(1886–1979)

biography: Ethnomusicologist, composer, and teacher, born in Mexico City, Mexico. A Harvard graduate (1908), he taught at schools including the Institute of Musical Art in New York (1921–33), the New School for Social Research (1931–5), and the University of California, Los Angeles (1957–61), and was an administrator of the Works Projects Administration Music Project (1938–40). His studies in folk music and his field collecting helped inspire a generation of folk music performers and scholars, among them his children Pete, Peggy, and Mike Seeger. He was married to composer Ruth Crawford.

He graduated from Harvard University in 1908, then studied and conducted in Cologne before taking a position as Professor of Music at the University of California at Berkeley, where he taught from 1912 to 1916 before being dismissed for his public opposition to the US entry into World War I, where his brother, Alan Seeger was killed in action on July 4, 1916 while serving as a member of the French Foreign Legion .