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Charles Lafayette Todd
Overview
Charles Lafayette Todd (class of 1933) was a Hamilton College alumnus who later returned to the Hill as Upson Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory. He is notable as a folklorist who collected more than 400 field recordings of “Okie” folk music in migrant labor camps for the Library of Congress, and as a diplomat who worked for the United States Information Agency before joining the Hamilton faculty.
Relevance to Research
Todd appears in the Hamilton Spectator corpus in at least 82 files, from the early 1950s — when he was an alumni figure working for the U.S. Information Agency — through the mid-1960s as an active faculty member. He is particularly significant as a link between Hamilton’s alumni network, Cold War public diplomacy, and American folk music scholarship.
Notes
Role: Alumnus (class of 1933); professor of public speaking / Upson Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory (1959–mid-1960s at minimum)
Key events:
- Graduated from Hamilton College, 1933
- Summers of 1939 and 1940: collected folk songs in migrant Okie labor camps for Alan Lomax and the Library of Congress, contributing over 400 field recordings and folk literature examples
- By 1953: working as an official of the United States Information Agency; visited campus and spoke to Political Science class (November 1953)
- January 1954: organized arrangements for a Hamilton Choir concert to be broadcast to Athens College via the Voice of America, promoting a relationship between the two institutions
- April 1959: appointed professor of public speaking by President Robert W. McEwen; previously president of the International Advisory Council, Inc. (New York), whose clients included USIA, the Free Europe Committee, and Pan-American Airways
- October 1959: gave a lecture at Root Art Center on American folk songs of the Southwest, drawing on his fieldwork with Okie migrants
- October 1960: named Upson Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory by the Board of Trustees
- April 1961: granted tenure; also chaired the Faculty Sesquicentennial Committee and organized a foreign press conference at Hamilton
- 1963 onward: identified in the Spectator masthead section as “C. Lafayette Todd”; served as faculty advisor for WHCL-FM, moderated symposia on folk music (including a 1964 event with Alan Lomax), and served on the Clark Prize Oratorical Contest committee
- Wrote articles on Okie folk music for The New York Times and various books and periodicals
- Also taught interviewing as part of an oral history project to record Hamilton College history on magnetic tape (1960)
Related Sources
Related Topics
- Curriculum and Academic Departments
- Faculty Governance and Academic Affairs
- Student Publications at Hamilton