Folk Nation: Folklore in the Creation of American Tradition

Folklore, April, 2005 by J.V. Powell

Folk Nation: Folklore in the Creation of American Tradition. Edited by Simon J. Bronner. American Visions Series No. 6. Wihnington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 2002.283 pp. $19.95 (pbk). ISBN 0-8420-2892-7

Now this is useful! Here is a text with a seventy-page introductory essay on the origin of the American tradition and seventeen articles documenting how Americans used folklore to shape different aspects of their national identity. This is not just for folklorists. It is a socio-politico-psycho-economic history of how the American tradition developed during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Graphic but readable, the articles chronicle how American thinkers and leaders tactically defined America in terms of its legends, rituals and beliefs. They used Davy Crockett and Pecos Bill, and cowboys and immigrants, and, yes, even quilts as symbols. As Bronner describes it, "Disputes raged throughout the [period] over how traditions characterizing America were portrayed. Whether dubbed multicultural and transnational or conflicted and connected, the culture that arose in this country appeared to grow from the fertile soil of folklore."

There is probably nothing new that we can say about Simon Bronner. He has been Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Folklore at Pennsylvania State University since 1981 and has published over two hundred books and essays. He is passionate about "folk cultural inquiry" (his term) and has a talent for putting it all together and describing things readably. I suspect this book emerged from the readings that he put together for a seminar--a course I would like to have taken.

The articles in this collection start, appropriately enough, with William Newell's case for the organisation of the American Folklore Society in 1888. There are essays, quotes and excerpts from social critics such as Mary Austin, Constance Rourke, Benjamin Botkin, James Stevens and Richard Dorson. Although the titles of the articles have much in common, there is very little overlap in content. And, even though more than one-half of the articles were written over fifty years ago, they almost never read like old news. These are provocative arguments, made, for the most part, in lively prose. It is probably worthwhile simply to include a list of the contents, some of which are well known:

* Part I

In Search of American Tradition (with suggestions for further reading), Simon J. Bronner

* Part II

1. The Field of American Folklore (1888-9), William Wells Newell

2. The Black Folklore Movement at Hampton Institute (1893-4), Alice Mabel Bacon

3. Quilts as Emblems of Women's Tradition (1894), Fanny D. Bergen

4. American Folk Song (1915), John A. Lomax

5. "American" Folklore (1930), Alexander Haggerty Krappe

6. American Folklore (1949), Benjamin A. Botkin

7. The Folk Idea in American Life (1930), Ruth Suckow

8. Folk Art: Its Place in the American Tradition (1932), Holger Cahill

9. Folk Arts: Immigrant Gifts to American Life (1932), Allen Eaton

10. American Folksongs of Protest (1953), John Greenway

11. Folklore and American Regionalism (1966), Macedward Leach

12. Border Identity: Culture Conflict and Convergence along the Lower Rio Grande (1978), America Paredes

13. Life Styles and Legends (1971), Richard M. Dorson

14. Another America: Toward a Behavioral History Based on Folkloristics (1982), Michael Owen Jones

15. American Folklife: A Commonwealth of Cultures (1991), Mary Hufford

16. Folklife in Contemporary Multicultural Society (1990), Richard Kurin

17. Children and Colors: Folk and Popular Cultures in America's Future (1994), Jay Mechling

J.V. Powell, Emeritus Professor, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada