Editing Alan Lomax (section)

===Early life===
Lomax was born in [[Austin, Texas]], in 1915,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2015/15-008.html|title=The American Folklife Center Celebrates Lomax Centennial|publisher=Loc.gov|date=January 15, 2015|access-date=September 8, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.biography.com/people/alan-lomax-21286895|title=Alan Lomax Biography|publisher=Biography.com|access-date=September 8, 2015|archive-date=February 8, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150208232056/http://www.biography.com/people/alan-lomax-21286895|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="cultural" /> the third of four children born to Bess Brown and pioneering [[folklorist]] and author [[John A. Lomax]]. Two of his siblings also developed significant careers studying folklore: [[Bess Lomax Hawes]] and [[John Lomax Jr.]]

The elder Lomax, a former professor of English at [[Texas A&M University]] and a celebrated authority on Texas folklore and [[cowboy songs]], had worked as an administrator, and later Secretary of the Alumni Society, of the [[University of Texas]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Untiedt |first=Kenneth |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/676695891 |title=Celebrating 100 years of the Texas Folklore Society, 1909-2009 |publisher=University of North Texas Press |others=Texas Folklore Society |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-4416-7885-0 |edition=1st |location=Denton, Tex. |oclc=676695891}}</ref>

Due to childhood asthma, chronic ear infections, and generally frail health, Lomax had mostly been home schooled in elementary school. In [[Dallas]], he entered the Terrill School for Boys (a tiny prep school that later became [[St. Mark's School of Texas]]). Lomax excelled at Terrill and then transferred to the Choate School (now [[Choate Rosemary Hall]]) in Connecticut for a year, graduating eighth in his class at age 15 in 1930.<ref>John Szwed, ''Alan Lomax: The Man Who Recorded the World'' (New York: Viking, 2010), p. 20.<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed --></ref>

Owing to his mother's declining health, however, rather than going to [[Harvard University]] as his father had wished, Lomax matriculated at the [[University of Texas at Austin]]. A roommate, future anthropologist [[Goldschmidt Thesis|Walter Goldschmidt]], recalled Lomax as "frighteningly smart, probably classifiable as a genius", though Goldschmidt remembers Lomax exploding one night while studying: "Damn it! The hardest thing I've had to learn is that I'm not a genius."<ref name="Szwed p. 21">Szwed (2010), p. 21.</ref> At the University of Texas, Lomax read [[Nietzsche]] and developed an interest in [[philosophy]]. He joined and wrote a few columns for the school paper, ''The Daily Texan'' but resigned when it refused to publish an editorial he had written on birth control.<ref name="Szwed p. 21"/>

At this time he also he began collecting [[Race record|"race" records]] and taking his dates to black-owned nightclubs, at the risk of expulsion. During the spring term his mother died, and his youngest sister [[Bess Lomax Hawes|Bess]], age 10, was sent to live with an aunt. Although the [[Great Depression]] was rapidly causing his family's resources to plummet, Harvard came up with enough financial aid for the 16-year-old Lomax to spend his second year there. He enrolled in philosophy and physics and also pursued a long-distance informal reading course in [[Plato]] and the [[Pre-Socratic philosophy|Pre-Socratics]] with University of Texas professor Albert P. Brogan.<ref>Szwed (2010), p. 22.</ref> He also became involved in radical politics and came down with pneumonia. His grades suffered, diminishing his financial aid prospects.<ref>Szwed (2010), p. 24.</ref>

Lomax, now 17, therefore took a break from studying to join his father's folk song collecting field trips for the [[Library of Congress]], co-authoring ''American Ballads and Folk Songs'' (1934) and ''Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Lead Belly'' (1936).<ref name="cultural">{{cite web |url=https://www.culturalequity.org/alan-lomax/about-alan |title=About Alan Lomax |website=Cultural Equality |access-date=September 24, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220605103636/https://www.culturalequity.org/alan-lomax/about-alan |archive-date=June 5, 2022}}</ref> His first field collecting without his father was done with [[Zora Neale Hurston]] and [[Mary Elizabeth Barnicle]] in the summer of 1935. He returned to the University of Texas that fall and was awarded a [[Bachelor of Arts]] in philosophy,<ref name="cultural" /> summa cum laude, and membership in [[Phi Beta Kappa]] in May 1936.<ref>Szwed (2010), p. 92.</ref> Lack of money prevented him from immediately attending graduate school at the [[University of Chicago]], as he desired, but he later corresponded with and pursued graduate studies with [[Melville J. Herskovits]] at [[Columbia University]] and with [[Ray Birdwhistell]] at the [[University of Pennsylvania]].

Alan Lomax married [[Elizabeth Lyttleton Sturz|Elizabeth Harold Goodman]], then a student at the University of Texas, in February 1937.<ref>Szwed (2010), p. 91.</ref> They were married for 12 years and had a daughter, [[Anna Lomax Wood|Anne]] (later known as Anna). Elizabeth assisted him in recording in Haiti, Alabama, Appalachia, and Mississippi. Elizabeth also wrote radio scripts of folk operas featuring American music that were broadcast over the [[BBC Home Service]] as part of the war effort.

During the 1950s, after she and Lomax divorced, she conducted lengthy interviews for Lomax with folk music personalities, including [[Vera Hall|Vera Ward Hall]] and the [[Reverend Gary Davis]]. Lomax also did important field work with Elizabeth Barnicle and Zora Neale Hurston in Florida and the Bahamas (1935);<ref name="sampler">{{cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/folklife/sampler/FLaudio.html |title=National Sampler: Florida Audio and Video Samples and Notes |website=The American Folklife Center |access-date=September 24, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210124191108/https://www.loc.gov/folklife/sampler/FLaudio.html |archive-date=January 24, 2021}}</ref> with [[John Wesley Work III]] and Lewis Jones in Mississippi (1941 and 42); with folksingers Robin Roberts<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.popmatters.com/music/features/020315-stpatrick-stone.html|title=Music Reviews|magazine=PopMatters|access-date=September 8, 2015}}</ref> and [[Jean Ritchie]] in Ireland (1950); with his second wife Antoinette Marchand in the Caribbean (1961); with [[Shirley Collins]] in Great Britain and the Southeastern U.S. (1959); with [[Joan Halifax]] in Morocco; and with his daughter.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://devonandnicohase.com/blog/2016/11/4/joan-halifax-mindfulness-and-the-most-important-thing-1 |title=Joan Halifax, Mindfulness, and the Most Important Thing |last=Hase |first=Nico |date=November 4, 2016 |website=Devon and Nico Hase |access-date=September 24, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220925002506/https://devonandnicohase.com/blog/2016/11/4/joan-halifax-mindfulness-and-the-most-important-thing-1 |archive-date=September 25, 2022}}</ref> All those who assisted and worked with him were accurately credited on the resultant Library of Congress and other recordings, as well as in his many books, films, and publications.<ref name="sampler" />