The Lomax family originally came from England with William Lomax, who settled in Rockingham County in what was then "the colony of North Carolina." John Lomax was … See more

Lomax decided to further his education at a first-rate university. His first choice was Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, but he realized he would likely fail … See more

Around the same time, Lomax and Professor Leonidas Payne of the University of Texas at Austin co-founded the Texas Folklore Society, following Kittredge's suggestion that Lomax establish a Texas branch of the American Folklore Society. Lomax and Payne … See more

In 1931, Lomax's wife Bess Brown died at the age of 50, leaving four children (the youngest, Bess, was ten years old). In addition, the Dallas bank at which Lomax worked failed: he had to phone his customers one by one to announce that their investments … See more

Through a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies, Lomax was able to set out in June 1933 on the first recording expedition under the Library's auspices, with Alan Lomax (then eighteen years old) in tow. As now, a disproportionate percentage of … See more

The Archive of American Folk Song of the Library of Congress contains songs collected in 33 states of the Union and certain parts of the West Indies, The Bahamas, and Haiti. As Curator and Assistant in Charge of the Folk Song Collection John and … See more

John A. Lomax's contribution to the documentation of American folk traditions extended beyond the Library of Congress Music Division through his involvement with two agencies of the Works Progress Administration. In 1936, he was assigned to serve as an … See more