Rate My Professor Bess Hawes

Bess Lomax Hawes served as a professor in the Anthropology department at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), contributing significantly to the fields of folklore and ethnomusicology. Born in 1921 in Austin, Texas, to folklorist John A. Lomax, she earned a B.A. in Sociology from Bryn Mawr College in 1941 and an M.A. in folklore from the Anthropology Department at the University of California, Berkeley. Honorary Ph.D.s were conferred upon her by Kenyon College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to her academic appointment at CSUN, Hawes pursued a distinguished career as a folk musician and performer. She sang and played with the Almanac Singers alongside Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger on recordings such as Talking Union, Citizen CIO, Songs of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and Woody Guthrie Sings Folk Songs. She co-authored the Kingston Trio hit "Charlie on the MTA." From 1954, she taught guitar, banjo, and folk music in the University of California, Los Angeles extension division, and served as a part-time instructor in folk music, folklore, and ethnomusicology at UCLA, San Fernando Valley State College (now CSUN), and Los Angeles State College starting in 1961.

In 1963, Hawes joined CSUN's Anthropology Department as an assistant professor, appointed by department chair Edmund Carpenter to emphasize interdisciplinary artistic practice, including visual anthropology. She received tenure in 1968, advanced to full professor in 1974, chaired the department, and retired after a tenure from 1959 to 1974 or later, as noted in emeritus records. She taught courses such as Anthropology 309: American Folk Music and Anthropology 311: Introduction to Folklore, engaging students in collecting folkloric data from local communities, which formed the core of the Bess Lomax Hawes Student Folklore Collection housed in CSUN's Special Collections and Archives. Her research centered on child lore, American lullabies, and African American musical traditions in Los Angeles, exemplified by her 1968 ethnographic film Pizza Pizza Daddy-O documenting schoolyard singing games. Key publications include Step It Down: Games, Plays, Songs and Stories from the African-American Heritage (co-authored with Bessie Jones, 1972), "Law and Order on the Playground," and "Folksongs and Function: Some Thoughts on the American Lullaby." Hawes was honored with CSUN's Distinguished Teaching Award.