Reference Books on Folklore
Interior Photo Irondale Missouri Flour Mill, circa 1920. This photograph shows two men posing inside a flour mill with four bags of their product. The bags bear the name of the Irondale Roller Mills and the Williams Moran Milling Company, and include their Split Silk, Corn Meal, and Morning Glory "Milled from Selected Soft Wheat.
Reference Books on Folklore 1. Selected Bibliography on American Folklore. 2. Selected Bibliography on Urban Folklore. 3. Selected Bibliography on Phrase, Expressions & Word Origins. 4. A Select (with Caution) Book on American Folklore. 5. Books that Fall out of the Realm of Living History, First-Person Interpretation, and Creditable Material for Public Programs.
1. Selected Bibliography on American Folklore. Axlerod, Alan, Oster, Harry, Rawls, Walton H., Penguin Dictionary of American Folklore. Battle, Kemp Plummer, Illustrated by John Battle, Great American Folklore: Legends, Tales, Ballads and Superstitions From All Across America, Doubleday, New York, 1986. Bluestein, Gene, The Voice of the Folk. Folklore and American Literary Theory, Amherst: Univ. Massachusetts Press, Massachusetts, 1972. Boatwright, Mody C., Family Saga and Other Phases of American Folklore, Urbana, Illinois, University of Illinois Press, 1958. First edition, 1958. Botkin, B. A., The Pocket Treasury of American Folklore, Pocket Books, 1950. Botkin, B. A., Sidewalks of America: A Treasury of American Folklore: A collection of folklore, legends, sagas, traditions, customs, songs, stories and sayings of city folk, Bobbs-Merrill Indianapolis 1954 First Edition. Botkin, B. A. (Benjamin Albert), Foreword by Carl Sandburg, A Treasury of American Folklore Stories, Ballads, and Traditions of the People, Crown Publishers New York, New York, 1944, July 1945. New York, American Legacy Press, 1989. Botkin B.A., Editor and Introduction, A Treasury of Mississippi Folklore: Stories, Ballads and Traditions of the mid-American River Country, Random House, New York, 1956. Botkin, Benjamin A, A Treasury of Railroad Folklore : The Stories, Tall Tales, Traditions, Ballads, and Songs of the American Railroad Man, New York, New York, Random House Value Publishing, Incorporated, 1989. Botkin, Ben and Carl Withers, Illustrated Book of American Folklore, Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1958. Brown, Carolyn Schmidt, The Tall Tale: In American Folklore and Literature, Knoxville, Tennessee, The University of Tennessee Press, 1989. Brunvand, Jan Harold, Editor, Readings In American Folklore, New York, Norton 1979. Brunvand, Jan Harold, The Study of American Folklore: an introduction, Norton, New York, 1978, 1986. Coffin, Tristram Potter, Our Living Traditions, Intro.To American Folklore, Copyright 1968 by Tristram Potter Coffin. Basic Books Inc. Publishers. Davidson, Levette J., A Guide to American Folklore, Univ. of Denver Press, 1951. Dorson, Richard M., American Folklore, Univ. of Chicago Press Chicago, 1959. Dorson, Richard M., American Folklore and the Historian, University of Chicago Press, 1971. Dorson, Richard M., editor, Handbook of American Folklore, Bloomington, Indiana, U.S.A.: Indiana University Press, 1983. Dundes, Alan, Mother wit from the laughing barrel readings in the interpretation of Afro-American folklore, Prentice-Hall 1972; 1972, 1973. Feintuch, Burt (editor), The Conservation of Culture - Folklorists & The Public Sector [American Folklore], University of Kentucky, 1988. Flanagan, John T. & Hudson, Arthur Palmer (Editors), Illustrated by Headings and Old-Style Cuts Furnished By Ray H. Abrams, Folklore in American Literature: An Anthology, Evanston, Illinois, Row, Peterson and Company, 1958. Knapp, Herbert; Knapp, Mary, One Potato, Two Potato: The Folklore of American Children, New York, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, Incorporated, 1978. Leary, James P. compiler, Midwestern Folk Humor; American Folklore Series, Little Rock, Arkansas, August House Publishers, 1991. Lee, Hector H. and Donald Roberson, Lore of Our Land: A Book of American Folklore, Evanston, Illinois, Harper & Row, 1963. Life Editors, Illustrated by Lewicki, James Embrace, Sandra Brown, Life Treasury of American Folklore, New York: Time Inc. 1961 Polley, Jane, editor for Readers Digest, American Folklore and Legend: The Saga Of Our Heroes And Heroines, Our Braggers, Boosters And Bad Men, Our Beliefs And Superstitions, Reader's Digest, Pleasantville, New York, Montreal, Reader's Digest Association, 1978, First Printing. Readers Digest July 1981. Schwartz,Alvin (editor), Stephen Gammell illustrations, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Collected from American Folklore, New York, J.B. Lippincott, 1981. Schwartz, Alvin, Tomfoolery, Trickery, And Foolery With Words Collected From American Folklore, Lippincott,1973. Schwartz, Alvin, Whoppers Tall Tales And Other Lies Collected From American Folklore, Harper Trophy, [1975], 1990 printing. Schwartz, Alvin, Witcracks Jokes and Jests from American Folklore, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1973. Shapiro, Irwin, illustrated By James Daugherty, Heroes In American Folklore, Julian Messner, 1962, 5th printing 1968. Tallman, Marjorie, Dictionary Of American Folklore, Philosophical Library, New York,1959. Yoder, Don, editor, American Folklore, University of Texas Press, Texas, 1977. Zeitlin, Steven J., and Kotkin, Amy J., and Baker, Holly Cutting, A Celebration Of American Family Folklore: Tales And Traditions From The Smithsonian Collection, New York, Pantheon Books, 1982.
2. Selected Bibliography on Urban Folklore. Abrahams, Roger D., Deep Down in the Jungle: Negro Narrative Folklore From the Streets of Philadelphia, New York, Aldine Publishing Company, 1970. Abrams, Charles (with The Assistance Of Robert Kolodny), The Language of Cities: A Glossary of Terms, New York & London, The Viking Press, 1971. Alotta, Robert I., Mermaids, Monasteries, Cherokees and Custer: The Stories Behind, Philadelphia Street Names. Chicago, Illinois, Bonus Books, Inc., 1990. Ashton, John, Modern Street Ballads, with fifty-six illustrations, Chatto & Windus, 1888. Bielski, Ursula, Illustrated by Photograph Copies, Chicago Haunts: Ghost of the Windy City, Chicago, Illinois, Lake Claremont Press, 1998. Botkin, B.A., New York City Folklore: legends, tall tales, anecdotes, stories, sagas, heroes and characters, customs, traditions, and Sayings, New York, Random House, 1956. Botkin, B.A. (editor) et al, Sidewalks of America: Folklore, Legends, Sagas, Traditions, Customs, songs, Stories and Sayings of City Folk, Indianapolis, Indiana, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1954. Bradby, Marie, Soentpiet, Chris K. (illustrator), Momma, Where Are You From?, New York, Scholastic, Incorporated, 2000. Brown, Yorick and Mike Flynn, The Best Book of Urban Myths Ever! London, Carlton Books Limited, 1999. Brunvand, Jan Harold, Baby Train: And Other Lusty Urban Legends, New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 1993. Brunvand, Jan Harold, The Choking Doberman And Other "New" Urban Legends, W.W. Norton, New York, 1986. Brunvand, Jan Harold, Curses! Broiled Again! The Hottest Urban Legends Going, New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 1989. Brunvand, Jan Harold, Encyclopedia of Urban Legends, Santa Barbara, California, 2001. Brunvand, Jan Harold, The Mexican Pet: More "New" Urban Legends and Some Old Favorites, New York-London, W.W. Norton & Company,1986. Brunvand, Jan Harold, Study of American Folklore, An Introduction, W. W. Norton, New York, 1968. Brunvand, Jan Harold, Too Good to Be True: The Colossal Book of Urban Legends, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, Incorporated, 2001. Brunvand, Jan Harold, The Truth Never Stands in the Way of a Good Story, Urbana, University of Illinois, 2000. Brunvand Jan Harold, The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings, W.W. Norton, New York, 1981. Clary, David A., Before and After Roswell: The Flying Saucer in America, 1947-1999, 1999. Cohen, Daniel, Illustrated by Brier, Peggy. Southern Fried Rats and Other Gruesome Tales, New York, M. Evans, 1983. Coleman, Loren, Mysterious America, London & Boston, Faber and Faber, 1983. Courlander, Harold, A Treasury of Afro-American Folklore Marlowe & Co., New York, 1996. Craughwell, Thomas J., Alligators in the Sewer and 222 Other Urban Legends, New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 1999. Davis, Hubert J., The Silver Bullet and other American Witch Stories, Jonathan David, Middle Village, New York, 1975 Dorson, Richard M., Land Of The Millrats, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Press, 1981. Dundes, Alan (editor), The Cockfight A Casebook, University of Wisconsin Press 1994. Dundes, Alan and Pagter, Carl R., Sometimes the Dragon Wins, Syracuse, New York, Syracuse University Press, 1996. Dundes, Alan, and Carl R. Pagter, When You're Up to Your Ass in Alligators: More Urban Folklore From the Paperwork Empire, Wayne State University. Press Detroit, Michigan, 1987. Dundes, Alan, Work Hard And You Shall Be Rewarded, Indian University Press, 1975. Fine, Gary Alan, and Turner, Patricia A., Whispers on the Color Line: Rumor and Race in America, Berkeley, California, University of California Press, 2001. Fleming, Robert; Boyd, R., Jr., The Big Book of Urban Legends: 200 True Stories Too Good To Be True! (Factoid Books Big Book Series), New York, DC Comics, 1995. Francis Grieg, Heads You Lose and Other Apocryphal Tales, New York, Crown Publishers, 1981. Genge, N. E., Urban Legends: The As-Complete-As-One-Could-Be Guide to Modern Myths, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Crown Publishing Group, 1989. Goldstruck, Arthur, The Leopard in the Luggage: Urban Legends from Southern Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa, Penguin, 1993. Helmer, J. & N.A. Eddington (editors.) Urbanman. The Psychology of Urban Survival, New York 1973. Horan, Julie L., The Porcelain God: a Social History of the Toilet, London, Robeson Books, 1996. Hufford, Mary, editor.. Conserving Culture: A New Discourse on Heritage, A Publication of the American Folklore Society, New Series, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, for the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, 1994. Jagendorf, M.A, The Ghost of Peg-Leg Peter and Other Stories of Old New York, New York, Vanguard, 1965. Jones, Rodney R.; Gerald F. Uelman, editors., illustrated. Lee Lorenz, Supreme Folly, Norton, New York, 1990. Paredes, Americo (editor). Journal of American Folklore: "The Urban American Dowser", The Function of Magic Folk Belief among Texas Coastal Fisherman", "The Middle Way of the Jataka Tales", "Children's Derogatory Epithets" and more, Volume 82 Number 325, July-September 1969. Paredes, Américo and Ellen J. Stekert, editors, The Urban Experience and Folk Tradition, Austin, Texas, The University of Texas Press, 1971. Patai, Raphael, Myth and Modern Man, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1972. Patricia A. Turner, I Heard It Through the Grapevine: Rumor African-American Culture, University California Press, Berkeley, California, 1994. Peters, Harry T., Illustrated by with black & white and color Illustrations, Currier & Ives: Printmakers to American People, New York, Doubleday Doran, 1942. Pressel, Frank Richard, The Great American Outlaw: A Legacy of Fact and Fiction, Norman and London, University of Oklahoma, 1993. Roeper, Richard, Hollywood Urban Legends: The Truth Behind All Those Delightfully Persistent Myths of Film, Television and Music, Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, Career Press, Incorporated, 2001. Roeper, Richard, Urban Legends: The Truth Behind All Those Deliciously Entertaining Myths That Are Absolutely, Positively, 100% Not True! Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, Career Press, Incorporated, 1999. Rose, Dan, Black American Street Life: South Philadelphia, 1969-1971, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987. Roszak, Theodore, The Cult of Information: Folklore of Computers & True Art of Thinking, New York, Pantheon Books, 1986. San Souci, Robert D., illustrated by Katherine Coville; Jacqueline Rogers, Even More Short and Shivery: The Mouse Tower; The Devil and Tom Walker; The Greedy Daughter; The Pirate; The Golden Arm; The Serpent Woman; Loft the Enchanter; The Accursed House; Escape Up a Tree; The Headrest; The Thing in the Woods; King of the Cats, New York, Scholastic Books, 1998. Schechter, Harold, The Bosom Serpent: Folklore & Popular Art, Iowa City, Iowa, University Of Iowa Press, 1988. Schwartz, Alvin, Illustrated by Gammell, Stephen, More Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark, Harper Collins, 1986. Schwartz, Alvin, Illustrated by Stephen Gammell, Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones, Harper Trophy, 1991. Scott, Bill, Pelicans & Chihuahuas and Other Urban Legends Brisbane, Queensland, University of Queensland, Australia, 1996. Thompson, Julius E., The Black Press In Mississippi, 1865-1985: A Directory, Locust Hill Press, West Cornwall, 1988. Toropov, Brandon, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Urban Legends: Complete Idiot's Guides Series, Indianapolis, Indiana, Macmillan, 2001. Wachs, Eleanor, Crime-Victim Stories: New York City's Urban Folklore, Bloomington, Indiana, University Press, 1988. Wepman, Dennis, The life; The Lore and Folk Poetry of the Black Hustler, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1976. Whitlow, Roger, Black American Literature: A Critical History, Totowa, New Jersey, Helix Books, 1984. Young,Richard and Judy Dockrey (Collected By), The Scary Story Reader: Forty-One of the Scariest Stories for Sleepovers, Campfires, Car & Bus Trips-Even for First, Dates, August House, Little Rock, Arkansas, 1993.
3. Selected Bibliography on Phrase, Expressions & Word Origins. Blumberg, Dorothy Rose, Whose What?, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969. Funk, Charles Earle, Heavens To Betsy And Other Curious Sayings (And More Than 400 Other Colorful Words and Their Origins), New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, 1955, Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York 1955, Harper Perennial 1986. Funk, Charles Earle, 2107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings and Expressions, Galahad Books, 1993. Funk, Charles Earle, and Charles Earle Funk, Jr., illustrated. by Tom Funk, Horsefeathers and More Than 600 Other Curious Words and Their Origins, New York, Harper & Row, 1958, New York, Warner, 1972. Funk, Charles Earle, Illustrated by Tom Funk, A Hog On Ice & Other Curious Expressions (The Origin & Development of the Pungent & Colorful Phrases We All Use), Harper & Brothers, New York, 1948, London, John Murray, 1950, New York Paperback Library 1972. New York, Harper Colphon Books, 1985. Funk, Charles Earle, Thereby Hangs A Tale, Hundreds of Stories of Curious Old World Word Origins, New York, Harper & Row 1950, Warner Paperback, 1972, Harper & Row New York, 1985, Perennial Library, Harper & Row, 1993. Funk, Charles Earle, What's the Name, Please?: A Guide to the Correct Pronunciation of Current Prominent Names, New York, Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1936, revised edition, New York, Funk & Wagnalls,1938. Hendrickson, Robert, Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, New York, Facts on File Publications, 1987. Holt, Alfred Hubbard, Phrase and Word Origins, A Study of Familiar Expressions, Dover Publications, New York, 1961. Morris, William and Mary, Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, 2 volumes, Harper & Row, 1967. Weekley, Ernest, An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 2 volumes, Dover Publications New York, 1967.
4. A Select (with Caution) Book on American Folklore. Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916) Russian-Jewish author, born in Pereyaslev, Ukraine. The problems of 1905 drove him to the United States, where he worked as a playwright in Yiddish theater. The musical Fiddler on the Roof was based upon one of his Yiddish stories. I think he may have once said something to the effect: To tell an off-colored joke and for that joke to be successful (that means for people to laugh), you have to have at least one or more of the following elements: A bald head, a small penis, a big ass, and huge breasts. The following book has at least one of these elements, a penis, at least a lot of them, and perhaps a large number of the other elements that make a story or a joke successful. Randolph, Vance, Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folktales, introduction by Rayna Green, annotations by Frank A. Hoffmann, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1976. The Philadelphia Folk Song Society is quoted at saying, "One of the rarest of all scholarly works...one that you'll fall off your chair from reading." 40 years collection of Ozark bawdy tales that until now were only available by passing from hand to hand. In the Preface, Randolph defends printing the authentic language of the folk tales despite attempts by editors to 'sanitize' it: "There are, in modern American English, some twenty-five words which refer to the excretory and sexual functions. Tolerated in common speech, these terms are considered offensive in print. About twenty of them are taboo to the extent that they do not appear in ordinary dictionaries.... Many folk tales.........depend [on these words] for effect. Translate a vernacular legend into the language of the schools, and it is no longer a folk tale. An honest folklorist cannot substitute feces for shit, or write copulate when his informant says fuck, diddle, roger, or tread. Why should one employ such a noun as penis, if the narrator prefers pecker, horn, jemson or tally whacker. Many of these stories are innocent, even childish, but they do contain vulgar terms like cunt and twitchet..........t is impossible to present a well-rounded picture of Ozark folklore without some obscene items. The Ozark hill folk seldom tell ribald stories in mixed company, as many city people do. They have their own ideas of propriety, and are often shocked by innocuous urban conversation. The old-timers feel that sexual and scatological topics have no place in casual talk between men and women, unless the parties concerned are very intimately acquainted. Most of the bawdy tales which I have collected were told by adult males when no womenfolk were about, or by women who had mingled with outsiders. Such stories are not aphrodisiac, or intended to incite antisocial sex activity. They merely evoke laughter...." (pages 3-4). I witnessed a National Park Service interpretive program on mountain folklore in which the Park Ranger used Mr. Randolph's book Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folktales. She seemed to think it was the best thing since the invention of white bread. However, my National Park Service training has taught me that it borders beyond the realm of controversial material that has no place in public programs. At least one of its 110 chapters or stories deals with the miller, chapter or story 66, the miller's prick. Need I say any more? Vance Randolph Collection - Library of Congress, Washington, D. C., Vance Randolph's papers, photographs, and field recordings of Ozark folk music, 1930's-1960's. In 1941 the Archive of Folk Culture commissioned Vance Randolph to undertake a recording expedition in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas. The folklorist recorded many of the songs--in some cases performed by the same singers that he had encountered in the late 1920's and 1930's as he researched Ozark Folksongs. Randolph's 200 disc recordings include approximately 170 fiddle tunes and banjo pieces, which he has identified by title in "The Names of Ozark Fiddle Tunes," in Midwest Folklore, v. 4, summer 1954, p. 81-86. The collection is represented on cards and lists filed in the Archive of Folk Culture (American Folklife Center). The approximately two hundred discs have been copied on tape and are accompanied by field notes and correspondence. Several Library of Congress recordings include selections from the collection. Mr. Randolph's papers are housed in three locations in the Library. The largest group is assigned to the Archive of Folk Culture and was presented to the Library by the author in 1972. The material includes research notes, clippings, photographs, and professional correspondence dating from the 1930's through the 1960's. Many of the photographs were taken by Randolph himself and depict Ozark singers and scenes. The papers occupy six linear feet. In 1954 the Manuscript Division purchased the original manuscripts, complete with author's marginal notes and publisher's comments, of four published works: Ozark Superstitions (1947), We Always Lie to Strangers: Tall Tales from the Ozarks (1951), Who Blowed Up the Church House? and Other Ozark Folk Tales (1952), and Down in the Holler: A Gallery of Ozark Folk Speech (1953). The Music Division has custody of Randolph's " 'Unprintable Songs' and Other Folklore Materials from the Ozarks"--four boxes of bawdy Ozark music, children's rhymes, riddles, graffiti, and sayings. The folklorist drew upon narratives from this manuscript for his recent book Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folktales, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976.
5. Books that Fall out of the Realm of Living History, First-Person Interpretation, and Creditable Material for Public Programs. Lane Barbara, and Robertson, Jon (editor), Echoes from the Battlefield First-Person Accounts of Civil War Past Lives, A.R.E. Press, Virginia Beach, Virginia, April 1996. Lane, Barbara, Echoes from Medieval Halls: Past-Life Memories from the Middle Ages, A.R.E. Press, Virginia Beach, Virginia, August 1997. Reenactors and people interested in reincarnation would love the first book. The second book she interviewed thirteen subjects involved in either the Society for Creative Anachronism (S.C.A.), Renaissance Fairs and various living history organizations about their past lives. These are books for individuals interested in reincarnation and regression. These are my park employee joke gift books. Putting aside my thoughts on reincarnation, these books are best described as historical novels. They fall under the classification of Parapsychology. The above books are so-called "new age" books and not documented (researched) historical material. They are like the National Park Service Ranger who went to the Thomas Nelson House in Yorktown, Virginia, one night with some thing to smoke, and drink. Then he sat around and wrote down this information that a number of ghosts in the house provided him which became a highly successful first-person (tag-team) living history program for many years. Visitors would start out with the husband dressed in a costume of the 1700's welcoming them into a room in the house's basement. Then when he was finished he would direct you to his wife dressed in a slightly later time period costume in another room in the house. They would go back and forth from room to room going forward in time to the American Civil War. When one would finish they would disappear through secret passageways in the house (changing costumes) only to emerge in another room as a different person or character. I never could find anything wrong with the program and visitors loved it. However, the powers to be, instantly cut the program when they learned of its possible origins. The public was told the old excuse (song and dance), "it was cut because of budget concerns."
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