Historical Portrait
Ben Pitts playing guitar, seated, portrait, photograph
Archive record
Photograph caption: "Son of a 49er and singer of minstrel songs." Sidney Robertson Cowell notes on verso of copy of photograph in Music Division, Library of Congress: "The 'come-on' man sings 'Calomel.' This is the 19th century rural American form of the singing commercial. Ben Pitts is recording for the Library of Congress the repetoire of his one-time career with itinerant medicine shows. Calomel was the best-known purgative of its day." Forms part of a group of field materials documenting Ben Pitts and Leonard W. Jones performing Anglo-American music on October 3, 1939, collected by Sidney Robertson Cowell in Pine Grove, El Dorato County, California.
About this photograph
Ben Pitts performed for Sidney Robertson Cowell's recording session in Pine Grove, El Dorado County, California, on October 3, 1939. Cowell noted that Pitts sang "Calomel," which she described as a nineteenth-century rural American singing commercial, while working as a "come-on" man.
Pitts had worked with traveling medicine shows earlier in his career and was recording that repertoire for the Library of Congress. The caption identifies him as the son of a forty-niner and a singer of minstrel songs. Calomel was a widely used purgative of the period.
The recording session was part of the W.P.A. California Folk Music Project, which Cowell directed between 1938 and 1940. The project documented traditional musicians throughout Northern California, working across the state's immigrant communities rather than focusing on a single tradition. The recordings and photographs are held by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.
Compiled from the catalogue record and reference notes on the formats and events involved. The archive record above is the primary source.
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