Betsy Siggins Papers

Background on Betsy Siggins

Betsy Siggins was born on October 1, 1939, the daughter of naval engineer, Francis Minot, and Ellen Le Maire. Siggins grew up in Cotuit, Massachusetts, with her half-sister, Agnes Olney Minot Gilmore, her half-brother, Francis Minot Jr., and her adopted sister, Muriel Minot. Siggins attended Cherry Lawn, a boarding school in Darien, Connecticut, and participated in the Gilbert and Sullivan Players group during the summers. Siggins attended Boston University in 1958, where she met artist, Joan Baez, in her first college drama class, and within a year both friends had dropped out of school, becoming part of the burgeoning musical community in Cambridge and beyond. Crossing the river into Cambridge led Siggins to Club 47 and her future husband, Robert (Bob) Siggins, the banjo player for the Charles River Valley Boys and a neuro-pharmacologist. Bob was also a founding member of Club 47, the most important venue for folk music in the region. The pair married in 1960, and had their daughter, Leah Siggins, in 1965. During these years, Siggins worked full time at Club 47, filling a variety of jobs from office work, to waiter, to art gallery manager, eventually becoming program officer, arranging the schedules for musicians booked by Jim Rooney or Byron Linardos.

A vital part of Club 47, Siggins had contact with various artists such as Jim Kweskin, Eric Von Schmidt, Baez, and Rooney, all of whom helped launch folk revival. Furthermore, she was witness to and participant in some of the pivotal moments of the folk and music activist scenes of the 1960s, including the 1965 concert in Newport, RI, where her friend Bob Dylan preformed. The unique power of music also played a role in connecting people across the social boundaries of the time. Despite the segregation of the era, Club 47 was a place where white northern audiences first encountered African American and blues musicians.

After Club 47 closed in 1968, Siggins worked for multiple nonprofit organizations, including aiding Ralph Rinzler, founder of the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife in Washington, D.C., patterned after earlier festivals he had produced in Newport. During twenty years living in New York City, she founded programs for homeless individuals with AIDS, and worked at various soup kitchens and food pantries. Siggins later returned to Club 47's successor and parent organization, the Passim Folk Music and Cultural Center, where she served as Executive Director from 1997-2009. She helped found the New England Folk Music Archive in 2009, to preserve the history of folk music. Siggins has received numerous awards, including the "Spirit of Folk Award"" at the International Folk Alliance's Annual Convention in Kansas City. Siggins was one of the first people to connect social problems requiring funding and awareness with musical artists who shared her concerns, and she continues her work connecting music and activism to affect social change to this day.