The Folk Singers and the Bureau The FBI, the Folk Artists and the Suppression of the Communist Party, USA-1939-1956

by Aaron J. Leonard

The first book to document the efforts of the FBI against the most famous American folk singers of the mid-twentieth century, including Woody Guthrie, ‘Sis Cunningham, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays and Burl Ives.

Some of the most prominent folk singers of the twentieth century, including Woody Guthrie, ‘Sis Cunningham, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Burl Ives, etc., were also political activists with various associations with the American Communist Party. As a consequence, the FBI, along with other governmental and right-wing organizations, were monitoring them, keeping meticulous files running many thousands of pages, and making (and carrying out) plans to purge them from the cultural realm.

In The Folk Singers and the Bureau, Aaron J Leonard draws on an unprecedented array of declassified documents and never before released files to shed light on the interplay between left-wing folk artists and their relationship with the American Communist Party, and how it put them in the US government’s repressive cross hairs.

At a time of increasing state surveillance and repression, The Folk Singers and the Bureau shows how the FBI and other governmental agencies have attempted to shape and repress American culture.

Genres: History, Music, Nonfiction, Politics, American History, United States

323 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2020

About the author

Aaron J. Leonard is a writer and historian. His research interests focus on twentieth century US history, particularly Sixties history and the interplay between radicalism and governmental repression. He has a B.A. in History, from New York University. He lives in Los Angeles

Reviews

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good info, dry as a bone tho

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderfully detailed account of the federal government's unrelenting harassment of left-leaning folk singers in the 1940s and 1950s. The copious documentation from FBI files is fascinating, though this does also sometimes keep the book preoccupied with the smaller details relating to individual cases, while the larger picture (especially of emergent left-wing activism in the cultural and political sphere outside the Communist Party) can remain a bit obscure. Also, given the author's obvious passion for these musicians, it would have been nice to have had some more attention to their creative output, which is mostly only mentioned in passing.

[Shelhorowitzgreenmkt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most of us are familiar with the general outlines of US anticommunist hysteria from the 1930s into the 1960s, and particularly Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). We know that entertainers were blacklisted, workers lost their jobs, quite a few people were imprisoned, and at least two (Julius and Ethel Rosenberg) were executed.

But Congress was only one slice of a much deeper attack on freedom of belief. The FBI was another big prong. I, for one, didn’t know that the FBI actually drew up lists of people who would be rounded up and detained on command—and those lists included some of our best-loved entertainers, among them Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson, and Bess Lomax Hawes (co-author of the MTA song, a/k/a “Charlie and the MTA”). Interestingly, Leonard argues that longtime FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, though a virulent anticommunist, disliked McCarthy and opposed his methods.

In a year that started with an armed coup attempt inside the US Capitol against the elected US government, it is worth remembering three key points:

All but one of the mass domestic terrorist incidents I can think of were conducted by right-wingers: the January 6th insurrection, of course--but also Oklahoma City, 9/11, Pulse Nightclub, El Paso, Las Vegas, Sandy Hook Elementary School, Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue, Charleston, South Carolina's Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church... (The exception is the 1954 Puerto Rican Nationalist attack on the Capitol.) Yet the government has historically focused its energies on the little sliver of far-left agitators.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans have clean hands in suppressing dissent or in harnessing state terror just to show power. Though they continued into the Eisenhower administration, the FBI abuses against suspected Communist Party members and sympathizers mostly took place under Democrats FDR and Truman. FDR’s other shames include authorizing the Japanese internment and turning away Jewish refugees, while Truman’s including deploying two atomic bombs against a Japan that was already about to surrender—with the apparent purpose of telling the USSR not to mess with us. And of course, LBJ and Nixon were both in charge during the suppression of leftists in the 1960s. This makes it even more urgent to organize and make sure Biden keeps his progressive campaign promises (as I write this in September, he’s failing badly on several, including immigration justice, climate change, and voting rights).

It is absolutely important to curtain domestic terror. However, there are plenty of ways to do it that don’t involve “othering” and repressing a portion of the population. We are all entitled to our beliefs, no matter how far outside the mainstream. But none of us are entitled to wage violence in the service of our beliefs, and the government needs to keep those elements in check.

Personally, I’d love to see the government embrace alternative strategies to war and violence both in containing terrorism and in furthering democracy around the world. A good first step would be establishing a Cabinet-level Department of Peace, as proposed by former Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio.

The book is impeccably researched, with a seven-page bibliography and discography, 50 pages of end notes(!), and a 15-page index. However, the writing is less than stellar, and the editor or proofreader should have been fired. Still, I will put up with bad writing to get important information (or a good story). I didn’t plan to review this as I read it, and only realized as I finished the main text and began going through the notes that there was relevant wisdom to my newsletter readers. Thus, no page citations this month.

[Pierce McCaffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a good book about the radicalism of American folk music and the brutality of the red scare. Pete Seeger is obviously the hero of this book by standing up against HUAC but Woody Guthrie is such a sad figure because he had strong political convictions but ultimately just wanted to live his life in peace and he was still hunted for it

[Kusaimamekirai · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some excellent books about folk singers in the 1940s and 50s, their ties to the Communist Party, and the subsequent harassment they received from the U.S. government during the Cold War.
Many of them, such as Jesse Jarnow’s “Wasn’t That a Time?” provide some great, if not slightly biased treatments of the folk movement as being the innocent victims of government persecution.
What I really appreciated about “The Folk Singers and the Bureau” is that while it never shies away from the governments heavy handed and borderline paranoid treatment of folk singers, it also doesn’t deny that there were many who were in fact Communists. While the author never justifies the imprisonment, blacklisting, or other harassment, he attempts to place the government’s hysteria in the context of a country that saw at one point more than a third of the world fall to Communism.
More importantly I think, he has a great deal of sympathy for the singers and celebrities who testified before the House Un-American Committee (HUAC) to denounce their friends.
As the author rightly points out, many of these artists were sympathetic to Communism but often in a philosophical sense more than any kind of hardcore devotion to the Party line. They were first and foremost men and women preoccupied with simply trying to make a living and succeed at something that they loved who got caught up in the Cold War’s frenzied search for Communists. Being forced to denounce your friends and your beliefs for whatever reason (to further your career, or even being blackmailed by the government with the threat of imprisonment) can only have been a painful decision for many, and those of us who have never been in their shoes would be wise to withhold our judgement of them.
All this being said, the government was incredibly successful in dismantling the Communist party in the United States through intimidation and dubious legal means. In the process they destroyed the lives and careers of far too many who had so much more artistically to offer if they were given the chance. As the author says, herein lies perhaps the greatest tragedy of all.

“One can speculate about what these artists might have done had they not been subjected to such repression. Had the Weavers not been turned into pariahs when they were topping the charts, had Pete Seeger not been forced to work the college circuit to survive, had Josh White and Burl Ives not been coerced into moral compromise, had Paul Robeson not been so viciously attacked. What further artistic milestones could they have achieved? How many thousands, if not millions of people could have been exposed to the beauty of their art? Counterfactuals being an exercise in what might have been, it nonetheless underscores the criminality, in the moral sense, of these artists being put under such constraints. While we gained much, there was an abundance of loss.”

[Tomasz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leonard is a sloppy writer, willing rather to rehash the previous publications than to delve in archival material that he managed to unearth (for which effort he absolutely deserves praise, though). And so, the book apparently concerning leftist folk singers is often about anything else, to pad the slim volume. In addition, his indignation at the FBI tactics and actions often feels disingenuous, and the fact that all the mentioned cases of Soviet spies in CPUSA are termed "alleged" and swiftly passed by might actually indicate serious ideological blinkers. Add to this a myriad misspellings, mistaken dates, a confusion regarding Pulitzer and Nobel prizes... no, not gonna give this an A for effort, but three stars feels about right for the description of rightist backlash against the group gathered around the Almanac Singers.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

The anti-communist campaign in the US after World War II is known primarily due to the attention paid to Hollywood (The Hollywood Ten and the blacklist) as well as the trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Using FBI files retrieved using the Freedom of Information Act, Aaron Leonard documents the intense governmental campaign against folk musicians especially some of the greatest and most famous: Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.

In his conclusion, Leonard states: Such is the tenuous nature of artistic and political freedom in the United States.

The information contained in this book should be known by anyone who values democracy, anyone who values artistic freedom.

[Kitty · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting look at the FBI’s, and other government agency’s, efforts to break apart the Communist Party in the U.S. along the intersection of culture during the mid-1900s. It offers not only an understanding of how these artists created their works and collaborated with one another, but a greater introduction to the surveillance state whose legacy we live in today. I definitely recommend this to anyone with a love for folk music and those interested in the history of the left in the twentieth century.

[Ben Ricketts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moments of dryness and a few typos aside, this book is fantastic. A must-read for anyone interested in the history of politics in folk music, the history of far-left politics in the US, and/or the history of American repression of dissent.

[Kaylee · Rating 4 out of 5]

a really well written and researched book on the era. literally one of my few complaints is the quality and size of the scans of fbi files lmfao.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The content was fascinating but it could not have been presented in a drier fashion. Weird combo.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good portion of this book can be summed up as "[Folk singer] was associated with the CPUSA, so the FBI investigated them." The more interesting bits detailed the political activism of the folk singers themselves, the government policies that led to the suppression of communists, and the infighting among CPUSA members that played into the government's aim of defanging worker-centered movements in the United States.

[Reading · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty wild that a bunch of nice boys and girls started singing songs like “lynching is bad” and “I care about my friends” and the response from conservative forces around the country was “THESE TERRORISTS MUST BE STOPPED”

[Alex Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pete Seeger had to have been the coolest dude of all time. Very interesting look at the important intersection of workers, music, and the power of the workers’ music.

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is very dry. While certainly there are some interesting historical details about the HOOVER quest to stop the spread of communism, the story-telling is disjointed and lackluster.

[Bill McGee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. Very short discussion of two larger subjects: the legal and illegal activities engaged in by the US government to suppress the American Communist Party and the lives and careers of leftist folk singers. I was especially looking forward to a deeper discussion of the artists and their music, but I found limited appreciation for either. They were written about as any other group targeted by the FBI would have been; as examples to illustrate a point.

I especially disagree with the sentiment expressed in the paragraph:

"...it is nearly impossible to conceive of the art that was created in that historical moment as having been accomplishable without the breathing room the association with the CP allowed. Woody Guthrie would not have been the Guthrie we know today, nor would Aunt Molly Jackson, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Lead Belly, or Cisco Houston. They likely would have produced compelling art, but lacking the common link of the Party -- which challenged the discriminatory, male supremacist (to the degree they did), and class barriers of US society -- it is hard to conceive of these artists being the in same room, let alone creating art together."

I've read many of the books in his bibliography, and I believe these extraordinary artists would have found their voices and each other whether they were associated with the party or not.

Tangentially, I don't usually notice typos, but there certainly seem like there are a lot of them in this book. Maybe have another go at editing if there's a second edition.

[floraelmcolone · Rating 2 out of 5]

i ordered this in for our music section and was so excited to read it, and was disappointed. the writing was pretty boring (it’s possible to be engaging/passionate while still informative)— which i think comes from the fact that the author clearly doesn’t particularly respect communism as an ideology. which i guess is fine, but i don’t think he was the right person to write this book. it’s such an interesting topic with such a rich and *personal* history, and it was presented pretty flatly. i also think the author was way too flippant/dismissive of the concerns of Black members of the CPUSA in the 50s. he presents the accusations of racism within the party as some sort of asinine witch hunt indicating disorganization, and as a white man (lol) that is just… not his place. one thing i did like was the epilogue, and the commentary on how these folk musicians are lauded as american heroes after their death, despite being targets of the government at the peaks of their careers.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting story of the persecution of members of the CPUSA during the red scare, but the CPUSA were Stalinists and the author doesn't discuss the persecution of Trotskyists (then the Socialist Workers Party) during the same era, and also under the Smith Act, except for a brief mention. He tells of how the Stalinists were completely befuddled after Khrushchev's speech condemning the crimes of Stalin, but the Trotskyists were neither surprised or disconcerted. They had been opposed to Stalin since before WWII. Remember: Stalin had Trotsky and all of his supporters murdered.

Also, the editor missed quite a few grammatical howlers. The author is not a very good writer, on the whole, although he gets the stories across well enough. But that is a nitpick. The story of who ratted out their comrades and who didn't is the important thing.

[Adam Carrico · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is basically a summary of top hits in the FBI’s files on folk singers. Almost half of the book deals with context around CPUSA and doesn’t specifically deal with folk singers. It’s written like a research paper.

Ultimately, I disagree with the authors final conclusion that these characters wouldn’t have been brought together without the CP. In most cases, the singers were brought into the Party by their folk singer friends. In my opinion, without CPUSA the scene would have existed and they all still would have fought for progressive causes. Peoples Songs specifically served as a central hub for their work, but it ignores the broader folk scene at the time.

It’s a decent look at history, but only if you’re very interested in this very specific subject matter.

[Jehnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very definitely written by and for an academic audience. As a European historian, it was interesting to see how Soviet communism was understood both by the American government and by those individuals we usually see as part of the blacklisting under McCarthy. The remarkably small role that McCarthyism played in the book was as interesting as anything.
I didn't learn overmuch about the Folk Artists of the title, but it did give some insight into how governments perceive artists in times of crisis. (And yes, this felt relevant in 2025 in a way I wouldn't have anticipated.)

[Ollie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did not finish. Did not enjoy. Did not learn anything new from reading this. You might why I’m giving it four starts despite my disdain. It’s a fine book for those who are not deeply interested in the topic. Unfortunately, everything I read I already knew. Furthermore, the author has no passion for the subject of folk music.

[Serge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reads more like research notes to a longer and more coherent book that the author may still write in the future. Its greatest contribution is the compilation of released FBI surveillance reports on some of the most famous folk singers of the era. The author makes a strong case for considering the impact of the Smith and McCarran Acts on American culture and political values.

[Benjamin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Folk Singers and the Bureau came to my awareness by Aaron Leonard's appearance on TrueAnon .

I started this book last fall but only made it to the 100 page mark. I restarted it this summer and completed it last week. I think the topic here is a fascinating one to cover but the writing was lacking in my opinion.

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This has a lot of information about how the FBI targeted the CP and leftist artists in the 1940s and 50s. But it also didn't include things that I would have expected, possibly because they were only tangential to the FBI activities and files.

Keeping for reference, but not to re-read from beginning to end.

[Alethea Hammer · Rating 5 out of 5]

From a very early age I loved the songs of Woody Guthrie The Weavers and other folk artists of the era. I was not aware until I grew older of the Red Scares and the blacklisting that stunted many of their careers. Despite all that they made memorable contributions to the American Songbook.

[Thylacinemaxreads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Make sure you have a strong background knowledge of folks singers before starting, because it’s more about the communism than the singers. That being said very educational, if a little long and jumps around to cover a lot in not a lot of pages.

[Colin Chambers · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant analysis of the anti-socialist witch hunts and paranoia of 30s-50 America. Pete Seeger comes out as an absolute hero but heart-breaking that it took until the 21st century before mainstream america acknowledged it. A fascinating read.

[Bo Pickett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Damn good exploration of the systematic suppression of leftist art in the US. Great use of unique primary sources in telling the story. Slots directly into my niche of music, politics, and history.

[Caveman Pleasures · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a lot of neat stuff here, but the writing is clumsy and disjointed. Read it if you're curious about the subject matter, but skip it if the Red Scare isn't your bag.

[Meredith McCleary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting time of US history, particularly with what’s going on right now, but it was so dry I put it down for a year before finishing it.