In 1965, the classically trained musician and composer Kenneth Peacock published a three-volume work, Songs of the Newfoundland Outports, based on six years of collecting folksongs in that province on behalf of the National Museum of Canada. Folksongs and Folk Revivial provides a critical review of Peacock's Newfoundland fieldwork to better understand his motivations for creating Outports and his treatment of the materials he collected.
The study considers the cultural politics of the day, such as National Museum policies and directions, and, in particular, how the growth of the Canadian folk revival during the 1950s and 1960s influenced his work. It considers the dynamic relations between Peacock and other individuals who had a vested interest in documenting and presenting Newfoundland culture. New knowledge regarding Peacock's life and times facilitates our understanding of this man's immense contribution to both Newfoundland and Canadian folklore scholarship while at the same time allowing researchers to make greater use of the materials he so diligently collected.
