The Ruth Rubin Legacy
Archive of Yiddish Folksongs

Field Recordings

The centerpiece of the Ruth Rubin Archive (RG 620) is Rubin’s 135-volume collection of field recordings, containing over 2,500 songs, assembled from 78pm acetate discs, reel-to-reel tapes and cassettes recorded by Rubin from 1946 though the 1970s. The Archive also contains sound documents of Rubin’s numerous lectures, concerts, and radio interviews.

During the 70s, Ruth Rubin contributed a set of her core fieldwork tapes to the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. During Rubin’s final years, some 50 boxes of materials pertaining to her life’s work - including personal notebooks, articles, manuscripts (including her as yet unpublished dissertation on Jewish women and their folk songs), correspondence, books and records - were donated to the YIVO through the efforts of her sister, Esther Spivack Marks.

Field recordings photo