because the School was the embodiment of tradition, this process of translation involved

broadening and including everyone’s definition of folk music and tying them all back to the

School. During this period, the organization also worked to involve the audience at a younger and

younger age. Thus, children’s programming became a larger part of the School’s focus. Annual

reports from the 1990s show the children’s enrollment growing faster than the adult enrollment.

With this new, expanded, and translated definition of the folk music tradition, the OTS was

able to draw in many new sources of support. As shown above, multicultural audiences were

attracted to the inclusion of ethnic music in the definition of folk music offered by the OTS. In

addition, however, with world music growing in popularity as a genre, and an increasingly

‘‘omnivorous’’ highbrow taste in music developing (Peterson and Kern, 1996), the School also

targeted and brought in upper and aspiring middle status individuals. Moreover, organizations

were attracted, as well. Corporations who wanted either to market products to these individuals or

to improve their image among them (Useem, 1987; Wu, 1998) gave financial support to the

School. For example, the cover page of an October 1984 OTS newsletter prominently announces

‘‘An Evening of Ukranian Music sponsored by Stolichnaya, The Vodka.’’ Non-profit and

government organizations whose stated missions usually involve public outreach (Alexander,

1996b) such as the NEA and the Illinois Arts Council demonstrated their support through grant

money. Importantly, the School was able to bring in these resources while maintaining a unified

vision as a TBO.

8. Discussion

Through the exploration of the case of the Old Town School of Folk Music, we have seen the

strategies available to tradition-bearing organizations to maintain both solvency as organizations

and clear, unified identities as preservers of tradition. The three forms of identification – with the

past and the present of the tradition, and through rhetorical equivalence – allow organizations to

shift the basis of authenticity claims to themselves as authenticators of tradition. This, in turn,

grants them the authority to legitimate expansion of traditions and to translate different, newly

incorporated schemas for patrons.

This path is not the only one available to organizations caught in a predicament like that of the

OTS. As we have seen in the School’s own history, abandonment of tradition is also an option for

those who want to prevent organizational death, though not one that worked particularly well for

K. Dobransky / Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261256

the OTS. The Village School of Folk Music, in Deerfield, a suburb of Chicago, however, used the

strategy quite successfully. Founded by Bob Gand in 1963, the organization in many ways

mirrored the OTS in its programming (though on a smaller scale and as a for-profit organization),

offering group instruction in guitar, banjo, and individual lessons in other folk instruments (Van

Matre, 1979; class schedules). It, like the OTS, introduced many to aspects of the folk music

tradition, and enjoyed success doing so through the 1970s. However, when ‘‘folk music died in

1980,’’ as Gand put it (interview), the Village School faced the same hardship as the Old Town

School. It dealt with the problem in a much different way, however. The Village School of Folk

Music became the Village Music Store (with a division called the Village School of Music) and

stopped offering group classes, instead focusing solely on individual instruction in a wide range

of instruments and musical styles. Folk music was still offered for those interested in it, but as

tastes changed, so did the organization, without keeping the folk music tradition central.

Abandoning tradition, the organization prospered. However, changes are not so easy for those

organizations wedded to a mission of preserving tradition.

The Old Town School of Folk Music is not the only place where one can find tradition-bearing

organizations using the strategies that ensured its survival. Alexander (1996b), for example, talks

of ‘‘innovative aesthetic choices’’ that museum curators make to deal with the conflicting

demands of their curatorial vision and what will bring revenue. She claims that these choices

involve ‘‘incorporating new ideas of three aspects of art: (1) new ideas of what art is; (2) new

ideas of what scholarly questions can be addressed to an existing, recognized body of art; and (3)

new ideas of what existing art has been ignored or what unrecognized or undervalued art should

be elevated into the canon of high art’’ (Alexander, 1996a, 1996b: 111). These choices impact the

content of what is displayed at the museum, and the first and the third strategy appear to involve

expansion. Because, as Alexander states, ‘‘museums frame art, and not just in the literal sense’’

(3, emphasis in original), these changes are in effect making a statement about artistic tradition.

How does a museum justify these changes? Calling on the work of new institutionalists and

population ecologists, Alexander argues that museums find legitimacy through networks of other

museums and of those who provide financial support, which is in many ways similar to the

‘‘identification with the present’’ aspect of embodied identification.

These strategies can also be found in for-profit TBOs, and at levels of analysis other than

solely the organizational level. One can find in Grazian’s (2003) analysis of Chicago blues clubs

that the performer, the club, and the city of Chicago work in tandem to bring together the

elements of embodied identification. As Grazian demonstrates, city boosters and the tourism

industry construct a collective memory of the city as the center of the blues tradition

(identification with the past). Through the Chicago Blues Festival and several high-profile clubs,

the city maintains ties with current giants of the blues tradition (identification with the present).

Finally, within the blues club, performers contribute to embodied identification by making

statements such as ‘‘Are you ready to hear some real blues, or what? (identification through

rhetorical equivalence)’’ (Grazian, 2003: 44). The effectiveness of embodied identification in this

context is attested to by blues club patrons, who note their view that blues in Chicago is better and

more authentic than that performed elsewhere (67–68).

One of the key issues discussed in this study, the link between schemas and resources in

organizations, though starkly visible in TBOs, is not limited to them. The operation of all

organizations is guided by schemas, even if those schemas are not institutionalized as the formal

mission of the organization. As neoinstitutionalist theories argue, interaction in organizational

fields leads to imitation and homogeneity as organizations conform to dominant schemas

(DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Meyer and Rowan, 1977). Though there may be little evidence that

K. Dobransky / Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261 257

these strategies will lead to improved organizational performance, conformity in such

environments can be a self-fulfilling prophesy, bringing legitimacy and thus resources to

organizations. This study has shown, however, that within organizations – tradition-bearing or

otherwise – commitment to particular schemas has consequences for many types of

organizational resources, and an organization that wants to alter these commitments – even

if it is to conform to the broader field – has much internal and external symbolic work to do in

order to manage the change successfully.

As Eliasoph and Lichterman (2003) argue, we must examine how broader cultural patterns are

managed at lower levels of analysis (see also Fine, 1979). This study, focusing on the

organizational level, highlights the tension between schemas and resources, and how a certain

class of organizations is able to deal with this tension. Future studies could investigate this issue

in non-tradition-bearing organizations, as well as study other issues involving the organizational-

level management of broader cultural schemas. Peterson and Anand’s (2004) explication of the

production of culture perspective provides insight into how these schemas are produced and how

they change, and Peterson’s (1997) application of this model to country music helps us to

understand the production and evolution of schemas of authenticity in tradition. The present

study of the Old Town School has demonstrated strategies of organizational-level adaptation

within the larger socio-political environment of which those schemas are a part. As

organizations, with their own interests and resources, can act as ‘‘entrepreneurs’’ in broader

cultural change (Fine, 2001), this study, by revealing interactions between the organization and

its environment, may also show us a small part of how these changes occur in tradition-bearing

fields. Future studies could examine widespread patterns of adaptation, and how these patterns in

turn affect the social and cultural environment.

There are, of course, limits to the effectiveness of embodied identification as a survival

strategy. Just as changes to collective memory are limited by ‘‘the structure of available pasts’’

(Schudson, 1989; Schwartz, 1991), the amount to which anything a TBO does can be defined as

tradition is similarly limited. If the OTS claimed that Britney Spears’s music was folk music,

though it could make a complex argument, the likely response would be skepticism. Nonetheless,

embodied identification grants the organization a great amount of discretion. Though Grazian

(2003) notes, for example, that patrons of blues clubs have their own views of authenticity to

which clubs and artists somewhat have to cater, he also points out that some of the more

successful artists incorporate material that is much more expansive than what some would

consider the traditional blues canon.

Also, the strategies of expansion and translation could be pursued without the prerequisite of

embodied identification. A talented marketer could attempt to reconcile the changing direction of

a TBO attempting to adapt to its environment with claims that it is preserving tradition. However,

the contention of this study is that there is something deeper and more fundamental than

marketing going on here. The processes outlined in this study were incorporated into the very

structure of the organization. Pure marketing rarely affects the product marketed to this degree.

‘‘The past is a foreign country,’’ writes historian David Lowenthal (quoting Leslie Poles

Hartley), and in trying to understand it, we feel the urge to preserve it (Lowenthal, 1985). The

organizations through which we do so, however, have to manage differing interpretations of what

constitutes authentic tradition while also remaining solvent. The Republican Party has to be the

party of Abraham Lincoln, but also the party that opposes affirmative action. The Native

American Church believes in the Christian Bible, but also sanctions the use of peyote.

Constructing the TBO itself as the embodiment of tradition allows the organization to speak with

authority as to what constitutes the ‘‘authentic’’ version of the tradition it bears, even if that

K. Dobransky / Poetics 35 (2007) 239–261258

involves changing it. Thus, only when the Pope of the Catholic Church speaks (at least

figuratively) from the ‘‘Chair of Peter,’’ the embodiment of God’s will on Earth, is the

‘‘infallible.’’ As an embodiment of the folk tradition, the Old Town School of Folk Music could

ensure its own survival and its status as a TBO, reassuring those involved with that they were still

just folks.

Acknowledgements

For comments, conversations, and assistance that improved this paper, the author would like to

thank Nikki Beisel, Carolyn Chen, Gary Alan Fine, Wendy Griswold, Geoff Harkness, Paul M.

Hirsch, Jerry Jacobs, Richard A. Peterson, Kees van Rees, Barry Schwartz, Art Stinchcombe,

members of the Northwestern University Culture and Society Workshop, and the anonymous

reviewers. Any shortcomings are solely the responsibility of the author.

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Kerry Dobransky is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at Northwestern University. His research interests include culture;

organizations (formal/complex); health, illness, and disability; and health and human services.

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