Margaret MacArthur

Born in Chicago in 1928, she spent her childhood moving around the United States before settling in Vermont in the late 1940s. There she became closely connected to traditional music, learning from older singers in the region and building a life around collecting, performing, and teaching folk songs.

She became especially known for her Vermont ballads, her field recordings, and her skill on the lap dulcimer and the instrument often called the MacArthur Harp. Sources from the Library of Congress, Smithsonian Folkways, and Vermont Folklife describe her as both a performer and a collector who helped preserve songs that might otherwise have been lost.

Over the years, she recorded widely, appeared at the Library of Congress, and left behind an important archive of recordings and papers now held in Vermont. She died in 2006, but her music and collecting work continue to shape how listeners discover traditional song in New England.