William Roy MacKenzie (commonly known as W. Roy MacKenzie) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

folklorist Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...

and writer who collected songs and ballads in

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

in the early 20th century.

Influence of Francis Child

While at Harvard, MacKenzie was among members of an increasingly prominent group of English professors influenced by the work 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 r ...

, an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

folklorist who collected what is now known as the Child Ballads.

Song collecting in Nova Scotia

MacKenzie was the first of several people to collect songs in Nova Scotia, and his ''Ballads and Sea Songs'' remains an important collection of the province's

traditional music 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 ...

. In his introduction to MacKenzie's 1909 article in the Journal of American Folklore, Kittredge noted that,

"The conditions in Nova Scotia have been such as to render the evidence which acKenziehas collected highly typical. Several processes which we are often obliged to infer or to conjecture with respect to the course of tradition through long periods of time, have there gone on with such rapidity that their history may be followed by means of the recollection of living persons."

His work influenced

Helen Creighton Mary Helen Creighton, CM (September 5, 1899 – December 12, 1989) was a prominent Canadian folklorist. She collected over 4,000 traditional songs, stories, and beliefs in a career that spanned several decades, and she published many books and ar ...

, one of

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

's most prolific song collectors.Creighton, H. (1975), p. 48. MacKenzie and Creighton are the most prominent collectors of Nova Scotia traditional songs, but others, such as Louise Manny, collected songs in the province as well.

Notes

References

*Creighton, H. (1975). ''A life in folklore.'' Toronto, Montreal: McGraw-Hill Ryerson. *Kallmann, H. (2008)
"MacKenzie, William Roy"
In ''Encyclopedia of Music in Canada.'' Historica Foundation of Canada. *MacKenzie, W.R. (1909). Ballad-singing in Nova Scotia. ''The Journal of American Folklore (22)''85, 327–331. *MacKenzie, W.R. (1963). ''Ballads and sea songs from Nova Scotia.'' Hatboro, PA: Folklore Associates. 421 p. * Wilgus, D.K. (1959). ''Anglo-American folk song scholarship since 1898.'' New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. ''xx'', 466 p. 1883 births 1957 deaths Canadian folklorists Canadian expatriates in the United States Harvard University alumni Dalhousie University alumni {{canada-writer-stub