Shantyman’s Life – Lumbering Songs from the Great Lakes
Introduction
Download PDF Version of this Lesson Plan here.
Lumberjack songs were sung throughout the upper Northeast and Great Lakes regions during the 19th century, as European settlers chopped down trees to clear land and build homes. The Northeast had dense forests of white oak, cedar and chestnut. As wood resources decreased in the Northeast, logging migrated to the Great Lakes region in the 1830s where forests were filled with maple, hemlock and birch trees. Lumber was needed not only for houses, but also for public buildings, ships and firewood. Eventually the logging industry moved even further west, to Oregon and Washington.
Lumberjacks were called shanty boys or shanty men, perhaps named for the shacks where they stayed near the work site—which were referred to as shanties. The work involved long days, often 12-24 hours, from fall through spring. The pay was poor, and the conditions dangerous.
“Shantyman’s Life” was collected in Wisconsin in 1941 and describes the life and work of the lumberjacks who harvested and transported trees, providing raw materials for the growing nation. It was sung by Emery De Noyer, who earned his keep in logging camps by singing, rather than logging, since he had only one arm and one eye.
Activity
Here is a song recorded in 1941 in Wisconsin. It is about an occupation that was common during the 19th century and still is in some parts of the county. The first line of the recording is missing.
Play the recording https://kodalycollection.org/song.cfm?id=1327 without showing the score.
- What are the men doing? (cutting down trees)
- What else do they do after felling the trees? (drag and stack them, float them down the river)
- What time of year does the work begin, and when does it end? (fall – spring)
- What are some of the difficult aspects of this work? (long days, poor food, cold, . . .)
- What do you think the trees might have been used for? (houses, buildings, firewood, ships)
If students don’t recall some of these elements, play the recording again so that they can listen for what they missed.
Share photos from the Library of Congress archives and ask what the students notice:
Lumberjacks among the logs in the river
https://www.loc.gov/resource/det.4a23065/
Lumberjacks using peaveys to remove logs from river
https://www.loc.gov/resource/fsa.8b36570/
Calling lumberjacks to dinner
https://www.loc.gov/resource/fsa.8b38550/
Lumberjacks at dinner
https://www.loc.gov/resource/fsa.8b36902/
Lumberjacks resting in bunkhouse
https://www.loc.gov/item/2017780681/
Lumberjacks outside of building
https://www.loc.gov/item/2006686834/
Project the score and listen to the song again to see if students understand all the words. (A list of vocabulary words and their definitions is available below the score.)
- When and where was the song was collected? (look above the score)
- What does the note about the singer tell us? (look below the score)
- Would the men have sung this song while working? If not, when?
- Note to teacher: The last lyrics are “The ending of my song is signed “C, D, F and G,” which, if inverted (G – F – D – C), would match the actual melodic line.
Additional Lumberjack Songs and Resources
A recording of “Once More a-Lumbering Go” is available on this site at https://kodalycollection.org/song.cfm?id=1326
An excellent description of the history of this and other lumberjack songs is available at
https://balladofamerica.org/once-more-a-lumbering-go/
“Michigan-I-O,” another lumberjack song recorded by Alan Lomax, is at
https://kodalycollection.org/song.cfm?id=1325
To listen to a Library of Congress podcast about "Michigan-I-O" and Alan Lomax's Michigan folksong expedition, visit
