The Missouri Folklore Society was organized December 15, 1906, "to encourage the collection, preservation and study of folklore in the widest sense, including customs, institutions, beliefs, signs, legends, language, literature, musical arts, and folk arts and crafts of all ethnic groups throughout the
State of Missouri
Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas to t ...
."
The roots of MFS go back to a meeting held in the offices of the English Department at the
University of Missouri
The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...
at the turn of the twentieth century. The "Writer’s Club" expressed interest in "
folksong
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...
s and literary material to be found in Missouri," as reported in the ''M.S.U. Independent'' on March 6, 1903. The
State Historical Society of Missouri
The State Historical Society of Missouri, a private membership and state funded organization, is a comprehensive research facility located in Columbia, Missouri, specializing in the preservation and study of Missouri's cultural heritage. Establ ...
had recently opened its library in what is now Jesse Hall, and the cultural moment had arrived for the development of a new academic field which would blend the materials and methods of many traditional disciplines –
philology
Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defin ...
,
literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
and
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
—as well as connecting to the newer fields of
sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...
and
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
. In literature, the movement that would come to be known as "
local color" and the political disposition known as
populism
Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against " the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term developed ...
worked together to prosper an interest in what
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...
had called for, long ago, in a genuinely American literary culture: rejecting "the courtly muses of Europe" in favor of "the near, the low, the common."
The students of the English Club conceived of what would now be called a project in fieldwork and
salvage ethnography
Salvage ethnography is the recording of the practices and folklore of cultures threatened with extinction, including as a result of modernization. It is generally associated with the American anthropologist Franz Boas; he and his students aimed t ...
; aware that sociological trends did not favor the preservation of materials of limited distribution and held in
oral tradition
Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985 ...
, and probably feeling, as some Midwestern students perhaps continue to do, that their own culture hardly qualified as such in the eyes of more prestigious institutions on the Eastern seaboard, they proposed to gather the lore of Missouri into bound volumes, as an archive for future researchers. This collection project, with leadership from the English Club's faculty sponsor,
Henry Marvin Belden and its secretary-treasurer
Maude Williams would form the basis for the society's single most-cited work, ''Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folklore Society'', publishe
1955; reprinted 1966 and 1973).
The collection project was an item of discussion at the 1905 meeting of the
Modern Language Society in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
, where the fact that ancient ballads continued to be sung in rural areas was received as something of a revelation, though one to which the "popular antiquities" orientation of incipient
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
studies was favorably disposed. In addition to a very local sort of patriotism, the primary warrant for preserving a given text was that it could be traced to a prior tradition (especially one documentable in the British Isles, ideally in
Thomas Percy’s 1765 ''
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
The ''Reliques of Ancient English Poetry'' (sometimes known as ''Reliques of Ancient Poetry'' or simply Percy's ''Reliques'') is a collection of ballads and popular songs collected by Bishop Thomas Percy and published in 1765.
Sources
The basis ...
'' or the ''
English and Scottish Popular Ballads'' (1882-98) of
Francis James Child
Francis James Child (February 1, 1825 – September 11, 1896) was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of English and Scottish ballads now known as the Child Ballads. Child was Boylston professor of ...
. Belden published results of his students’ researches in ''
Modern Philology
''Modern Philology'' is a literary journal that was established in 1903. It publishes scholarly articles on literature, literary scholarship, history, and criticism in all modern world languages and book reviews of recent books as well as review ...
'' and the ''
Journal of American Folklore
The ''Journal of American Folklore'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the American Folklore Society. Since 2003, this has been done on its behalf by the University of Illinois Press. The journal has been published since the society' ...
'', and the club had achieved sufficient stability as to establish itself officially on December 15, 1906.
The innovations here are numerous: the recognition of fieldwork as an academic enterprise, the development of collection and archiving protocols, and the participation of undergraduates in original research (a novelty which lies behind such projects as the
Foxfire books
''Foxfire'' magazine began in 1966, written and published as a quarterly American magazine by students at Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School, a private secondary education school located in the U.S. state of Georgia. At the time ''Foxfire'' began, Rabu ...
, ''Bittersweet'' an
The Chariton Collector. Early proceedings indicate keen awareness of the dual orientations of the society, both to literature and to anthropology. From an early date, there was recognition of the need to collect the lore of the state's Black and Native American communities. The Missouri Folklore Society provided the impetus (and expertise) for other such organizations, notably the Texas Folklore Society. Belden became prominent in national folklore circles, serving as president of the
American Folklore Society
The American Folklore Society (AFS) is the US-based professional association for folklorists, with members from the US, Canada, and around the world, which aims to encourage research, aid in disseminating that research, promote the responsible ...
and working closely with such period luminaries as the anthropologist
Franz Boas
Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical ...
and the literary scholar
George Lyman Kittredge
George Lyman Kittredge (February 28, 1860 – July 23, 1941) was a professor of English literature at Harvard University. His scholarly edition of the works of William Shakespeare was influential in the early 20th century. He was also involved i ...
– again testifying to the new discipline's divided identity. Unfortunately, nothing came of the American Folklore Society's plans, much discussed in 1917, to publish the
Missouri
Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...
collection (which was substantially what it would be on its 1940 appearance).
The society did not participate in the virtual explosion of amateur and academic activity, the formation of organizations and the implementation of collection projects, which extended through the 1920s and 30s. As a result of a combination of factors, including disappointment over the derailment of the organization's signature project, but perhaps primarily because of a failure of continuity in leadership and philosophy, the society "fell into a coma in 1920 from which it has not recovered." Belden became increasingly busy with administrative duties and other research projects, as was the case too with what then seemed a fine choice for Belden's successor
Archer Taylor Mary Alicia Owen
Mary Alicia Owen (January 29, 1850 – January 5, 1935) was an American author and folklore collector in the state of Missouri. She compiled several works of local legend and voodoo.
Early life
Owen was born on January 29, 1850, in St. Joseph ...
, the most prominent of early Missouri collectors and for decades a leader in the society, did not share Belden's focused enthusiasm for folksong, preferring to cast the net much more broadly.
Mary Alicia Owen
Missouri Folklore Society
For these and other reasons, the society as such effectively went silent until 1977, though Missouri folklorists certainly remained active, and Missouri folklore continued to be collected and studied by such as Ward Dorrance, Vance Randolph
Vance Randolph (February 23, 1892 – November 1, 1980) was a folklorist who studied the folklore of the Ozarks in particular. He wrote a number of books on the Ozarks, as well as ''Little Blue Books'' and juvenile fiction.
Early life
Randolph ...
, Joseph Carrière, R.P. Christeson, Rosemary Thomas and others. A group consisting mainly of University of Missouri faculty met on March 30, 1977, for the re-activation of the society. The re-incarnation of MFS, led by Adolph and Rebecca Schroeder, Don Holliday and Cathy Barton (among others), was well-prepared with broad publicity and grass-roots participation from throughout the state. The basic frameworks for the annual ''Missouri Folklore Society Journal'' (long edited b
Donald Lance
and the statewide meeting, to be held each year in a different part of the state, with such prominent keynote speakers as Roger Abrahams and Max Hunter, were established.
Perhaps most importantly for the continued existence and success of the society, there was an explicit recognition of the need to participate in multiple networks of likeminded organizations (for example the Ozarks States Folklore Society), and above all to recognize the legitimate participation of a variety of constituencies and stakeholders in folklore: academic scholars, certainly, but also performers, tradition-bearers, informants -- "amateurs" in the truest and best sense of the word. Each annual meeting has had presentations and participation by such scholars of international standing as John Miles Foley
John Miles Foley (January 22, 1947 – May 3, 2012) was a scholar of comparative oral tradition, particularly medieval and Old English literature, Homer and Serbian epic. He was the founder of the academic journal ''Oral Tradition'' and the Cen ...
Elaine Lawless
Barry Bergey, Alain Jabbour and Jan Harold Brunvand
Jan Harold Brunvand (born March 23, 1933) is a retired American folklorist, researcher, writer, public speaker, and professor emeritus of English at the University of Utah.
Brunvand is best known for popularizing the concept of the urban legend, ...
, as well as reports on collection-efforts by students and members of local historical societies, remembrance sessions, presentations on crafts, and music sessions.
The society has, at the century mark, its largest membership in history, a well-trafficked website which includes a growing repository of studies and documents (Missouri Folklore Studies) and a journal now well past the quarter-century mark.
References
.
External links
The Missouri Folklore Society
{{DEFAULTSORT:Missouri Folklore Society
1906 establishments in Missouri
Historical societies in Missouri
Missouri folklore
Organizations based in Columbia, Missouri
Organizations established in 1906
Professional associations based in the United States