Archives and Creative Process: Blues Women and Rosetta Records (2024-2025)
Building on the work of the 2023-2024 project team, this team explored the legacy of Rosetta Reitz, a pioneering activist, writer and businesswoman who founded Rosetta Records to preserve and promote the contributions of Black women blues artists from the 1920s and ’30s.
Drawing on the Rosetta Reitz archival collection at the Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the team combined historical, archival, cultural and digital methods to interrogate the racial and gendered dynamics of musical memory, cultural erasure and reparative justice. Their work took place against the backdrop of ongoing disparities in how women and artists of color are recognized – or omitted – in the music industry.
Team members conducted extensive biographical and archival research on the women artists featured on Rosetta Records, particularly those with little prior scholarly attention. They transcribed and analyzed lyrics, mapped recording geographies, examined visual and cultural representations in album artwork, and researched legal and ethical questions surrounding reissues and royalties.
Their work culminated in two high-profile presentations: a scholarly panel on care ethics in archival research at the Care Ethics Research Consortium in the Netherlands, and an interactive mapping and visual analysis presentation at the Bass Connections Showcase.
Importantly, this project also continued to create spaces for public dialogue and collaboration through listening sessions, performances and academic-community conversations. By modeling “methodologies of care” in archival work, the team offered a framework for how scholars and students can engage responsibly with the legacies of overlooked artists.
Timing
Fall 2024 – Spring 2025
Team Outputs
“The Challenges of Care in a Blues and Jazz Archive,” Presentation at the Care Ethics Research Consortium Conference, Utrecht, The Netherlands, January 2025
Presentation at the Arts Research: Incubation & Acceleration program, University of Michigan, Spring 2025
Research on blues geographies and legal and policy issues in the music industry
Digitization of musical recordings, transcription of lyrics
Musicological analysis of recordings
Cultural analysis of album artwork and other visual representations of blues performers
This Team in the News
Care Ethics and the Power of Bass Connections
See related teams, Rosetta Reitz’s Musical Archive of Care (2023-2024) and Activism, Music, and the Rosetta Reitz Archive (2025-2026).
Image: Mean Mothers Vinyl Album, Rosetta Records, 1980, from Duke University Libraries