Editing Pete Seeger (section)

===Musical development===
Despite being classical musicians, Peter's parents did not press him to play an instrument. On his own, the otherwise bookish and withdrawn boy gravitated to the [[ukulele]], becoming adept at entertaining his classmates with it while laying the basis for his subsequent remarkable audience rapport. At thirteen, he enrolled in the [[Avon Old Farms School]] in [[Avon, Connecticut]], from which he graduated in 1936. During the summer of 1935, while traveling with his father and stepmother, Pete heard the five-string [[banjo]] for the first time at the [[Bascom Lamar Lunsford#The Mountain Dance and Folk Festival|Mountain Dance and Folk Festival]] in western [[North Carolina]] near [[Asheville, North Carolina|Asheville]], as he related in an April 1963 interview on Folk Music Worldwide.<ref>{{Cite web |title=PETE SEEGER - Folk Music Worldwide, 1963 Interview |url=https://www.folkmusicworldwide.com/pete-seeger.html |access-date=2025-01-19 |website=www.folkmusicworldwide.com}}</ref> The festival was organized by local [[folkloristics|folklorist]], lecturer, and traditional music performer [[Bascom Lamar Lunsford]], whom Charles had hired for [[Resettlement Administration|Farm Resettlement]] music projects.{{sfn|Dunaway|2008|pp=48–49}} The festival took place in a covered baseball field. There the Seegers:

<blockquote>watched square-dance teams from [[Bearwallow, North Carolina|Bear Wallow]], Happy Hollow, Cane Creek, Spooks Branch, Cheoah Valley, Bull Creek, and [[Soco Gap]]; heard the five-string banjo player [[Samantha Bumgarner]]; and family string bands, including a group of Indians from the [[Cherokee]] reservation who played string instruments and sang ballads. They wandered among the crowds who camped out at the edge of the field, hearing music being made there as well. As Lunsford's daughter would later recall, those country people "held the riches that Dad had discovered. They could sing, fiddle, pick the banjos, and guitars with traditional grace and style found nowhere else but deep in the mountains. I can still hear those haunting melodies drift over the ball park."{{sfn|Tick|1997|p=239}}</blockquote>

For the Seegers, experiencing the beauty of this music firsthand was a "conversion experience". Pete was deeply affected and, after learning basic plucking technique from Lunsford, spent much of the next four years trying to master the five-string banjo.{{sfn|Dunaway|2008|pp=49-51}} The teenage Seeger also sometimes accompanied his parents to regular Saturday evening gatherings at the [[Greenwich Village]] loft of painter and art teacher [[Thomas Hart Benton (painter)|Thomas Hart Benton]] and his wife Rita. Benton, a lover of Americana, played "[[Cindy (folk song)|Cindy]]" and "[[Old Joe Clark]]" with his students [[Charles Pollock|Charlie]] and [[Jackson Pollock]]; friends from the "[[Old-time music|hillbilly]]" recording industry; and [[avant-garde music|avant-garde]] composers [[Carl Ruggles]] and [[Henry Cowell]]. It was at one of Benton's parties that Pete heard "[[John Henry (folklore)#Music|John Henry]]" for the first time.<ref>Judith Tick, ''Ruth Crawford Seeger'', p. 235. According to John Szwed, Jackson Pollock, later famous for his "drip" paintings, played harmonica, having smashed his violin in frustration, see: ''Alan Lomax: The Man Who Recorded the World'' (Viking, 2010), p. 88.</ref> 

Seeger enrolled at [[Harvard College]] on a partial scholarship, but as he became increasingly involved with politics and folk music, his grades suffered and he lost his scholarship. He dropped out of college in 1938.<ref>{{harvnb|Wilkinson|2006|p=51}}. Seeger reportedly lost his Harvard scholarship after failing one of his winter exams.</ref> He dreamed of a career in journalism and took courses in art as well. His first musical gig was leading students in folk singing at the [[Dalton School]], where his aunt was principal. He polished his performance skills during a summer stint of touring New York state with the Vagabond Puppeteers (Jerry Oberwager, 22; Mary Wallace, 22; and Harriet Holtzman, 23), a traveling [[puppet theater]] "inspired by rural education campaigns of post-revolutionary Mexico".{{sfn|Dunaway|2008|pp=61-63}} One of their shows coincided with a strike by dairy farmers. The group reprised its act in October in New York City. An October 2, 1939 ''[[Daily Worker]]'' article reported on the Puppeteers' six-week tour this way:

{{blockquote|During the entire trip the group never ate once in a restaurant. They slept out at night under the stars and cooked their own meals in the open, very often they were the guests of farmers. At rural affairs and union meetings, the farm women would bring "suppers" and would vie with each other to see who could feed the troupe most, and after the affair the farmers would have earnest discussions about who would have the honor of taking them home for the night.

"They fed us too well", the girls reported. "And we could live the entire winter just by taking advantage of all the offers to spend a week on the farm".

In the farmers' homes they talked about politics and the farmers' problems, about [[antisemitism]] and Unionism, about war and peace and social security—"and always", the puppeteers report, "the farmers wanted to know what can be done to create a stronger unity between themselves and city workers". They felt the need of this more strongly than ever before, and the support of the [[Congress of Industrial Organizations|CIO]] in their milk strike has given them a new understanding and a new respect for the power that lies in solidarity. One summer has convinced us that a minimum of organized effort on the part of city organizations—unions, consumers' bodies, the American Labor Party and similar groups—can not only reach the farmers but weld them into a pretty solid front with city folks that will be one of the best guarantees for progress.<ref>Emery, Lawrence, "Interesting Summer: Young Puppeteers in Unique Tour of Rural Areas", quoted on [https://web.archive.org/web/20060919131726/http://www.peteseeger.net/DW10021939.htm Pete Seeger website]</ref>}}

That fall, Seeger took a job in Washington, D.C., assisting [[Alan Lomax]], a friend of his father's, at the [[Archive of American Folk Song]] of the [[Library of Congress]]. Seeger's job was to help Lomax sift through commercial "[[African American music|race]]" and "[[Old-time music|hillbilly]]" music and select recordings that best represented American folk music, a project funded by the music division of the Pan American Union (later the [[Organization of American States]]), of whose music division his father, Charles Seeger, was head (1938–1953).<ref>The resultant 22-page [[Mimeograph|mimeographed]] "List of American Folk Music on Commercial Recordings", issued in 1940 and mailed by Lomax out to academic folklore scholars, became the basis of [[Harry Everett Smith|Harry Smith's]] celebrated ''[[Anthology of American Folk Music]]'' on [[Folkways Records]]. Seeger also did similar work for Lomax at [[Decca Records|Decca]] in the late 1940s.</ref> Lomax also encouraged Seeger's folk-singing vocation, and Seeger was soon appearing as a regular performer on Alan Lomax and [[Nicholas Ray]]'s weekly [[CBS|Columbia Broadcasting]] show ''Back Where I Come From'' (1940–41) alongside [[Josh White]], [[Burl Ives]], [[Lead Belly]], and [[Woody Guthrie]] (whom he had first met at [[Will Geer]]'s Grapes of Wrath benefit concert for [[migrant workers]] on March 3, 1940). ''Back Where I Come From'' was unique in having a [[Racial integration|racially integrated]] cast.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20081204075941/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,851095,00.html Folk Songs in the White House], ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'', March 3, 1941</ref> The show was a success, but was not picked up by commercial sponsors for nationwide broadcasting because of its integrated cast. 

[[File:PeteSeeger2.jpg|thumb|Pete Seeger entertaining [[Eleanor Roosevelt]] (center), honored guest at a racially integrated Valentine's Day party marking the opening of the United Federal Labor Canteen, [[Congress of Industrial Organizations|CIO]], in then-segregated Washington, D.C., 1944<ref>From the ''Washington Post'', February 12, 1944: "The Labor Canteen, sponsored by the United Federal Workers of America, CIO, will be opened at 8 p.m. tomorrow at 1212 18th st. nw. Mrs. Roosevelt is expected to attend at 8:30 p.m."</ref>]]

From 1942 to 1945, Seeger served in the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] as an Entertainment Specialist, eventually attaining the rank of corporal.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://army.togetherweserved.com/army/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=279850|title=Seeger, Pete, Cpl|website=army.togetherweserved.com|access-date=2020-04-01|archive-date=January 16, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210116132431/https://army.togetherweserved.com/army/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=279850|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=Billboard_article>{{cite magazine |title=Military Questioned Woody Guthrie About Pete Seeger's Wartime Loyalty During WWII |date=19 December 2015 |magazine=Billboard |url=https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/military-fbi-woody-guthrie-pete-seeger-wartime-world-war-two-6813894/}}</ref> He had been initially trained as an airplane mechanic, but was reassigned to entertain American troops with music, including in the [[Pacific Ocean theater of World War II|South Pacific]].<ref name=Billboard_article/> Later, when people asked him what he did in the [[World War II|war]], he always answered, "I strummed my banjo."<ref>{{cite web | last=Minzesheimer | first=Bob | title=Pete Seeger taught America to sing, and think |website=USA TODAY | date=2014-01-28 | url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2014/01/28/pete-seeger-obit-appreciation/4781403/ | access-date=2024-10-27}}</ref> During the war, he also performed on nationwide radio broadcasts by [[Norman Corwin]].

In 1949, Seeger worked as the vocal instructor for the progressive [[City and Country School]] in [[Greenwich Village]], New York.