The Gellert mss., 1927-1978 consists of correspondence and writings by composer Lawrence Gellert (1898-1979). Born in Budapest, Hungary, Gellert migrated to America and grew up in New York City. The family had fled to America in order to prevent their five boys from becoming drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army. While he attended schooling briefly, he dropped out, in part due to lung and rib illnesses as well as challenges with mental health. He recovered in part by moving to Tryon, North Carolina, where he joined a theater group and started to create his own audio recordings of African-American spiritual recitations. Later, Gellert became interested in folk song collections, and began to write for magazines (including Masses, which his brother Hugo edited for) in a column entitled "Negro Protest Songs." These columns and their subsequent publication in book form -- as Negro Songs of Protest (1936) and then Me and My Captain (1939) -- were not without their controversies; while they claimed to collect and curate African-American folk music from around the country, later scholars of folk music found that Gellert sometimes embellished the songs and falsified some of the experiences he claimed to have witnessed during his lifetime and during his collection of songs. Nevertheless, his protest songs remain important in the broader history of American black oral and folk culture.