Malvina Reynolds Guitar

Malvina Reynolds Guitar

Music

This guitar belonged to American folk and blues singer/songwriter, Malvina Reynolds. Reynolds, who was the child of Jewish Socialist immigrants and married a labor organizer, was a lifelong activist and composed a number of socially conscious tunes about civil rights, labor, nuclear war and the environment. Her most well-known songs were "Little Boxes," which critiqued the stultifying homogeneity of suburbia, and the children's hit, "Mornington Ride."

The instrument pictured here is a model of Guitarras Espanolas by Vicente Tatay brand guitars. This acoustic guitar type was a popular accompaniment in classical, flamenco, and folk music of the 1950s and 1960s. While the Vicente Tatay brand originated in Barcelona, Spain, Tatay’s son Andrew Tatay Tomas moved the brand’s office to New York, producing Guitarras Esponolas model guitar for an American public.

Vicente Tatay

Roz Payne

Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

ca. 1960s

Physical Object