7 Pete Seeger 7music making). As a solo performer, Seeger was still a victim
of blacklisting, especially after his 1961 conviction for
contempt of Congress stemming from his refusal in 1955
to answer questions posed to him by the House Committee
on Un-American Activities concerning his political activities.
Although Seeger’s conviction was overturned the following
year in an appeal, for several years afterward the major net-
works refused to allow him to make television appearances.
In later years the controversy surrounding the performer
gradually subsided.
A beloved fixture at folk festivals, Seeger was given
major credit for fostering the growth of the hootenanny (a
gathering of performers playing and singing for each other,
often with audience participation) as a characteristically
informal and personal style of entertainment. Among the
many songs that he wrote himself or in collaboration with
others were “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” “If I
Had a Hammer,” “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine,” and “Turn,
Turn, Turn.” His The Incompleat Folksinger (1972) is a collection
of his writings on the history of folk songs, civil rights, and
performers in his lifetime.
In the 1970s and ’80s he was active in a program to
remove pollution from the Hudson River, building the
Hudson River sloop Clearwater, promoting festivals for
its maintenance, and engaging in environmental demon-
strations, particularly antinuclear ones. During this period
Seeger also performed regularly with singer-songwriter
Arlo Guthrie, Woody Guthrie’s son. By the 1990s Seeger
had transcended the accusations of the McCarthy era, and
he was regarded as a cherished American institution. The
motto inscribed on his banjo—“This machine surrounds
hate and forces it to surrender”—seemed to have been
proven correct. In 1994 he was awarded a National Medal
of Arts, the first of many honours that he received as the
century approached its turn. Seeger was inducted into