In late June 1942, Stern, Hawes, Lomax and Charlie Polachek, who later became a pioneering television director, moved to Detroit to start a second troup of Almanacs....
In August they entertained at the UAW convention in Chicago; in September they sang at the United Rubber Workers convention in Akron. In October they were back in Chicago, singing for the United Cannery, Agricultural and Packers and Allied Workers of America. But bookings eventually trailed off.
Polacheck found outside employment; Hawes and Lomax returned to New York and were married. Stern persuaded Gordon Friesen and Sis Cunningham to move to Detroit; their departure in December effectively ended the New York group. Members of the Detroit branch eventually found steady employment in war work; after a February 1913 Wayne State University concert featuring Stern, Cunningham and Polachek, the Almanac Singers quietly dissolved.
In New York Guthrie tried to keep the Almanac concept alive by recruiting Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry and even Leadbelly as "The Headline Singers." But Guthrie was ill-equipped to manage any group, and the venture was short-lived.
