Home |  PublicationsEncyclopedia |  Cunningham, Agnes

The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

CUNNINGHAM, AGNES (1909–2004).

Agnes "Sis" Cunningham was born in Watonga, Blaine County, Oklahoma, on February 19, 1909, to William and Ada Boyce Cunningham. She grew up on a small farm that had been homesteaded by her parents around the turn of the twentieth century. Agnes's father was a socialist and follower of Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party leader in 1901. Agnes Cunningham studied music at Weatherford Teachers College (now Southwestern Oklahoma State University) in Weatherford, Oklahoma, in 1929. After she graduated, she taught music in the public school system. In 1932 she sought training in socialist doctrine at Commonwealth Labor College, a radical labor school in Mena, Arkansas. There she began writing labor songs and learned the elements of social theater. She also trained in union methods, organizing techniques, labor journalism, and labor-farmer union developments. After finishing her course work, she returned to Oklahoma and recruited for the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union.

In the 1930s Agnes Cunningham helped organize the Red Dust Players, an agitprop theater group, whose members presented short plays promoting political agitation and propaganda. The Red Dust Players performed at union meetings throughout the Oklahoma countryside to educate farm workers, sharecroppers, and tenant farmers on ways in which the union could better their lives.

In 1941 Cunningham married Gordon Friesen, a free-lance writer. The couple moved to New York City, and she became involved with the Almanac Singers, whose membership included Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and Lee Hayes. The Friesens soon moved to Detroit, and Agnes became an active worker for the Communist Party in the 1940s. By the 1950s she had returned to New York, and she worked with folk groups and published Broadsides, a magazine promoting young songwriters. The Friesens came under investigation by the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee but were never called to testify. Agnes Cunningham Friesen died in New Paltz, New York, on June 27, 2004.

Suzanne H. Schrems

Bibliography

Agnes "Sis" Cunningham and Gordon Friesen, Red Dust and Broadsides (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999).

Madeline B. Rose, "Sis Cunningham: Songs of Hard Times," Ms. Magazine 2 (March 1974).

Suzanne H. Schrems, "Radicalism and Song," The Chronicles of Oklahoma 62 (Summer 1984).


Citation

The following (as per The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition) is the preferred citation for articles:
Suzanne H. Schrems, “Cunningham, Agnes,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=CU003.

Published January 15, 2010

Copyright and Terms of Use

No part of this site may be construed as in the public domain.

Copyright to all articles and other content in the online and print versions of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History is held by the Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS). This includes individual articles (copyright to OHS by author assignment) and corporately (as a complete body of work), including web design, graphics, searching functions, and listing/browsing methods. Copyright to all of these materials is protected under United States and International law.

Users agree not to download, copy, modify, sell, lease, rent, reprint, or otherwise distribute these materials, or to link to these materials on another web site, without authorization of the Oklahoma Historical Society. Individual users must determine if their use of the Materials falls under United States copyright law's "Fair Use" guidelines and does not infringe on the proprietary rights of the Oklahoma Historical Society as the legal copyright holder of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and part or in whole.