Margot Mayo

Margot Mayo
Margot Mayo (between 1938 and 1950)
BornMay 30, 1910 Edit this on Wikidata
Commerce Edit this on Wikidata
DiedMay 1974 Edit this on Wikidata (aged 63–64)
New York City Edit this on Wikidata
OccupationDance teacher, collector of folk music Edit this on Wikidata
Parent(s)
  • William Leonidas Mayo Edit this on Wikidata

Margot Mayo (May 30, 1910 – May 1974) was an American dance instructor, educator, and collector of folk music.

Early life

Margot Mayo was born Margaret Melba Mayo on May 30, 1910, in Commerce, Texas, the youngest of eight children of William Leonidas Mayo, the founding president of East Texas Normal College.[1][2][3]

Career

She was a key figure in the 1940s New York City revival of folk dancing and square dancing and American folk music.[4] She was founder of the American Square Dance Group in 1934 and editor of its magazine, Promenade, and published the manual The American Square Dance in 1943.[1] She and her American Square Dance Group perform on the 1947 Pete Seeger documentary To Hear Your Banjo Play.[5]

The folk revival in New York City was rooted in the resurgent interest in square dancing and folk dancing there in the 1940s, which gave musicians such as Pete Seeger popular exposure.[6][7][8]

Margot Mayo introduced Pete Seeger to his future wife, Toshi, who was in Mayo's square dance troupe. "They were a match since they met at a square dance in 1938."[9]

Margot Mayo was also a teacher of music and dance at Woodward School, a progressive private elementary school in downtown Brooklyn. Among her students was Arlo Guthrie, who learned many of Woody Guthrie's songs at school, and was surprised that other people knew his father's songs better than he did.[10]

Personal life

Margo Mayo lived with her sister Gladys who was a piano teacher and piano faculty member at Juilliard School of Music from 1921 to 1950. They lived near Juilliard on Riverside Drive.

Death

Margot Mayo died in May 1974 in New York City.

Selected bibliography

  • Mayo, Margot (1943). The American Square Dance. New York: Sentinel books.

References

  1. ^ a b "Margot Mayo." Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors, Gale, 2002. Gale Literature Resource Center. Accessed 29 Jan. 2020.
  2. ^ HARPER, CECIL (2010-06-15). "MAYO, WILLIAM LEONIDAS". tshaonline.org. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
  3. ^ "Mayo Family Collection", Texas A&M University-Commerce Libraries. Accessed March 16, 2021.
  4. ^ John Szwed (30 December 2010). Alan Lomax: The Man Who Recorded the World. Penguin Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-101-19034-0.
  5. ^ Irving Lerner, Willard Van Dyke, To Hear Your Banjo Play - 1947with Pete Seeger and Margot Mayo's American Square Dance Group, retrieved 2020-01-29
  6. ^ Szwed, John, Alan Lomax: The Man who Recorded Music, Penguin, 2010. Cf. p.144: "Margot Mayo was a Texan who pioneered folk music in New York and spearheaded the revival of folk dancing and square dancing there in the 1940s"
  7. ^ Cf. Cantwell, Robert, When We Were Good (1996), pp. 110, 253.
  8. ^ "To Hear Your Banjo Play", film short, 1947 with Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Sonny Terry, Margot Mayo's American Square Dance Group and others. Written by Alan Lomax and narrated by Pete Seeger.
  9. ^ Beard, David (July 13, 2013). "Toshi Seeger, wife and muse of Pete Seeger, dies at 91, Washington Post". The Washington Post.
  10. ^ Montgomery, Bert (1992). "Arlo 2: Learning Woody song at school".