Bess Lomax Hawes: 1921 - 2009

As the youngest child of the song collector John A. Lomax, and a sister of the folklorist and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, Bess Hawes was part of the premier family of American folk scholarship. She assisted her father in his research and had a distinguished career of her own, teaching anthropology and directing the folk arts program at the National Endowment for the Arts. In the 1940s she performed alongside Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie in the Almanac Singers.

Bess Hawes and The Almanacs

After working on the Smithsonian Institution's Festival of American Folklife in 1975 and 1976, she joined the National Endowment for the Arts, where she established the National Heritage Fellowships and a state folklorist program. She retired in 1992 and a year later was awarded the National Medal of the Arts. In 2000 the endowment established the Bess Lomax Hawes Award, which recognizes scholars and arts advocates.