The collection features material of both famous and lesser known writers, poets, documentarians, ethnographers, and grass roots musicians from around the world. The series Folkways Records includes a diversity of documentary, audio, visual, and business materials from Folkways Records, one of the most influential record labels of the twentieth century. American folk icon Woody Guthrie recorded on Folkways, and the collection includes selections of his correspondence, lyrics, drawings, and writings in the series The Woody Guthrie Papers. With the mission of representing an “encyclopedia of sound,” the Moses and Frances Asch Collection (1926-1987) serves as a unique testament to the breadth and depth of the twentieth-century human experience.