The study of folk music in the city is an integral part of Ameri-
can folklore research which has not yet been utilized exhaustive-
ly. Indeed, the picture of an individual city has not yet been
presented in full, and the only raw material available is a few
scattered and largely unpublished collections from individual
non-English speaking groups and a collection of industrial songs
from Pittsburgh. Most of this chapter, consequently, is devoted
to a preliminary survey of the situation in Detroit, the only city
for which even such a tentative report is available. But there is
reason to believe that these findings would apply also to other
American cities.

The folklore of the Detroit area has been extensively collected
by Thelma G. James and her students at Wayne State University,
especially in the field of oral literature and folk beliefs. Some
collections and studies of music have been included in their proj-
ect, ¹ and in preparing the present chapter I have used these as
well as material gathered by myself and by my students. ²

Folk music of the city is interesting because it differs from rural
folk music in structure and function. We would like to know
whether it can be called folk music at all, whether it behaves
like other folk music when it is transmitted, and whether it re-
flects the urban culture of which it is a part. We wish to know
what kind of people participate in the folk music of the city,
and what happens to songs which are brought from a rural into
a city environment. We wish to explore the difference between

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