Collection comprises sound recordings, recording logs, and transcripts of song texts, correspondence (1938), field notes, reports, and ethnographic information from a field recording trip made by Robert Sonkin to Shell Pile, near Port Norris, New Jersey, and from there to Gee's Bend and other locations in Alabama in June-July 1941. Sonkin's field notes describe the African-American community of Shell Pile, named for the oyster shucking industry established there. Sonkin recorded African-American quartets performing gospel music in Shell Pile, N.J. June 25, 1941. However, most sound recordings in this collection were made in various locations in Gee's Bend, Alabama, and document African-American prayer meetings, sermons, gospel music, spirituals, hymns, jubilee quartet singing, blues, school children singing, recitations, as well as conversations. These include discussions about health and home remedies, about the Gee's Bend school, and about the Farm Security Administration (FSA) Gee's Bend project. Narratives by two former slaves, Isom Moseley and Alice Gaston, were recorded in Gee's Bend on July 21, 1941. Sonkin also recorded gospel quartet music in Bessemer, Alabama; interviews in Camden, Alabama; hymns in Rehoboth and Greensboro, Alabama; conversation in Palmerdale, Alabama; and blues in Selma, Alabama. There are typescript copies of research materials about Gee's Bend, Alabama, (1937-1939 and undated) including a paper, "An exploratory study of the customs, attitudes and folkways of the people in the community of Gee's Bend," by Nathaniel S. Colley of the Tuskegee Institute. Other reports in the collection on farm production, the construction of new housing and barns, home economics, and community health were issued by government agencies including the Farm Security Administration, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, which administered the Gee's Bend Project.