Know your history! Ruth Crawford Seeger

Ruth Crawford Seeger (July 3, 1901 – November 18, 1953), born Ruth Porter Crawford, was a modernist composer active primarily during the 1920s and 30s and an American folk music specialist from the late 1930s until her death. She was a prominent member of a group of American composers known as the "ultramoderns."

Crawford Seeger and her family, including husband Charles and children Mike, Peggy, Barbara, Penny, and stepson Pete, moved to Washington, D.C., in 1936 after Charles’ appointment to the music division of the Resettlement Administration.

She was active as a piano teacher and taught music in several nursery schools, and she wrote her own folk-song books for children, which are still popular and used her daughter's Silver Spring Nursery School as a laboratory for teaching folk music.

The photo included here is Ruth singing with a group of Silver Spring Nursery School children!