Camp Woodland, 1939–1962

Spring–Summer 2002 Volume 28: 1–2

The Journal of New York Folklore

Alleys of New York

The Grange: A Photo Essay

The Play-Party of Rural America c. 1900

Remembering Vaughn Ward From the Director

In late April, I involved them in program concep- community scholars who have been doing participated in the tualization or implementation. As New important cultural work in their own conference “Building York works to put into place a successful communities. It is exciting that many Creative Economies,” heritage tourism program, it will be community scholars will be presenting their in Asheville, North important to involve regional folklorists to work at the American Folklore Society Carolina, which ensure the program’s success. conference and lending their voices to the highlighted economic Successful models showcased during the academic discourse. I encourage as many development and the conference highlighted the importance of community scholars as possible to attend arts in the Appalachian region. In the regional artistic traditions for economic the conference and participate. The field preconference working papers, folklorist development in a region. Rather than of folklore can learn a lot from the Kathleen Mundell stated, “Creating relying upon large corporations to move perspective of community scholars. sustainable heritage programs first begins their operations into a region, economic Another exciting aspect of the meeting by cultivating a sense of pride in place and development officials sought successful in Rochester is the involvement of scholars respecting local ways of doing business.” economic development from within and of deaf folklore. Rochester is home for the This crucial task for any cultural tourism looked to local entrepreneurs and local National Technological Institute for the program has at its heart the ethnographic artists for leadership. This conference, Deaf, and this year’s American Folklore enterprise—an immersion process of which was funded by the Appalachian Society conference is drawing upon the identifying the important players and Regional Commission, is the first step expertise of the institute’s affiliated activities in any community. Folklorists are toward a proposed successful collaboration scholars for presentations on deaf folklore. uniquely qualified for this task, as folklorists between folklorists, community arts, and Special events, keynote speeches, and are trained in the processes of observation tourism in New York State. several of the regular paper sessions and critical inquiry. Because they rely on throughout the four days will be sign- ethnographic research to document and American Folklore Society interpreted for the deaf and hearing understand a community, its history and Conference in Rochester impaired. Please contact me at traditions, folklorists should be an important From October 16 through October 20, [email protected] if you will need the part of any cultural tourism conversation. Rochester will serve as host for the 114th service. A folklorist is a resource for identifying meeting of the American Folklore Society. Ellen McHale, Ph.D. community resources and can be an During this period, more than six hundred Executive Director, New York Folklore Society [email protected] important mediator between communities folklorists and other cultural specialists will www.nyfolklore.org and a wider potential audience. arrive in Rochester for formal academic Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania, presentations, forums, workshops and Erratum Wisconsin, and other states have involved discussions, films, music and dance In “I Do? Northern New York’s Mock folklorists at every level of their planning performances, receptions, tours, and a wide Weddings” in the Fall-Winter 2000 issue, for successful heritage tourism programs. variety of other presentations—all having Naticoke Valley was described as being New York has not done so. Folklore to do with the expression of folklore and in northern New York; it is in Broome documentation has been a part of the folklife in the United States and throughout County, New York. regional arts scene for a quarter of a the world. century, and heritage projects throughout This is a great opportunity to recognize New York State have extrapolated many the many talented traditional artists who ideas from the work of regional folklorists. live and work in New York State. It is also Planners have not, however, directly a great opportunity for the many

“Certainly it is difficult to write about the present, but in part that is exactly what the folklorist must do. He must be able to see the major currents of his day as well as ones of the past.” —Ellen Stekert, 1966 Contents Spring–Summer 2002

6 Features 6 Camp Woodland by Dale W. Johnson 14 The Alley: A Back Street History by Theodore Corbett 19 Alley Cats by Mick Green 21 The Great Document Exchange by Carol Kammen 24 Picturing the Grange: 130 Years by Andrew Baugnet 29 Exhibit Review: The Great Migration by Nancy Solomon 30 The American Play-Party in Context by Nancy Cassell McEntire 35 Vaughn Ward: A Tribute 36 Introduction to The Witch of Mad Dog Hill by Vaughn Ward 41 Stacked Enchilidas and Pizza Pie 14 by Vaughn Ward 44 Transition: Hanna Griff by Mary Zwolinski Departments and Columns 24 3 New York Folklore Society News 4 Upstate by Varick A. Chittenden 5 Downstate by Steve Zeitlin 13 Eye of the Camera by Martha Cooper 22 Foodways by Lynn Case Ekfelt 29 28 On Air by Lamar Bliss 34 Lawyer’s Sidebar by Paul Rapp 41 Archival Questions by Nancy Johnson Singer and jig dancer Etson Van Wagner was among the tradition 43 Media Works bearers who performed at the by Barry Dornfeld annual Catskill Folk Festival, c. 1941. The festival was the 45 Book Reviews culmination of Camp Woodland’s summer session. Photo: Courtesy 47 Announcements of the estate of Herbert Haufrecht.

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 1 scripts submitted as articles. The review process Submission Guidelines for takes several months. Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore Deadlines permitting, authors read and cor- Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore rect galley proofs for typographical errors. Authors receive two complimentary copies of the Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore is a spond; both pieces may be published together. issue in which their contribution appears and may membership magazine of the New York Any subject may be addressed or rebutted once purchase additional copies at a discount. Authors Folklore Society (www.nyfolklore.org). by any correspondent. The principal criteria for of feature articles may purchase offprints; price The New York Folklore Society is a nonprofit, publication are whether, in the opinion of the information is available upon publication. statewide organization dedicated to furthering editor or the editorial board, the comment con- cultural equity and cross-cultural understanding stitutes a substantive contribution to folklore Submission Deadlines through programs that nurture folk cultural ex- studies, and whether it will interest our general Spring–Summer December 31 pressions within communities where they readers. Fall–Winter issue June 30 originate, share these traditions across cultural Letters should not exceed 500 words. Manuscripts should be sent by regular mail (not boundaries, and enhance the understanding and e-mail) to Voices at the following address: appreciation of folk culture. Through Voices the Style society communicates with professional folklor- The journal follows The Chicago Manual of Style. New York Folklore Society Publications, 133 Jay ists and members of related fields, traditional Consult Webster’s Third International Dictionary for Street, Schenectady, NY 12301. artists, and a general public interested in folklore. questions of spelling, meaning, and usage, and Voices is dedicated to publishing the content avoid gender-specific terminology. of folklore in the words and images of its cre- Footnotes. Endnotes and footnotes should be ators and practitioners. The journal publishes avoided; incorporate such information into the research-based articles, written in an accessible text. Ancillary information may be submitted as style, on topics related to traditional art and life. a sidebar. It also features stories, interviews, reminiscences, Bibliographic citations. For citations of text essays, folk poetry and music, photographs, and from outside sources, use the author-date style Spring–Summer 2002 · Volume 28: 1-2 artwork drawn from people in all parts of New described in The Chicago Manual of Style. Editor Karen Taussig-Lux York State. Columns on subjects such as pho- Language. All material must be submitted in Acting Editor Sally Atwater ([email protected]) tography, sound and video recording, legal and English. Foreign-language terms (transliterated, Photography Editor Martha Cooper ethical issues, and the nature of traditional art where appropriate, into the Roman alphabet) Design Mary Beth Malmsheimer Printer State Color, Schenectady, NY and life appear in each issue. should be italicized and followed by a concise parenthetical English gloss; the author bears Editorial Board Steve Zeitlin, Varick Chittenden, responsibility for the correct spelling and orth- Amy Godine, Kate Koperski, Cathy Ragland, Kay Editorial Policy Turner, Dan Ward Feature articles. Articles published in Voices ographics of non-English words. British spellings represent original contributions to folklore stud- should be Americanized. Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore is published three times a year by the ies. Although Voices emphasizes the folklore of New York Folklore Society, Inc. New York State, the editor welcomes articles Publication Process 133 Jay Street based on the folklore of any area of the world. The New York Folklore Society holds copyright P.O. Box 764 Articles on the theory, methodology, and geog- to all material published in Voices: The Journal of Schenectady, NY 12301 raphy of folklore are also welcome, as are purely New York Folklore. With the submission of mate- New York Folklore Society, Inc. descriptive articles in the ethnography of folk- rial to the editor, the author acknowledges that Executive Director Ellen McHale lore. In addition, Voices provides a home for he or she gives Voices sole rights to its publica- Director of Services Dale Johnson Administrative Assistant Jennifer Forsythe “orphan” tales, narratives, and songs, whose con- tion, and that permission to publish it elsewhere Web Administrator Patti Mason tributors are urged to provide contextual must be secured in writing from the editor. Al- Voice 518 346-7008 information. though the editor welcomes inquiries via Fax 518 346-6617 Authors are encouraged to include short per- electronic mail, please use regular mail to submit Website www.nyfolklore.org sonal reminiscences, anecdotes, isolated tales, manuscripts. Board of Directors narratives, songs, and other material that relates For the initial submission, send three paper President Todd DeGarmo Vice President Mary Zwolinski to and enhances their main article. copies and a PC-formatted disk (preferably pre- Secretary-Treasurer David Quinn Total length, including citations, should not ex- pared in Microsoft Word and saved as Rich Text Ladan Alomar, Beverly Butcher, Karen Canning, ceed 4,000 words. Format). Cecily Cook, Pam Cooley, James Corsaro, Eniko Farkas, Reviews and review essays. Books, record- Copy must be typed double spaced, on one Nancy Johnson, Madaha Kinsey-Lamb, Stan Ransom, Bart Roselli, Elly Shodell, Debbie Silverman, Greer ings, films, videos, exhibitions, concerts, and the side of a sheet only, with all pages numbered con- Smith, Lynne Williamson like are selected for review in Voices for their rel- secutively. To facilitate anonymous review of feature articles, the author’s name and biography Advertisers: to inquire, please call the NYFS evance to folklore studies or the folklore of New 518 346-7008 or fax 518 346-6617 York State and their potential interest to a wide should appear only on a separate title page. audience. Persons wishing to review recently pub- Tables, charts, maps, illustrations, photographs, lished material should contact the editor. captions, and credits should follow the main text Unsolicited reviews and proposals for reviews will and be numbered consecutively. 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Short holders prior to submission of manuscripts, and America: History and Life. the written permissions must accompany the manu- Reprints of articles and items from Voices: The Journal of New York but substantive reactions to or elaborations upon Folklore are available through the ISI Document Solution, Institute for material appearing in Voices within the previous script (authors should keep copies). Scientific Information, 3501 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104. 215 year are welcomed. The editor may invite the Materials are acknowledged upon receipt. The 386-0100. ISSN 0361-204X author of the materials being addressed to re- editor and two anonymous readers review manu- © 2001 by The New York Folklore Society, Inc. All rights reserved.

2 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore NYFS NEWS NYFS New York Folklore Society News

JAY STREET EVENTS: including fieldwork, exhibit con- include presentations as springboards for ARTISTS AT WORK ceptualization and design, festival planning discussion. The New York Folklore Society’s Gallery and promotion, and writing. Independent Scheduled for Saturday, November 9, of New York Traditions on Jay Street in folklore organizations and established 2002, with the Huguenot Historical Society Schenectady continues to draw in visitors folklore programs within arts agencies of New Paltz, New York, we are planning a who are curious about the Society and its apply for the opportunity to host an intern; day-long forum on vernacular architecture. role in the state. In 2002, we are continuing those chosen sites are then advertised to a Besides presentations on structures unique with frequent artist demonstrations both pool of potential applicants. This year three to various parts of New York State, we plan inside the gallery and on the pedestrian interns are spending the summer months to include a tour of thirty-five structures walkway in front of our offices. This spring, at the Brooklyn Arts Council, Traditional the Historical Society is preserving; these member Xrystya Szyjka of Amsterdam Arts of Upstate New York, and the buildings, a number of which date back to demonstrated the Ukrainian art of pisanky. Dutchess County Arts Council. The the late 1600s, are listed on the National Additional demonstrations will take place program is valuable in introducing young Register of Historic Places. Material artifacts on Wednesdays throughout August. For the scholars to some of the ground- such as structures have long been studied schedule, please call the office, at 518 346- breaking work being carried out in New by folklorists in an attempt to capture what 7008. York State. Henry Glassie called in Folk Housing in Middle On April 5, 2002, the New York Folklore Virginia “the architecture of past thought— Society held its first-ever fundraising event, NYFS FORUM SERIES an attempt to reconstruct the logic of a “Meet the Artist” gala at the Schenectady The New York Folklore Society is people long dead by looking seriously at Museum. We were gratified by the planning a series of Folk Art Forums for their houses.” outpouring of support from Jay Street 2002. The series began in the late 1980s, Plans are being formulated at this time merchants who donated door prizes, pleased when a group of folklorists met to address for a forum to be held in Rochester on the to see our members and colleagues who various issues faced in their work. With topic of folk arts in education. The NYFS came and supported us, and honored by the partner organizations, the Society office will have more information about this many traditional artists who performed cosponsors three to five forums per year in and other possible forums soon, and details music or donated artwork for the silent various parts of the state, on topics of can be obtained by contacting us at auction. interest to folklorists and constituents. [email protected], or 518 These meetings are informal, although they 346-7008. NYSCA INTERNSHIPS FOR GRAD STUDENTS This year will be the third year that the New York Council on the Arts’ Folk Arts Program has supported public sector folklore internships within New York State. The New York Folklore Society provides administrative support for this successful program. Students currently enrolled in graduate programs in folklore are eligible to participate in the program; to date, participants have come from the University of North Carolina, the University of Pennsylvania, the State University of New York at Buffalo, Western Kentucky University, Ohio State University, and Indiana University. These talented and motivated young scholars gain valuable experience in public sector folklore work,

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 3 Communitas Lost, Communitas Regained BY VARICK A. CHITTENDEN

I prefer the Latin term “communitas” to In my neighborhood today, most of us don’t our rented electric generator. Four days into “community,” to distinguish this modality of social know each other at all. Few of us grew up the storm, nobody minded waiting in line for relationship (society as an unstructured or here or have many local ties. Men and women over an hour at the hardware store for batteries UPSTATE rudimentarily structured and relatively leave home early in the morning to drive to and lamp oil and water canisters (in fact, there undifferentiated…community) from an “area of work, often twenty miles away. Kids come and was general good humor and the chance to common living.” go on school buses, sometimes arriving home chat with people we hadn’t seen in years or —Victor Turner in the dark, after hockey practice or music had never even met). A trip to the darkened lessons. I can think of two neighborhood grocery store was an adventure, as clerks Judy and I have lived in the same house for parties in our entire time here (we didn’t host handed out flashlights and we fumbled down the past twenty-four years, only a half-mile either of them), and the last big gathering— the food aisles looking for cold cereal or bread from the Canton village limits. According to six years ago—was, unfortunately, for the or anything that didn’t require cooking. We local memory, our road was unpaved until the Sheesley’s barn fire. Don’t get me wrong. We’re learned of many kind gestures, big and small: mid-1960s. At that time there were perhaps friendly when we see each other. We wave and farmers delivered hay to remote farms that four or five houses, each attached to a small exchange greetings, but that’s the extent of were running out of feed; college professors dairy farm. Over the years since, new homes contact. We usually seem to have little in prepared meals for senior citizens evacuated have been built along the four-plus miles of common but proximity. to the school gym from the local high rise; town highway to its end—a mixture of But a recent book has reminded me of the people called in to the public radio station to suburban-style ranches, ersatz log “cabins,” strong sense of community that still exists here read favorite stories or poetry to entertain and “manufactured homes,” each with an acre when we are put to the test. Stephen Doheny- listeners desperate for diversion; whole or more of mowed lawn and three vehicles in Farina’s The Grid and the Village: Losing Electricity, families, pets and all, collected in larger houses the driveway. Finding Community, Surviving Disaster (Yale with fireplaces for days at a time. I can now see eight of these houses from University Press, 2001) is a fascinating and In Doheny-Farina’s word, we became my mailbox out front. Our nearest well-written account of his own experiences— “mindful” of each other in a way that neighbors are a couple of hundred yards shared by many of us in northern New neighbors used to be. Even in rural America, away. Yet, for all the years I’ve lived here, I York—with the Ice Storm of 1998, a slow- we have become far too dependent on the barely know any of them. When I think back moving disaster that nearly crippled the multinational corporate world to provide us to my own childhood, that fact shocks me. northernmost part of the Northeast (as well with electricity, fuel, food, and other necessities. In my hometown a couple of generations as Ontario and Québec) for the better part of Our responses to the Ice Storm showed us ago, we knew everyone. Pals my own age— January. For eight days, Judy and I were at that our best resources are the people nearby. Danny, Roger, Mark, and Larry—were in home without heat or electricity in Somehow, as challenging as that time was, I and out of each other’s houses almost daily. temperatures that sometimes dipped below really believe that many of us felt much better Our mothers watched over us all as if we zero; less populated areas waited a month. for the experience. For me, it was a satisfying were their own. I would see most of them Roads were closed for days, even weeks; a state reminder of my days as a kid. I realize that regularly in my Dad’s general store, or at of emergency was declared by both the I’ve been missing something and I’d like to the post office, where we went twice a day governor and the President; only the U.S. get it back. But I also know it’s up to me. to pick up the mail. Often as not, I would Army, utility crews, and emergency vehicles “Judy? Let’s plan a party and invite the drop in at Aunt Charlotte’s house next door were allowed (or able) to travel for many days. neighborhood!” for some leftover breakfast or fresh-made This was a frightening and stressful time. cookies. I made regular stops in many of The good news, however, is what we found

the thirty houses in the hamlet, on my in ourselves and in our neighbors when we Varick A. Chittenden rounds with the daily paper. We knew the needed it. The stories of how people helped is professor emeritus of English, SUNY good news and the bad news in each other’s one another are legion. Despite all the official Canton College of lives. And we were there to celebrate and emergency shelters, food banks, and fuel Technology, and grieve together. While our sense of supplies, it was the little things and personal executive director of Traditional Arts in community came from “an area of common stories that remain with most of us. Our young upstate New York living,” it also came from common neighbors from directly across the street came (TAUNY). experiences and common concerns. over at two in the morning to help us restart

4 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore From Now On BY STEVE ZEITLIN

For the B, D, F, and N trains, it’s the end eyed a train curving into the station as, “How long have you been coming here, of the line. The subway cars snake around looming over it, the Cyclone roller coaster Tony?” I asked. the bottom of Brooklyn like a viper around parodied its motions. Within my line of vi- “Huh! What did I tell you about time? It a snake charmer’s neck at Coney Island’s sion, the Wonder Wheel rotated in a doesn’t exist. Time exists for people like you Sideshows by the Seashore, visible through kaleidoscope of motion set against the blue who live by the clock.” Then he summed the windows. Trains from the four lines sit Atlantic. On the bridge, bounded on one up his philosophy of life. “I’ve got from side by side in the station, adjoining the side by the ocean and on the other by the now on,” he said. Coney Island Yards. A urban oddity of id- sea of Brooklyn rooftops, were six garbage Behind us the Wonder Wheel was turn- iosyncratic architecture arches across the bags, and beside them, Tony the Mayor— ing—the lights of the soon-to-be-no-more lines of track, and atop the unusual bridge fast asleep. World Trade Towers were clicking on. The stands the Stillwell Avenue Transit Author- Like the city itself, Tony doesn’t believe motormen watched the clock, rushing in ity Crew Reporting Center. It houses two in sleep. “I just drop off now and then,” he and out the door to their scheduled shifts. pool tables and nine orange tables with said. I’m under strict orders to wake him Tony was still on his green bag, straining built-in stools. Bronze signs declaim a code up whenever I catch him dozing off. “I dig to see the screen inside the rec room. He of good behavior: Shirt Cleaned and what I’m doing—the only thing I complain was the ultimate outsider, I thought, a sym- Pressed; Hat Straight and Clean. Above the about is the weather. A few times I had to bol of poverty and homelessness in a global tables glows a television set. The third game refuse to freeze to death.” age, hassled by the authorities, gazing from of the Lakers vs. the Philadelphia Sixers With the game just getting underway, I afar at the world of material possessions— 2001 NBA finals is just getting underway. left to buy Tony a slice of pizza, returning attempting to watch a television from forty Tony, a homeless man, travels the distance to find a cop hassling him about being on feet away. of the city to watch his sports heroes on the bridge. Tony compromised by putting An F train left the station. I glanced up, that television set from outside, on the all his possessions (except for the bag he past the trains and the amusements to the bridge. He piles up his belongings and sits sits on) on the subway platform, where he sunset over the water, smiling to myself with on the bags. Barred from entering, the could keep an eye on them. the realization that Tony is hardly that—he’s sound all but inaudible, he strains to watch Ten minutes and forty-five seconds was not a symbol for the homeless or for any- his heroes fight over a basketball. left in the first period. The Sixers were trail- thing else. He rides a different set of tracks. One train operator considers “the ing, the shot clock was winding down. But As the F train curved around Lower Brook- Mayor,” as he is known, “not a bum but an for Tony, time is a funny thing. “Time is lyn, passing in front of the Wonder Wheel, ‘alternative lifestyler.’” When Tony heard there and it’s not there,” he said. “If they I imagined it switching tracks onto the Cy- that, he marveled at the way English pro- stopped all the clocks and watches in the clone behind it, rising up on the wooden vides alternative language that can take the world, it wouldn’t matter. It doesn’t mean coaster’s tracks, then careening madly across sting out of words. “It’s like ‘assassination,’” anything. That’s what’s so amazing not about the skyline. I imagined a big clock in the rec he said. “That’s a big word, with a huge basketball but baseball—they managed to room transmuted into the face of the Won- amount of spelling—and it sounds so much invent a game without a clock. It’s measured der Wheel, turning for pure pleasure. What better than ‘murder.’” in outs and innings. That’s why it has such a is time, anyway? A turn of the Wonder DOWNSTATE He debriefs me several times a week about hold on this country’s imagination. That’s Wheel, an inning, a train schedule, a sun- the latest scores as I stand on the subway why they call it the National Pastime.” set? Through it all, the homeless man on platform on Second Avenue, keeping me Mythic time. Tony takes all his shopping the bridge is straining to stay awake. He informed about whether the “Mailman” de- bags to the laundry and begins a new life wants to catch it all—from now on. livered or the “Diesel” roared the night when “Major League Season” gets under- before. “You see, sports is what makes man, way. man,” Tony said. “You have a challenge, and Back in basketball time Tony finished his Steve Zeitlin is you have your skills. And you try to hone pizza. Shaquille O’Neill dunked the basket executive director of City Lore, 72 your skills to win the championship. And at the buzzer, and in a brazen move Tony East First Street, watching guys like Shaq and Iverson meet balled up his plate and napkin, reached over New York, NY the challenge is very stimulating to the mind.” and into the rec room from which he was 10003; steve@ The day I went to visit Tony at his post strictly forbidden, and slam-dunked the pa- citylore.org. outside the rec room on Coney Island, I per into the Transit Authority waste basket.

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 5 Camp Woodland Progressive Education and Folklore in the Catskill Mountains of New York

BY DALE W. JOHNSON

A summer camp once sought to help children understand the democratic roots of their country by exposing them to the traditions and tradition bearers of the Catskills. The camp grew out of New Deal programs that provided work for artists. Under the direction of Norman Studer, with the help of Herbert Haufrecht and Norman Cazden, youngsters collected folk songs and stories, learned traditional crafts, and documented the disap- pearing traditions of the region’s people. The camp’s integrated population and celebration of local tradition bearers seemed subversive to some, however, and with its director under pressure, it closed in 1962. But its legacy lives on in the former campers who were inspired to make their life’s work in folklore.

amp Woodland was a summer that children could find their democratic it was an attempt to recapture the sense of C camp for children, located at the roots through their heritage and the heri- community life that was rapidly disappear- head of the Woodland Valley, near tage of other Americans, he developed a ing in the region, as well as creating the Phoenicia, New York, in the heart of the system of collecting local folklore and his- sense of what philosopher John Dewey Catskill Mountains. It operated as a non- tory as a way to link young campers to their termed “self-realization”—the ability to profit educational institution from 1939 to country’s culture: achieve happiness within the world in 1962. Under the direction of Norman which one finds oneself (Menand 2001: Studer, it followed the philosophy of pro- We came to believe that all children 237). must know their roots, and develop a gressive education, inspired by the theories pride in their backgrounds. Education So besides the usual summer camp ac- of John Dewey. At the time of its begin- must teach the democratic American tivities, such as sports, swimming, hiking, tradition in a way that would make it ning, the U.S. government was finding work come alive (Studer and Levine 1987). arts and crafts, and singing around the for artists and professionals through the campfire, Norman Studer also instituted a Works Progress Administration and other Contact with the local residents in the hands-on folklore collecting approach. New Deal programs. This gave an oppor- Catskill region and their oral traditions was Field trips to meet tradition bearers tunity for folklorist Ben Botkin and others essential for children to develop a true throughout the region were an important to encourage an interest in collecting and sense of democracy, Studer believed. He component of the camp experience, and examining American culture. Norman and camp counselors established links with in later years, after relationships had been Studer called this “the culture of democ- communities in the region and introduced formed, local residents would come to the racy” (Studer and Levine 1987). Believing children to local tradition bearers. In a way, camp and demonstrate traditional skills in

6 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Square dancing at the Catskill Folk Festival, c. 1944. The festival was the highlight of the summer camp session. Photo: Courtesy of the estate of Herbert Haufrecht. logging, bark stripping, blacksmithing, tively subversive.” During peak years at the ing the Olympics. Another tradition was hoop-shaving, shingle splitting, square camp, there were some 200 campers of all the Sunday morning gathering, which was dance calling, and others. They would re- ethnic groups, typically aged 8 to 16 years basically secular in nature but had a spiri- count to Studer and the children the stories old. tual feeling for the campers. of their lives, the tall tales and songs from Many summer camps at the time held As music director, Herbert Haufrecht the region. Many of these tradition bear- what was called “color wars,” with campers helped initiate serious folk song collecting ers became regulars at the camp and came divided into two factions for competition. at the camp in 1941, and this work was every summer. Older campers were in- Studer considered this a very destructive taken up a few years later by his successor, volved in building projects and helped practice that would cause rancor among the Norman Cazden, who maintained a long assemble a folk museum that included youngsters. In contrast, to promote har- friendship and collaboration with Hau- material items of the Catskills, including mony at Camp Woodland, he held frecht. Cazden continued at Camp tools. “Olympics” in which the various “bunks” Woodland until 1960. Another unique feature of the camp was would represent different countries. Each The result was a collection of 178 songs, its integration of African-American chil- “country” would learn a representative which later became the monumental two- dren into its activities. In the introduction song, game, and sport, which they would volume Folk Songs of the Catskills. to his book A Catskill Woodsman: Mike Todd’s take turns presenting each evening. This Representing some forty years of collect- Story, Studer states, “The camp was inter- included foodways from the country they ing by Cazden, Haufrecht, and Studer, the racial, at a time when most Americans were represented. Taken very seriously was the collection offers more than a hundred being taught that interracial living was posi- tradition of flag raising each morning dur- songs from singer George Edwards. A me-

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 7 ticulous work, it includes notes about the practitioners and the region as well as descriptions of the process by which the songs were documented. The collection was still in draft form when Norman Cazden died in 1980; it was finished by Herb Haufrecht and published by the State University of New York Press in 1982, with a preface by Pete Seeger and an introduction by Norman Studer. Lacking today’s practical devices for recording, Haufrecht and Cazden enlisted the assistance of Camp Woodland’s children in their fieldwork. They organized the campers into teams, each of which was as- signed to learn one stanza of a song. Haufrecht and Cazden would notate the music of the song while it was sung, and later could assemble the lyrics from the transcribing done by campers. In some cases, traditional singers stayed at the camp for a week or even a month, which offered a leisurely opportunity for documenting songs. Studer eventually assembled more than 250 reel-to-reel tapes of interviews and folk songs that are now in the Camp Woodland Collection at the University at Albany. This collection also includes many photographs related to the camp, as well as the Neighbors magazine published by campers, and other papers. Camp Woodland’s musical traditions in- NORMAN STUDER cluded a weekly square dance called by

Norman Studer (1902–1978), educator, folk enthusiast, poet, and humanist, was the founder Catskill resident George Van Kleek, who and, for all of its twenty-four years, educational director of Camp Woodland. Inspired by the was always accompanied by his wife Clara, ideals of progressive education, the camp was unique for introducing young people to local and sometimes the youngsters themselves. Catskill culture through folklore and for its integration of African-American youngsters. Born Singing and performances of plays based on a farm in Ohio, Studer came east as a young man spurred by his desire for knowledge and on folk themes were regular events. Both curiosity about varied cultures. At Columbia University, he studied with educational philosopher Haufrecht and Cazden were known for John Dewey. In 1933 he became a teacher at the “Little Red Schoolhouse” in Manhattan, and composing musical works based on folk went on to become director of the Downtown Community School. Norman Studer’s themes and local history, and these were philosophy of education and humanitarian values made an indelible imprint on countless performed by campers for local audiences. educators, students, and campers. Robert DeCormier, a music counselor at Studer was the author of many articles on the tradition bearers of the Catskills, which he the camp in later years, wrote for the camp- researched with Herbert Haufrecht, Norman Cazden, and scores of counselors and young ers a cantata about Sojourner Truth. campers from 1939 to 1962. Some of Studer’s articles appeared in the New York Folklore By far the most important event at the Quarterly, and some later reappeared in the book I Walk the Road Again: Great Stories from the camp was the annual Catskill Folk Festi- Catskill Region, edited by Janis Benincasa and published by Purple Mountain Press. He was a val. Held in August, it brought square coauthor of Folk Songs of the Catskills. He also wrote A Catskill Woodsman: Mike Todd’s Story, and dance callers, storytellers, dancers, artisans, a narrative poem about Mike Todd called All My Homespun Days, which was released by and musicians from the region together Smithsonian Folkways Records. with campers and visitors to celebrate the

8 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore heritage of the Catskills. Saturdays were him while he related his experiences be- usually the highlight of the festival and in- Camp Woodland was part of fore the committee. According to Cazden’s cluded singers, jig dancers, fiddlers, and former wife Courtney Cazden, before they storytellers on the Simpson ski slope near the explosion of interest in the retired for the evening they sang together the camp. The festival then continued in- 1930s and 1940s in New York “Friends and Neighbors,” a song collected doors with an evening session of State and the country concern- from the area that is documented in Folk impromptu jam sessions and storytelling. Songs of the Catskills. The evening would end with a square ing our democratic heritage and The song took on new meaning in the dance, with calling and music provided by ideals and the search for an context of Studer’s experience earlier that local musicians and the campers them- day. “Friends and neighbors,” the song be- selves. As the introduction to Folk Songs of American identity. gins, “I’m going to leave you…neither have the Catskills states, I done any wrong.” That Studer had been questioned by the state Un-American Ac- These annual festivals became very im- The end of the summer season was usu- tivities Committee had no effect on the local portant events to their local participants. Through their contribu- ally marked by a banquet presided over by community’s relationship with the camp, tions, they gained dignity through Norman Studer, which was at times an however, and his daughter, Joan Studer renewing and reconstructing their own emotional farewell. One year Studer had Levine, recalls that local people knew the neglected and almost forgotten past…Thus the festivals reaffirmed been called to testify about his work in Studers to be staunch defenders of demo- and reasserted the creative potential of front of the New York State Un-Ameri- cratic ideals. The communist witch-hunters do-it-yourself culture, and they helped can Activities Committee and missed the of the 1940s and 1950s also persecuted re-establish that creativity as a viable mode within young people (Cazden et end-of-summer banquet. When he re- Norman Cazden, and he was blacklisted al. 1982: 5). turned later that night, the staff sat up with from academia for more than sixteen years.

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 9 Norman Cazden (left) and Herbert Haufrecht.

NORMAN CAZDEN Activities Committee, and he was fired from his coauthored the two-volume Folk Songs of the Norman Cazden was born September 23, job at the university. He testified in Washington, Catskills, published in 1982. Through his lifetime, 1914, to Russian immigrants. He went to Julliard was blacklisted, and was denied academic positions Haufrecht was a staff composer for the Federal and City College in New York City before arriving for the next sixteen years. Theater Project of the Works Progress Admin- at Harvard in 1944. During his Julliard years, He taught piano privately during these years and istration and wrote the scores for many musical Cazden was active in the intellectual life of the worked on folk song analysis. The Cazden family’s plays, including We’ve Come from the City, Boney city—playing for Blitzstein shows, composing for last summer at Camp Woodland was in 1960, and Quillin, and The Story of Ferdinand the Bull. He worked modern dance companies, and writing serious in 1961 they moved to Lexington, Massachusetts, as a musician with Burl Ives, The Weavers, Pete compositions, including a symphony. After while Norman’s wife Courtney went back to school Seeger, and Judy Collins, for whom he wrote the studying musicology with Charles Seeger and and subsequently took a teaching position. In 1969, Judy Collins Songbook in 1969. From 1941 to 1945, becoming friends with Herbert Haufrecht and Norman and Courtney parted ways, and he took a he was music director at Camp Woodland, where Aaron Copland, he came eventually to the study position at the University of Maine. Besides Folk he began his long collaboration with Camp of folk song. Along with Haufrecht and Copeland, Songs of the Catskills, his works include Dances from Director Norman Studer and musicologist Cazden composed significant works based on folk Woodland, The Abelard Folksong Book, Three Catskill Norman Cazden. themes. Ballads for Orchestra, A Book of Nonsense Songs, After World War II, Haufrecht was an editor He was introduced to Camp Woodland around American Folk Songs for Children, and A Catskill and arranger for Mills Music, Associated Music 1941 by its musical director, Herbert Haufrecht, Songbook. Publishers, Ricordi Publishers, and others. He was whom Cazden succeeded in that position in 1945. the National Music Director of Young Audiences, He remained as musical director until 1960, and HERBERT HAUFRECHT Inc., which brought innovative music programming with camp director Norman Studer and Herbert Herbert Haufrecht was born in New York City into the schools of New York City. He also Haufrecht collected the material for Folk Songs on November 3, 1909. He began his musical studies composed many significant pieces of music, of the Catskills. with his mother Dora in 1916 and continued at including Symphony for Brass and Tympani, Suite for While at Harvard, he studied composition and the Institute of Music in Cleveland. In 1930 he String Orchestra, Blues and Fugue for Viola and Piano, wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on whether musical received a fellowship in composition at the Julliard Etudes in Blues for Piano, a one-act opera A Pot of preferences are innate and universal or culturally Graduate School. While working as field Broth, and numerous songs. His final composition, based. He taught at Vassar, Peabody Conservatory, representative of the Resettlement Administration A War Prayer, was performed in Kingston, New and the University of Michigan before taking a for the Department of Agriculture in West Virginia, York, in 1995. His wife of fifty-seven years, Betty position at the University of Illinois in 1950. In he was exposed to traditional music and began a Haufrecht, described him as “a man of enormous 1953 he was denied a chance at tenure because lifetime of folk song collecting. He published Folk creative gifts, who was loved and respected by all of FBI investigations for the House Un-American Songs in Settings by Master Composers and who knew him.”

10 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Camp Woodland finally closed in 1962. Three of the trustees who had founded the camp in 1939 used a poorly worded severance agreement to reassume authority after years of a hands-off approach. Although they had always managed the camp themselves, sometimes with very few resources beyond their own, Norman and Hannah Studer were defeated by these dis- agreements and finally resigned. Norman Studer died in 1978. The work of Norman Studer, Herb Haufrecht, and Norman Cazden was recognized by Benjamin A. Botkin, Charles Seeger, Herbert Halpert, Louis C. Jones, and Harold Thompson of the New York Folklore Society, and countless others. In the very first volume of the New York Folk- lore Quarterly in 1945, Norman Studer announced an upcoming winter folklore conference in New York City, to be sponsored by Camp Woodland; the program reads like a Who’s Who of midcentury folklorists: Session I: Benjamin A. Botkin on “What is Folklore.” Session II: Harold W. Thompson, President of the New York Folklore Society on “Folklore Resources of New York State.” Session III: George Herzog on “Con- tributions of National Groups to our Folk Culture.” Session IV: Dr. Charles Seeger on “Folklore in Community Living.” Afternoon Roundtable session to be Musician and square dance caller George Van Kleeck at the Catskill Folk Festival, c. 1941. presided over by Louis C. Jones, editor of the New York Folklore Quarterly on the topic, “The Utilization of Folklore in Manhattan, Studer organized an all-day Woodstock, New York, area who performs in a Democracy.” Among the partici- conference with educators, social workers, and records with internationally known re- pants in this round table, in addition to and folklorists called “Puerto Rican Folk- cording artists. Janis Ian became one of the speakers of the morning sessions, will be Elaine Lambert Lewis, who con- ways: Pathways to Understanding” (Botkin the most respected songwriters of all time. ducts a weekly folklore program on 1955: 73–74). Kara Yeargans works for the New York radio station WNYC. Evening concert The influence of the Camp Woodland State Council on the Arts in the Arts in organized by young composer Herbert experience on the folklore world is strik- Education Program. Pete Seeger visited the Haufrecht. ing, and many former campers are now camp each summer for more than twenty Studer’s continuing interest in folklore involved in cultural activities in some way. years and learned the song “Guan- led him to organize a folklore conference Just a few examples follow. Former coun- tanamera” there. Joseph Hickerson, camp in 1946 called “Folklore and the Metropo- selor Karl Finger leads cultural tours to counselor in 1959 and 1960, became the lis” at the Elizabeth Irwin High School. places in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. head of the Archive of Folk Culture at the Another folklore conference was spon- Richard Bauman went on to become one Library of Congress, where he served for sored by Studer in 1954 at the Downtown of the “Young Turks” of folklore and in thirty-five years before retiring in 1998. Community School in Manhattan, where 1976 wrote the influential work Verbal Art The children of the camp directors have he was director, entitled “City Folklore and as Performance; he continues a distinguished also made their mark. Joan Studer Levine, Its Uses” (Botkin 1954: 153–55). A year teaching career at Indiana University. Eric husband Norman, and their son, composer later, at the East 14th Street Labor Temple Weissberg is a noted musician from the Eric Levine, worked for years to preserve

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 11 materials from the camp and eventually saw Cutting, Louis C. Jones, Herbert Halpert, York Folklore, Somewhere West of Albany: the collection safely archived at the Uni- Elaine Lambert Lewis, Harold W. Thomp- A Festschrift in Honor of Louis C. Jones. Schenectady: New York Folklore Soci- versity at Albany. Joanna Cazden was son, Allen Walker Read, Marjorie L. Porter, ety, 7–14. prominent in the folk song revival of the and Emelyn Gardner, among many others. Jones, Louis C. 1982. Three Eyes on the Past: 1960s, and with her mother and sister New York folklorists were at the forefront Exploring New York Folklife. Syracuse: placed Norman Cazden’s papers at the of the applied folklore movement and be- Syracuse University Press, xviii. University of Ohio. lieved in the notion that by returning Haufrecht, Herbert, and Norman Cazden. On October 4–5, 1997, former camper folklore to the people, one promoted un- 1948. Music of the Catskills. New York Folklore Quarterly IV(1): 32–46. Karl Finger and scholar Neil Larsen joined derstanding between diverse groups. As Menand, Louis. 2001. The Metaphysical Club. with Joan Studer Levine to invite Camp Louis Jones said, “[folklore] like money and New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Woodlanders to New Paltz for a reunion. manure needed to be spread around” Studer, Norman. 1988. A Catskill Woods- A list of 182 alumni and alumnae was even- (Jones 1982: xviii). man: Mike Todd’s Story. Fleischmanns, tually assembled. Former camper Eric On the editor’s page of the first New York New York: Purple Mountain Press. Weissberg of Woodstock brought one of Folklore Quarterly (1945), Jones wrote, _____. 1945. Catskill Folk Festival. New York Folklore Quarterly I(3): 161–66. the old signs from the camp for display. “Thus we have our part in building this _____. 1960. Folk Festival of the Catskills. Gathering at the student union building at nation’s knowledge of itself, a task that New York Folklore Quarterly. XVI(1): 6– the SUNY–New Paltz campus, campers seems to us to be as important for a whole 10. reminisced and shared photographs and people as for an individual.” He was speak- _____. 1940s. The Story of Camp Woodland. memorabilia. A panel moderated by Greg ing of the New York Folklore Society and Camp promotional materials. Finger with Joan Studer Levine, Bob the New York Folklore Quarterly, but his ob- _____. 1962. The Place of Folklore in Education. New York Folklore Quarterly Steuding, author Paul Mischler, Herb servation relates to Camp Woodland Spring: 3–12. Haufrecht, and others discussed Camp equally well. Long before the Foxfire _____. 1945. Winter Folklore Conference. Woodland’s legacy. Events included square project and other programs that introduced New York Folklore Quarterly I: 59–60. dancing with traditional Catskill musicians young people to folklore collecting, _____. 1988. Yarns of a Catskill Woods- Hilton and Stella Kelly, and an evening Norman Studer, Norman Cazden, and man. New York Folklore Quarterly XI(3): concert that featured Jay and Molly Unger, Herbert Haufrecht with other New York- 183–92. Studer, Norman, and Joan Studer Levine. Micky Vandow, Karl and Greg Finger, ers helped us as a nation to come to know 1987. The Woodland Sampler. Notes to the Laura Cooper Stein, Eric Weissberg, ourselves, and the legacy of Camp Wood- recording. New York: Self-published. Joanna Cazden, Eric Levin, and a chorus land is reflected in the creative spirit and of children from Kingston, New York, vibrant personalities of its many former singing excerpts from Herb Haufrecht’s counselors and campers. “We’ve Come from the City.” The next day, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I was greatly assisted by the following people former campers carpooled to the site of SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY who allowed themselves to be interviewed and the Catskill Folk Festivals in Phoenicia and corresponded at length with me, as well as in- Botkin, Benjamin A. 1954. Upstate, Down- were joined by Pete Seeger, who led a debted to the many writings of Norman Studer state. New York Folklore Quarterly X(2): lengthy singalong. Attendees then made the about Camp Woodland and the Catskill Folk 153–55. Festival. Joan Studer Levine, Norman Levine, pilgrimage to the camp itself. _____. 1955. Upstate, Downstate. New Eric Levine, Betty Haufrecht, Joanna Cazden, Camp Woodland was part of the explo- York Folklore Quarterly X(1): 73–74. Courtney Cazden, Betsy Cazden, Neil Larsen, sion of interest in the 1930s and 1940s in Bresnan, Debra. Living Legacy. Woodstock Karl Finger, Joseph Hickerson, Geoff Kaufman, Janis Benincasa, Dr. Harry New York State and the country concern- Times. Woodstock: April 6, 2000. Cazden, Norman, Herbert Haufrecht, and Stoneback, Pete Seeger, Eric Weissberg, Jim ing our democratic heritage and ideals and Corsaro, and many other campers, counselors Norman Studer. 1982. Folk Songs of the the search for an American identity. Nu- and researchers. At the University at Albany I Catskills. Albany: University of Albany would like to thank historian Gerald Zahavi and merous publications, including the Tennessee Press. archivist Brian Keough for their continued in- Folklore Society Bulletin, Southern Folklore Corsaro, James. 2001. Report on the Norman terest in sharing the Camp Woodland story, and Quarterly, California Folklore Quarterly, and Studer Collection. Schenectady: New York their commitment to preserving Camp Wood- the New York Folklore Quarterly, all appeared Folklore Society. land materials for future generations. Special Corsaro, James. 2001. Report on the Herbert thanks to Dr. Ellen McHale of the New York within a decade of one other (Hand 1975). Haufrecht Collection. Schenectady: New Folklore Society for her interest and advice. That interest spawned a generation of New York Folklore Society. York folklorists and enthusiasts, such as Hand, Wayland. 1975. Louis C. Jones and Dale W. Johnson is director of services for Benjamin A. Botkin, Norman Studer, the Study of Folk Belief, Witchcraft, and the New York Folklore Society; Norman Cazden, Herb Haufrecht, Edith Popular Medicine in America. In New [email protected].

12 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore EYE OF THE CAMERA

Disposables for Dummies? By Martha Cooper

If the idea of lugging around a bag full in flash outdoors; the QuickSnap had that of cameras and lenses makes you tired, or feature. if the thought of investing thousands of Number of frames. Officially, most dis- dollars in digital imaging technology leaves posable cameras take 27 frames. But as is you cold, this column’s for you. After ob- noted on the Fuji box, some photo finish- serving countless tourists near Ground ing machines aren’t set up to print the last Zero snapping away with disposable cam- frame. Ask your local lab whether their eras, I decided to see what kinds of photos equipment will print frame 27, and if not, they were getting. The idea of photograph- shoot one less frame. ing such a significant site with a Shutter speed and aperture. This is fixed one-time-use camera seemed sacrilegious. and probably varies from camera to cam- Could someone shooting with a $6.99 era, though none of the cameras I looked camera be taking the experience seriously? at listed this information. Fuji will fax you Disposable, one-time-use cameras come was no noticeable difference them and the product specifications if you call the cus- already loaded with film. The processing images I take with my high-end Nikon. tomer service number listed on the box. price is not included in the sales price. Choosing a camera. Is there any differ- The QuickSnap turned out to be preset at When you are finished shooting, you take ence between disposables? When I asked 100th of a second at f10. That’s not a par- the entire camera to the photo lab, with my one-hour photo lab technician this ticularly fast shutter speed: my Nikon the film in it. The lab will unload and pro- question, she pulled a camera from the camera, for example, can be set as fast as cess the film. You will not get the camera trash and showed me that underneath the 8000th of a second. You must hold the back. no-name-brand cardboard sheath was a re- camera reasonably steady, and you won’t I was astounded at the variety of brands cycled plastic Kodak disposable. be able to stop action on anything mov- of one-time-use cameras. When I couldn’t Apparently, some labs sell the used ing quickly. make up my mind at the Rite-Aid, I turned disposables to oufits that reload them with Folklorists who shoot frequently but to my local camera store for suggestions. off-brand film, crudely tape them shut, don’t want to invest in expensive equip- The dealer recommended the Fujifilm stick on a fresh paper cover, and resell ment might want to consider buying one QuickSnap Flash because there was a spe- them under a different name. According of the cheaper point-and-shoot reusable cial $6 rebate on the $9.98 camera. That to my informant, the film often jams, the cameras. But then you would have to worry deal was hard to beat, plus the camera was flash batteries are cold, and the color bal- about loading film, changing batteries, and loaded with ASA Fuji 800, a film I’ve of- ance is often hopelessly red or blue. She repairing the camera if you drop it, get it ten used in my 35mm cameras and know I strongly recommended paying a little ex- wet, or get sand in it. Worse yet, you might like. It was extremely light—merely 4 tra for Kodak or Fuji film cameras. lose it. ounces loaded—and small enough to fit Film speed. Many one-time-use cameras For people who don’t want to be both- in a pocket. don’t tell you what film is inside or what ered with equipment, a disposable can’t be I took it around Ground Zero to see what speed it is, yet sometimes it’s helpful to beat. In most cases any photo is better than kinds of photos I could get. My first sur- know. If you are planning to shoot indoors no photo, and a decent disposable should prise was how friendly people were. or in low light, the 800 ASA film is a good at least give you a decent record of what- Construction workers actually asked me to choice. For shooting outdoors in bright ever you’re documenting. take their picture, and when the flash didn’t sunlight, however, this film may overex- go off, one of them ran over to show me pose and you would do better with a Martha Cooper, is how to turn it on. Professional cameras can camera loaded with ASA 400. the director of photography at be threatening—people wonder for whom Focus. The focus is fixed. You cannot City Lore. Her you are shooting and why—but no one feels get closer to your subject than 3.3 feet or images have appeared in threatened by a throwaway camera. And I the picture will be out of focus. museum exhibi- found it liberating not to worry about ex- Flash. The flash range on the Fuji tions, books, and magazines. If you posure, focus, or choice of lens. QuickSnap is 13 feet, so don’t count on have a question Bottom line—great results. My photos lighting a large room at night. A flash that that you’d like her to address, send it turned out frighteningly well. In fact, there can be turned on or off is useful for fill- to the editor of Voices.

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 13 The Alley

Three cities illustrate different patterns of development in urban alleys. New York City’s alleys were created as amenities for aristocratic and bourgeois residents. In Waterford, the alleys and the brick step-gabled carriage houses of the mid-nineteenth century were signs of the community’s business acumen and determination to succeed after the fire of 1841. At Saratoga Springs, alleys were conceived as amenities but took on a working class aspect, serving as low-income housing and commercial enclaves. In the twentieth century, alleys survived the age of the automobile and the decline of central cities; they have been gentrified and protected for their contributions to the quality of life in our cities. Now they are waiting to be studied as microcosms of vernacular architecture and social history.

n the nineteenth century, the rise of both the working class and commercial of New York’s carriage houses were I carriage traffic in New York State made establishments. multiresidential, catering to several patrons it necessary to keep animals in cities and Because alleys were back streets, the in a neighborhood and placed on streets a villages, causing the creation of urban alleys. sources for their study are scarce and require few blocks from the homes they served. Alleys were spaces where valuable animals the application of interdisciplinary Even speculative developments in exclusive could be kept in barns or, as the century techniques. My approach treats planned residential squares like Gramercy and Union wore on, decorative and substantial carriage alleys as built and social landscapes to be were planned without alleys. The high price houses. Alleys were thus constructed as investigated as vernacular architecture, and of Manhattan real estate put alleys last on amenities, places that improved the value then viewed as service, residential, or the list of amenities—the cost most likely of a property, and a convenience to the commercial space that attracted the working to be cut to assure the financial success of household they served. Yet paradoxically, class. Although alleys appeared in numerous a venture. alleys were hidden behind the main house, New York State communities, I have chosen Those few alleys that did appear in the not to be seen by respectable people—for New York City, Waterford, and Saratoga city were limited to a few residential squares the owners preferred to display their Springs to represent different types of alley developed in the 1820s and 1830s, which carriages and themselves formally, traveling development. The alley did not appear in were the epitome of aristocratic living. The on the most fashionable main streets. each place in the same way: in New York alley spaces were adopted from the example After the Civil War, the alleys’ original alleys were rare, early Waterford had of the English mews. In London, houses function as an amenity declined, as they extensive alleys, and Saratoga Springs falls had their formal fronts directly on streets, became populated by working class in between. without courtyards to accommodate horses residents. Often, alleys were sites for both as on the Continent. From the 1680s to the low-income housing and commercial NEW Y ORK CITY 1720s, London’s residential squares came to development, because the housing was The Aristocratic Residential Square have a mews at their rear, consisting of alleys cheaper than on the main street and the Supported by the Mews running parallel between two streets, which space was ideal for small-scale enterprise. Although New York City became served the houses fronting on both streets. Such neighborhoods were the forerunner nineteenth-century America’s largest city, it Alleys were as straight as the street and of the urban ghetto. Only in the twentieth had few planned alleys. A New York followed the geometry of the developer’s century, with the gentrification of alley townhouse’s service entrance was plan. Accessible from the alley were rows structures by returning professionals, did the commonly in front and provided access to of private, two-level stables. Situated in the alley reacquire the prestige it had originally basement kitchens and storage, with no rear of the lot, the utmost distance from held, sometimes to the extent of forcing out access to the rear or a carriage house. Most the main house, the unhealthy stable and

14 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore AA BackBack StreetStreet HistoryHistory ofof NewNew York’sYork’s CommunitiesCommunities

BY THEODORE CORBETT

work spaces were kept separate from the dwelling. The garbage collector’s night cart never was seen because it did not have to come to the front door. The front of the house could remain formal and elegant, while the rear kitchen, fenced yard, and stable area receded from genteel to more menial activities. New York City’s most extensive mews supported the northern portion of Washington Square. The space had been public property, having served the city as a pauper’s burial ground, gallows spot, and then a parade-ground. But beginning in 1828, a combination of real estate developers, bourgeois householders of New England or Scottish background, and city officials, including former mayor Steven Allen, came together to create this residential square, erecting blocks of substantial three- and four-story Greek Revival and Federal townhouses around it. A mews was built in the back of the north row of townhouses. The mews separated each row house from its carriage house, and the central carriage entrance was large enough to accommodate a wagon. Although most of the carriage houses have been heavily modified for housing, one retains an old double door with a rounded transom. Such elegant housing and an expensive mews were to the benefit of the upper-class participants in the project. Owners controlled the alley if not the square. Henry James’s Washington Square describes a secluded and patriarchal household of the mid-nineteenth century. A carriage house entrance on North Row, Washington Square, New York City, still has its old Here, behind the façades of the townhouses, doorway, built to accommodate a horse-drawn wagon or carriage. This alley, modeled on the daughters and sisters led a stifling life of mews of London, served wealthy residents of the city. All photos by Theodore Corbett.

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 15 leadership. Lots with alleys had been laid entrances. Above the left entrance is a loft out in 1784 by Flores Bancker. An 1805 map door that likely served for feed storage, since shows that alleys paralleled Waterford’s grid there are no windows at that level. of streets throughout the village. As houses Rectangular iron lintels are over the were built, so too were stables on the alley entrances. The two windows on the south behind. have rusticated stone lintels and provide But the alley structures that exist today light and ventilation in the stable area. The date chiefly from the 1840s to the 1870s. whole structure is reinforced with cast iron After a major fire destroyed 130 buildings rods. Though undecorated, it is far more on July 11, 1841, the village rebuilt in brick. substantial and durable than most alley Elaborate brick stables were erected to structures, representing a considerable replace what had burned, many with outlay by the owner who built it, probably stepped gables in imitation of the main in the 1870s. house. Brick ballast from the sloops and The era of brick construction then canal boats that plied the Hudson is likely passed; by the end of the 1870s, Waterford’s to have been used in these structures. Some additional expansion did not include alleys. of the stables may have been adjuncts to the homeowner’s business—to SARATOGA SPRINGS The carriage houses in Waterford mirrored the step-gabled houses they served. accommodate the mules that pulled the A Working Class Presence canal boats, for example. The stepped-gable The elegant resort of Saratoga Springs social rigidity and time-honored stable was innovative—a badge of lacked the commerce and industry of New needlework; the household could provide bourgeois respectability—as most alley York City or Waterford, but about half its for their every material want, including the stables in other communities were mere streets were served by alleys. Alleys were transportation found in alley carriage house. barns. developed by private or individual initiative The merchants of Waterford built at various times, so some alleys remained WATERFORD carriage houses on alleys that served First vacant while others were crowded with A Phoenix of Brick Stepped-Gable through Fifth and Broad Streets. In the alley structures. From 1820 to 1890, stables that Stables and Alleys between Second and Third Streets is a brick were once mere barns came to look as A different alley story is told at the stable with stepped gables at each end. elegant as the main houses they were meant confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk Flush to the alley, the thirty-foot-long to serve. Most alley structures were wood- Rivers, fifteen miles above Albany. structure has two bays with double-door frame stables—no mews or stepped-gable Waterford, the first place incorporated as a village by the New York legislature, in 1794, was established at the head of sloop navigation on the Hudson River. To promote trade, workers eliminated riffs in the channel and maximized the river’s depth in shallow areas. Waterford became the terminus for the Champlain Canal, completed in 1823, which fed into the Erie Canal, and also developed its own King’s Water Canal, completed in 1828. Waterford grew modestly until the Panic of 1837 and then suffered a sharp decline in population. Prosperity returned a few years later, as Canadian and Irish immigrants worked in its mills, and industrial and commercial entrepreneurs built many brick stepped- gable houses along its streets. This wood-frame stable on Railroad Alley in Saratoga Springs now has the outline of a The village’s alley system was the result New England saltbox, but the rear lean-to was added circa 1900, about fifty years after of early planning and a determined the original structure was built.

16 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore carriage houses here—and the evolution of reported a fire in which his “stable was served as a shop. The second floor was the spa’s alleys can be traced over a broad enveloped in flames, in about 10 minutes, accessed through a hatch door and span of time. In some alleys, the appearance also the stables and small building of Mr. apparently served as a residence rather than of the laboring class led to struggles for Reed directly across the alley”; however, as a hayloft. This level was lit by two glazed control of alley space. “My horse, wagon and harness was saved.” six-over-six windows in the gable ends, and In early nineteenth-century Saratoga One of the spa’s earliest alley buildings a hall with lath-and-plaster walls separated Springs, barns similar to those built in the stands on Railroad Alley, a one-and-a-half- the rooms on either side. To the rear, behind countryside provided residential support story wood-frame structure that sits eighty the walls of the hall, was a chimney on a services in alleys. These wooden barns were feet from the Greek Revival house it served. slate base; it conducted smoke from constructed with the long side along the The original thirty-four-by-thirteen-foot stovepipes that could be attached to it. alley to minimize the intrusion into the yard; structure is sheathed with horizontal Although the walls and ceiling of the second they were one to one-and-a-half levels high clapboards and is pierced on the alley side floor were unfinished, the space perhaps and had a double entrance opening into the by two double-door entrances. We can functioned as a modest residence for a alley. This form appeared as early as the assume that carriages could enter here, but family or two individuals. This multipurpose 1820s and remained common until after the the space had no windows for ventilation building illustrates the variety of uses for Civil War. Wood-frame structures were, of for horses. Inside, the building is divided mid-century alley structures. course, vulnerable to fire. In 1828 grocer into two bays of unequal size, both with A few buildings of conscious architectural Miles Beach’s barn on Long Alley burned lath-and-plaster ceilings and evidence of style appeared in the spa’s alleys at mid- down. Eighteen years later, Dr. Freeman wood or coal stove heating; perhaps it century. The first American effort to design stables with style came in the 1850s, when Andrew Jackson Downing devoted a chapter of his Architecture of Country Houses to “Hints for Cottage and Farm Stables,” suggesting a wood-frame cottage stable. Despite the addition of Gothic-inspired elements, the form of Downing’s stables recalled the tradition of early barns, the height remaining one to one-and-a-half stories. His stables were compact; in fact, Downing recommended that they measure no more than eighteen by twenty feet, with just enough room for one or two horses and a carriage. However, Downing’s stables are most remembered for their decorative board-and-batten siding. A stable with Downing dimensions and siding is found in the spa’s west side. Access is from the twenty-foot-long street side rather than the slightly shorter gable ends. It is a one-and-a-half-story, three-bay structure sheathed with vertical boards and machine-made battens. Based on lot ownership records, the structure belonged to an 1850s townhouse that stands three hundred feet away. The Railroad Alley structure with its upper-floor apartment confirms that people and horses shared the alleys. Unfortunately, maps and street directories do not allow us In The Architecture of County Houses, Andrew Jackson Downing offered model stables; one structure inspired by his designs is the cottage stable on West Harrison Street in to identify the spa’s alley residents until the Saratoga Springs. 1880s, when laborers accounted for 91

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 17 the teacher may have had a social status not always found in alleys, but her presence reflects the impoverished lot of women educators. In the nineteenth century, widows and single women had to work. Overall, alleys became places where the lower end of the working class lived. But in some of the spa’s upper-class neighborhoods, the traditional pattern of stables as amenities continued. North Lane, which served the professionals and proprietors on Union Avenue and White Street, for example, remained a carriage house alley, serving main houses some distance away, into the 1880s. There was only one residence on the alley, a second-

Structures in North Lane, from Saratoga Springs in 1888, remained under the control of the floor apartment over a stable. North Lane owners of the main houses they served and were not available as low-income housing for continued to be an upper-class enclave laborers. L.R. Burleigh map. because it supported Union Avenue, a very posh address. percent of alley inhabitants, 53 percent of women, 70 percent were identified as By the 1890s, however, the appearance whom were unskilled, 27 percent skilled, and widows. From 1882 to 1884, women of the Queen Anne and Richardsonian 11 percent semiskilled. Porters, carters, residents of Railroad Alley included a Romanesque carriage houses built in the liverymen, and coachmen resided close to widow, a seamstress, a dressmaker, an image of the main house signaled a change. or within the alley stables, as one might embroiderer, a stamper, two domestics, a The new carriage houses represented an expect, but widows and single women were laundress, a teacher, and one person simply effort by the upper classes to retain or return also among the pool of workers in the alleys, identified by the title “Miss.” Eight of these control of the alley to the well-to-do who often as household heads. Women made up working women headed their households could afford such amenities. Apartments for 30 percent of alley residents, and of these and three were married. With her education, servants and caretakers were placed above carriage houses and, later, automobile garages. Living in these structures, the employees of the upper class prevented the laboring class from finding cheap alley housing. By the turn of the century, the number of lower-class permanent alley residents had declined from its peak in the 1880s. An example of the new carriage houses (now renovated as apartments) was erected in 1896 at the rear of 632 North Broadway. Designed in the Queen Anne style, the structure has a complex roof line and projecting gables. For texture, the upper level is shingled and the lower level clapboarded, and the roof is slate. This carriage house follows the form and decoration of the main house in most details except for its lack of chimneys. A cupola allowed needed ventilation to the hay loft,

A Queen Anne carriage house in Saratoga Springs has been renovated for apartments, but it doubtless a holdover from previous barnlike was originally built to accommodate servants as well as horses and carriages. carriage houses. But in great contrast to the

18 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore early barns, here was an alley structure with and an exclusive gated residential complex. all the grandeur of the main street. Two problems have emerged in preserving alleys. First is the lack of recognition in TRANSFORMATION OF THE A LLEY renovation efforts. Because alleys and their The Age of the Auto structures are rarely of landmark status, they Between 1910 and 1920, the number of are ignored in National Register nominations Alley horses in New York City decreased from or local government revitalization efforts. 128,000 to 56,000, but the alley continued Many alley structures are destroyed when to provide a service area away from the main nearby historic structure are restored, often house or business. Stables were converted to meet building code requirements. For this into garages, new auto houses were built, reason, municipalities need to give alleys Cats and gas and repair stations sprang up—all special policy consideration. BY MICK GREEN in alleys. Behind the stores of the city’s main Second, efforts to save alleys can actually streets, alleys served as receiving areas for backfire. Often, municipalities recognize trucked-in goods. alleys by regarding them as streets and ew York City has maintained an From the 1920s to the 1960s, alley stables provide them with the maintenance and N interesting and playful association in the central core of cities continued to be security of a street. This, however, invites with its alleyways. Few places have produced converted into inexpensive housing. New automobile traffic, and as they become more joyful sounds than Manhattan’s Tin York University turned its Washington shortcuts or parking lots, their pedestrian Pan Alley, named for the raucous musical Square mews into student housing, and character is destroyed. Alleys need to be bustle of songwriters hard at work. The same Sniffen Court’s stables were converted into treated as “people places,” where the general area was recently redubbed Silicon townhouses, a studio, and small theater. automobile is restricted, with guidelines Alley to help promote the image of the city Some alleys became ghettos because the similar to those of a public path or a bike as an emerging Internet center. Neither strip housing was cheap, attracting newly arrived trail, and where the building codes are was a true alley, of course, but the use of ethnics and blacks. The maintenance of applied in ways that preserve their historical the allegorical alleyway immediately alleys was neglected, and even their service integrity. associated these areas and the activities of functions declined as parcel deliveries their inhabitants with New York’s tightly replaced some truck deliveries. Alleys came FOR FURTHER READING packed, intensely cosmopolitan character. to be regarded as centers of crime. By the F.W. Beers, County Atlas of Saratoga (New Sure, we have rows of brownstones and 1950s, urban renewal experts were calling York, 1876). townhouses with nary an alley in sight, and for their obliteration—a process they called James Borchert, Alley Life in Washington: housing projects that seemed to have no the “Demapping of Alleys.” Family, Community, Religion and Folklife in need for major streets, let alone backend the City, 1850–1970 (Urbana, IL, 1980). Beginning in the 1960s, however, the corridors. And unlike Bostonians and historic preservation movement emphasized Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham, Philadelphians, New Yorkers can’t boast of A History of the City of New York (New adaptive reuse of structures like stables for inventing games like halfball and wireball York, 1999). housing. Alleys’ very seclusion, once regarded specifically for play in an alley’s confined Hope Cook, Seeing New York, History Walks as a magnet for crime, became an advantage: space. Still, the association of the alleyway for Armchair and Footloose Travelers owners could leave the noise of the street, (Philadelphia, 1995). with the city remains strong, and the playful have parking spaces, and even be able to walk Theodore Corbett, The Making of American use of this urban space is part of our to work. Dilapidated alley buildings could be Resorts: Saratoga Springs, Ballston Spa, Lake folklore. purchased inexpensively and turned into George (New Brunswick, NJ, 2001). The idea of letting one’s kids play in a historical showplaces with a young couple’s A. J. Downing, The Architecture of Country darkened alley, hidden from adult view, is sweat equity and modest amounts of cash. Houses (1850; reprint, New York, 1969). probably not the most comforting thought As they had in the past, developers also found Sydney Ernest Hammersley, The History of for the vast majority of today’s parents. renovation of alley properties to be a source Waterford (Waterford, 1957). Responding to safety concerns and the desire of rental income. Today, some Saratoga Elliot Willensky and Norval White, AIA to promote the development of our Springs residents have moved into their Guide to New York City (New York, 1988). children’s skills, we’ve taken our kids from renovated carriage houses and sold the main the streets and placed them in gyms, houses at a profit. In New York City, Sniffen Ted Corbett is involved in historic classrooms, and other managed settings. preservation in Bennington, Vermont, and is Court, once an enclave of impoverished preparing a book on the history of American Perhaps it’s all for the better, but during most intellectuals and artists, is now a city landmark alleys. of the twentieth century, urban children

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 19 spent their daylight after-school hours in through his head while unsuspecting friends In some neighborhoods, alleys were enclosed their neighborhoods, playing outdoors with raced beneath his suspended frame. by the fences and gates that delineated their friends in unsupervised activities. From Having a good place to hide could be property lines. In others they formed a a child’s view, the alley was just part of the useful beyond typical activities of play. You relatively unobstructed set of paths along playground. might duck down the alley to surprise friends the inside of a block, enabling shortcuts by Streets and sidewalks, the urban equivalent or to avoid confronting a bully who hadn’t foot (or in some cases by bike) throughout of open spaces, were adaptable to the full yet spotted you on the street. Then again, the neighborhood. You could have a pretty range of ball games and the widest variety you couldn’t beat a good alley for hiding good race, with the big kids riding their bikes of play. Alleys, along with other smaller, less stuff that you were scared to bring in the around the block, the littler ones running accessible environments, such as roofs and house. “Dirty” magazines shared among through it. basements, provided their own special friends could be slipped inside old There were practical household functions excitement and fun. newspapers and stored in a box at the end that made use of these narrow corridors, Long, dark, narrow, and often cluttered of a more deserted strip. Though they still the most common being clotheslines. The with refuse bins and buckets, alleys were might eventually get discovered by a lines were not always for wet clothes, ideally suited for games of search and chase building’s “super” (the superintendent or however. I’ve heard of kids stringing lines like hide-and-seek, tag, and ringoleavio. If janitor), that was way better than having the between adjoining buildings to send things you quietly kneeled in toward a side doorway, stuff discovered by one’s mother. back and forth, but my friend whose family a couple of garbage cans might have Of course, the super might chase you away lived up in Washington Heights had us all provided you with just enough cover to avoid from the alley, no matter what you were beat. His apartment was in a building on being captured by opposing players on the doing. Protecting windows from fly balls was 141st Street between Broadway and hunt. A friend recalled the excitement of a lot more important than encouraging our Riverside Drive, and his cousins lived on ducking into a particularly narrow youthful sense of fun and adventure. “You the same block facing 140th. One day his passageway toward the rear of a building, kids better get out from back there and go father went out and strung a telephone wire scaling the walls, and holding himself up by play in the street before I catch you”: such a to create a working closed phone line widening his stance and pressing his feet threat would send us scurrying toward the between the two apartments. Whenever one against the two sides. As his pursuers unobstructed daylight and the protection of of my friend’s aunts wanted to speak to her rounded the dark corner, none thought to the public space. sister, she’d give a single ring through Ma look up. I imagine gleeful visions of The range of alleyway activities was also Bell, then his mother would pick up on their Spiderman or another superhero passing dependent upon the corridor’s accessibility. private line.

20 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore PROPOSAL: The Great Document Exchange BY CAROL KAMMEN

o read about the early days in the at a time when the area was first being Oregon, might go to Portland, Maine; from TOregon Territory, we need to go to settled. Here was information about the Dorchester to Austin, from Chicago to Key New York, where Narcissa Whitman’s letters people who first farmed the area, about their West. From those envelopes, archivists and were sent. To know about English and Irish doings, about their origins. This material was local historians everywhere would pull emigrants to the United States, and the lives very important for my community’s documents describing events, times, people, they led in our communities, we need to historical record, but it resided in another and customs in their own place from long search archives in Great Britain. To know place altogether, and I had known nothing ago, and not so long ago, with which they what U.S. soldiers saw when they went off about it. become richer. And in making this curious to the Mexican War, we look not at Suddenly, I had a wondrous vision. I journey home, each document would add battlefield sites but in the records in their imagined that one calm, sunny day, from all to the descriptions and knowledge of our various hometowns. So, too, we learn about over the country, letters, diary entries, and communities and illustrate the links between the California gold rush by looking for journals would all rise gently from the us. letters in New England and Pennsylvania communities where they reside, to hover and Can you imagine the pleasure of opening and Virginia archives, and about Florida then flutter in the sky above. In my vision, such a letter? Suddenly in your hands is a during World War II by reading letters the sky fills with white envelopes wafting new description of your community, a fresh written home by soldiers stationed there— above the treetops. Then softly, all these view of your world, an additional piece of soldiers who in civilian life lived elsewhere floating documents descend to earth, the historical puzzle. We would see our own and found Florida “something to write heading homeward. history grow fuller, and in addition, we home about.” Let me propose a Great Document would have evidence of a crucial lesson for None of this is surprising. A letter from Exchange. On some designated day, our friends and neighbors. This Great one person to another in the same town, or archivists and local historians everywhere Document Exchange would demonstrate to the local newspaper, is rarely descriptive in the country would draw from their the importance of personal observation, of of place; both sender and recipient live in collections a single letter that describes writing, and of saving source materials. It the community and know what the area another place. It could be a letter from San would reiterate the lesson so many of us looks like, what is going on. But letter writers Diego when that place was a distant try to teach, that each and every one of us look more closely at the world around them community struggling to survive, a diary is an actor in our history and culture, a when they try to tell others what a place account written by a visitor to an agricultural participant in times that will too soon and its people are like. In all our archives fair in Nashville, a letter telling about an become The Past, and that we are all capable and repositories, and in the letters still in execution held behind the town jail and of adding to the historical record. attics and garages, there is a great deal of witnessed by a traveler passing through The Great Document Exchange could information about other places—the places Ithaca, a journal entry describing Altoona become an annual event, and we would where the letters were written and the diaries by a traveler on the railroad, a description celebrate Document Exchange Day, perhaps were kept. of Hawaiians by an early missionary. during Archives Week. What a grand way Elizabeth Fuller, the librarian at the With the aid of a copy machine, the to create national publicity and interest in Westchester County Historical Society, two document could be duplicated, then placed local history and folklore. Now, wouldn’t hundred miles distant from my home in in an envelope and sent to the keeper of that be something? Ithaca, once sent me a letter that had that other community’s history. Everyone originated in Tompkins County in 1823. She would contribute something to another Carol Kammen teaches history at Cornell. She is the Tompkins County Historian and author asked me to comment on it for her society’s community’s knowledge of its past. of On Doing Local History: Reflections on historical journal. And several days later, the envelopes What Local Historians Do, Why, and What It What a delight! Here was a letter Means (AltaMira Press, 1985). This article, would arrive. An offering from Scarsdale in a different form, was first published in describing Enfield, a part of my county for might descend upon Phoenix, an envelope Volume 51, Number 3 of History News, the which there is relatively little—well, from Norfolk would arrive in Inde- publication of the American Association for State and Local History, and is reprinted by truthfully, hardly any—descriptive material, pendence; something from Portland, permission.

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 21 Community Meals in Rural New York BY LYNN CASE EKFELT

In the days following September 11, the collection jar. Since the labor and most of The following selection from Good Food, media seemed fascinated by Americans’ turn the food are donated, the proceeds go Served Right (Canton, NY: Traditional Arts to comfort foods and social evenings with straight to the organization’s coffers. in Upstate New York, 2000) describes friends. Arugula at the trendy bistro was out, More important, though, is the way these some of the preparations for the and meatloaf at the kitchen table was in. events act to strengthen the group itself. semiannual chicken-and-biscuit dinner FOODWAYS Those horrible days may have marked the Many have been going on for half a given by the Pierrepont Fire Department only time that rural New Yorkers have found century or more. The wise old lady tasting Ladies’ Auxiliary. In the account of Judy themselves at the forefront of any trend; the gravy and directing the kitchen Hoyt, the president, we see the pride of around here, cooks have always been judged operations probably began as a girl helping belonging, the shared system of values, and by the creaminess of the scalloped potatoes, set the tables, then graduated to cutting the sense of tradition that underlie all and communal meals have been the vegetables and mashing potatoes under community meals. cornerstone of social structure. strict supervision. Along the way she Where I live in the North Country, and I learned the oral traditions of her Our Election Day dinner started many suspect in other rural areas of the state as organization and built strong ties to the years ago. People know about us, and some well, it is possible to eat out every day of the other members—ties that make her a more travel for miles to eat our chicken and week simply by attending fund-raising loyal member of the group. biscuits. We usually serve 360 to 400 people dinners put on by churches and service The organizations are not the only ones between 4 P.M. and 7 P.M. The dinner organizations. Clearly, they’ve found a to benefit from these meals. As we were includes mashed potatoes, chicken, formula that works. In our village alone, we reminded by September 11, humans are biscuits, gravy, coleslaw, peas and pearl have the biweekly VFW breakfasts, the social creatures who need to feel connected onions, a raw veggie tray (carrots, celery, Church and Community Worker Lenten to friends and family. One good way to radishes, and green peppers), pickles (dill lunches, the Hospital Guild soup lunch, the achieve this connection is to work together and sweet), olives, cranberry sauce, and Rotary and the Day Care Center spaghetti for a common cause. That work might be cake or pie. suppers, the Friends of the Canton Fire as draining as standing for several hours Preparing the dinner is a two-day Station chili cookoff, the Presbyterian church stirring a cauldron of gravy or as pleasant process. We cook all the chicken the day international smorgasbord, the Zonta pie as tucking into a piece of homemade peach before, then at a night work-detail we sale, and countless Methodist church dinners. pie in the church hall. In any case it debone it and refrigerate it. I keep all the And that’s just Canton; the surrounding provides a sense of belonging to something broth and chicken fat for my gravy. That towns offer equally varied possibilities. bigger than oneself. day we also put the cabbages and carrots To some extent, the menus are seasonal: Since time immemorial, breaking bread for the coleslaw through the food maple syrup festivals and bullhead feeds in together has been a way of building processor and mix them together, but we the spring, strawberry or ice cream socials community. Preparing and sharing tra- do not mix up the slaw until the next and chicken barbecues in the summer, turkey ditional foods smoothes the entrance of a morning. dinners in the fall, pastry sales around the new member into a group and can cement The day of the dinner I spend the whole holidays. But other foods know no season. the bonds between that group’s established morning making gravy; it’s usually a three- Ham, spaghetti, cabbage rolls, roast beef, and members. There’s a reason why radicchio hour job for me. I use large restaurant pots— chicken-and-biscuits can show up any time. has not made it onto the menu at the two full ones for the dinner. For thickening What makes these dinners and bake sales DePeyster Methodist Church’s election the gravy I use cornstarch because I feel that so successful? Their appeal is that they night supper. Not that no one ever intro- flour makes it too pasty for such a large offer something to everyone involved. duces a new dish or ingredient to the amount. It will take twelve boxes of Sponsoring organizations like them repertoire, but it takes a long time to change cornstarch to make this much gravy. I mix because people are generally more willing the values of a community. Who is—and one box at a time in a smaller kettle until it is to contribute money if they get something who isn’t—a good cook and what defines a perfect consistency. Then I mix all the in return. It’s easier to find two hundred good food are part of a group’s shared batches together in the big pots so the gravy people to eat a $6 ham dinner than to find aesthetic, and threats to the comfort that is all flavored the same. Sometimes after you two hundred people who’ll put $6 into a belonging brings are not to be taken lightly. get it all done, you have to add more of some

22 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore ingredients; you just have to taste it and keep Scalloped potatoes are a staple of community dinners. Every cook has a favorite working until it’s right. addition—a bit of ham, some grated cheese, more onion. It would be possible to eat We make the coleslaw the morning of the ten different helpings of scalloped potatoes from ten cooks and never find one that dinner, too, so it can season through. We chop duplicated another. This recipe is a favorite of Ruth Trudell of Lisbon and her family. the Spanish onions fine, then add them to the carrots and cabbage we shredded the day 6–8 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced before, along with salt, pepper, and sugar to 1 medium onion, sliced taste. Then we mix the whole thing very well 1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper with Hellmann’s mayonnaise; don’t use any 1 teaspoon salt other kind! Finally we taste it and adjust the 3–4 cups milk seasonings to perfection. 4 tablespoons butter or margarine We are usually ready to serve at 3:30 or 2 cups cooked ham, diced 3:45. We use a steam table and people help 1/2 cup flour themselves. We serve the coffee, Kool-Aid, 1 cup grated sharp cheddar (optional) and water once people are seated. This is an auxiliary function, but the firemen help us Mix all the ingredients together in a large greased baking dish. Pour in enough milk serve. We are proud of our dinner, but we to cover the potatoes. If desired, add a cup of grated cheddar. Bake at 350 degrees sure are tired at the end! for 1 hour.

Tuesday demonstrations at the Gallery of New York Traditions, 133 Jay Street, Schenectady Kent Public library and landmarKs (518 346-7008) Preservation society of southeast Present: August 6, noon to 2 P.M. “catch the World by the tale” Native American artist Rita Chrisjohn-Benson will make traditional cornhusk dolls, along with The Second Annual Putnam Storytelling Festival other native crafts. August 13, noon to 2 P.M. Saturday, September 21, 2002 Beverley Carhart will demonstrate her woodcarving skills with realistic replications of 12 Noon– 5:00 p.m. rain or shine waterfowl figures and feather pins. Putnam County Veteran’s Memorial Park, August 20, noon to 2 P.M. Gipsy Trail Rd, Kent. Admission Free Barry Irving will make traditional West African Refreshments Available drums as well as demonstrate traditional 845-628-5585/[email protected] drumming styles. August 27, noon to 2 P.M. Everett Hartman will demonstrate the art of International and local folklore presented by Joe Wos, The Storycrafters, Bob Reiser marquetry, “painting” landscapes and animals and others with special foreign language presentations by local tellers. in small pieces of natural-colored woods; he uses up to 700 pieces per picture. Separate morning pre-registered storytelling workshops available —call or e-mail for September 10, noon to 2 P.M. further information. Nefisa Khanshab will demonstrate mehendi, the The Putnam Storytelling Festival is made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on use of henna dye in painting the face, hands, the Arts Decentralization Program. In Putnam County, the Decentralization Program is administered by the and feet; this Pakistani and Indian tradition is Putnam Arts Council. among a bride’s prenuptial rituals.

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Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 23 Picturing the Gr

BY ANDREW BAUGNET

ention the words “Grange Hall” was later selected by the commissioner of M to anyone familiar with rural Agriculture to make a trip to the southern communities and chances are the first thing United States in the sections recently that comes to mind is food. Pancake ravaged by the Civil War to investigate breakfasts, or chicken-and-biscuit dinners, agricultural conditions. Kelley, already a are a long-standing tradition with the member of the Masonic fraternity, saw a Grange. The word grange is derived from need for some type of farming fraternity the Latin word granum, meaning grain, and to aid in bringing together the rural is historically associated with the granges community, both economically and socially. of England and Ireland—large farming Fredonia #1, located in Chautauqua estates. From the Grange’s inception, County, New York, was the first dues- members would share a meal together paying Grange in the world. It was before business of the evening was established on April 16, 1868, and it still attended to, since after all, with food comes functions today. George D. Hinckley, one fellowship. The Grange became an of Fredonia #1’s charter members, was important foundation of rural social life named State Master, but it was not until and sought to change legislative and six years later, on November 6, 1873, that political policies for the betterment of the Grange was formally organized in New farmers and their families and communities. York State. The first annual meeting of the In 1866, after a grasshopper infestation New York State Grange took place on the destroyed his farm in Minnesota, Oliver H. third Wednesday in March 1874, at the Kelley took a position in Washington as a Agricultural and Geological Hall in Albany, clerk in the Department of Agriculture. He with an already astounding statewide membership of 164 Granges. Hinckley was a firm believer in cooperative buying and selling among farmers and helped establish life insurance to meet the needs of members. The second State Master, William G. Wayne, is remembered for having created the Union Grange Trade Association, which enabled members to work cooperatively in buying and selling materials. The growth of the Grange movement in Otsego County attests to the need for such an organization in the late nineteenth century. The first Grange was Elk Creek No. 506, organized on December 31, 1886, at the home of Leslie R. French with twenty-six charter members. Elk Creek, a Main Hall, Wharton Valley. From New York Grange Hall S

24 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore range: 130 Years

Series 1999. All photos by Andrew Baugnet.

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 25 conjunction with social activities grew to encompass political and legislative concerns as well. The State Grange for New York, located in Cortland, holds annual meetings to consider legislation and public policy on agriculture. At the National Grange, in Washington, D.C., staff members administer policies established annually by democratic Grange processes at local, county, and state levels. The organization has supported the passage of legislation providing for interstate highway programs, creation of the Cooperative Extension Service, free rural mail delivery and the parcel post system, tax-exempt fuel for on-the-farm use, the Rural Electrification Administration, and the rural telephone program. It also championed the Soil Conservation Service, Farmers Home Administration, crop insurance programs, and school lunch and milk programs. Lastly, it lobbied to bring Social Security to farmers and other self-employed workers. Each year, studies of more than a thousand issues of concern are published and distributed by the National Grange. Current issues include the Endangered Species Act, rural Medicare reform, Dining table, Wharton Valley. regional dairy compacts, and the preservation of farmland. Subordinate Grange, held its first meetings purchased for $50, and a hall was built. This But the local, or subordinate, Grange in private homes until room was found in type of growth was typical. All told, Otsego remains the cornerstone of the movement. the back of the Post Office building. County, with its strong agricultural These are the Grange halls located on main Members then built a hall and had communities, boasted fifty Granges with streets and rural roads throughout small- purchasing agents who bought items such large memberships and high attendance. town America where members met—and as feed, seed, sugar, coffee, molasses, and In 1920, the New York State Grange, the still meet—regularly. Subordinate Granges barrels of oil. On October 11, 1892, the Dairymen’s League, and State Farm Bureau in a county work together on projects and Otsego County Pomona Grange was combined to organize the Grange League causes. The pomona, or county, Grange organized at Elk Creek, and fifteen of the Federation, or G.L.F. In 1964, this became oversees the subordinates. Elk Creek members became charter what is today known as Agway, based in The official meeting for each Grange is members. William Henry Chamberlain of Syracuse. Other forms of cooperation for led by a master—a title used in feudal Elk Creek Grange was the first Pomona the Grange included life insurance, mutual English estates. The vice president is called master. fire insurance, and liability insurance. The the overseer, and there are also a secretary, In 1888, a group of people from formation of these cooperative plans gave treasurer, chaplain, and executive Westville met with Henry Chamberlin and farmers more market power in their committee. A lecturer is responsible for the formed Westville No. 540. Frank Green transactions with dealers, buyers, and short educational program at each meeting, was elected master. Dues were 8 cents a service organizations. a chairperson is responsible for women’s month for men, and 4 cents a month for The initial goal of aiding the farmer by activities, and a musician (usually a pianist) women. Less than a year later, a lot was using cooperative purchasing power in helps create a warm social atmosphere.

26 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore After 130 years, the National Grange is the nation’s oldest force working to better the lives of rural Americans everywhere. It continues to build upon the firm foundation of the men and women who established it as it strives to understand the changing needs of rural people.

Andrew Baugnet, a documentary photographer, lives in Cooperstown, New York. Portions of this article also appeared in Heritage Magazine, a publication of the New York State Historical Association, in Cooperstown, and Kaatskill Life Magazine. Additional photos can be seen at www.baug.net.

Doors, Butternut Valley Grange.

Pierstown Grange, Cooperstown.

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 27 Edith Cutting The Importance of Planting by the Moon and Knowing Folk Sayings by the Yard By Lamar Bliss ON AIR

Folklore for Edith Cutting began as life itself: watching the weather, planting youngster could do that, and that was the garden, building fences, preserving food, making quilts. The daughter of a perfectly true. You put more in the soil than logger-turned-farmer, she understood the importance of context in documenting you expected to come up. There was one the way her people lived. Her study of folklore, published in several collections, about judging a horse, “One white foot, buy in turn changed her life. Her awareness of the whole culture—of which folk him. Two white feet, try him. Three white sayings, folk songs, and folk ways are a part—enabled her to see the depth feet, deny him. Four white feet and snip on and richness of her own world. She still treasures the albums that belonged his nose, take off his hide and feed him to to her father and grandmother because they are original. “I like to work with the crows.” Again, I don’t know how true the original material or the original people,” she once told an interviewer. that was. Theoretically a white foot would It was fortunate that such a folklorist turned to teaching. In a radio have a softer hoof, so that it could be more documentary, transcribed below, she tells interviewer Lamar Bliss how she easily damaged. discovered folklore, and how she has passed along her love of the field to Bliss: Her interest in folklore is a life- younger generations. long passion. Trips home always resulted in new stories and songs from relatives. When The study of folklore in New York State no recording machine at that time; but dad she settled near Binghamton and started reached a milestone in 1939 with the and mother had done their share of the teaching in Johnson City, her English classes publication of Body, Boots and Britches. This work very well. They had talked with my gave her the opportunity to ask her students collection of stories, songs, beliefs, and grandparents, my great-uncles, the to do what she’d done in college. practices was compiled by Harold W. neighbors, anybody that they could think Cutting: I think it is so important for Thompson from work that he and some of of and told them that I needed these things, youngsters to have a close family his students had done. One of those and I would be there at Christmas time, and relationship, and I think folklore is one of students was Edith Cutting. I would come see them. the warmest and most delightful ways of Cutting: I had grown up with weather Bliss: The resulting paper earned her encouraging that. To find out that their signs, I’d grown up with proverbs. I’d grown high marks from Dr. Tommy. He asked to parents and grandparents knew stories and up with stories of the lumber woods; things use some of her research in his book Body, songs that probably they’d never even of this sort were just a part of my life. Boots and Britches and, a few years later, he spoken of before, but they went back and Bliss: Edith Cutting grew up in Essex encouraged her to publish her own study, talked with them and brought in stories, County near Elizabethtown, New York, Lore of an Adirondack County. Over the years songs, verses, recipes, all kinds of things where her family had farmed the land since she continued to discover her family’s rich of that sort, that I think they would not the early 1800s. As a teenager in the 1930s collection of ghost stories, home remedies, have been aware of otherwise if it hadn’t she left the farm to attend the Albany and sayings. been for that unit which started their Normal School, a teachers’ college. It was a Cutting: Weather signs, I knew ’em by thinking… And I think once they realize simple assignment for a college course on the yard. Dad and mother had lots of them. that history is a personal thing, that people American Folklore, recalls Edith, that got And planting, you know, there were people have lived through these times and can tell her to look differently at her family and all that planted by the moon. There were things them about them, if they ask, if they’re the stories and traditions she’d grown up that were used as teaching devices. I was interested, I think it helps their with. Her professor, Harold Thompson, trying to remember the verse about planting understanding of history. known as Dr. Tommy, asked his students to corn. “One for the cutworm, one for the

go home and collect stories and songs from crow, one to rot and one to grow.” So that This radio documentary, produced by the family members. even a child could help plant the corn, ’cause New York Folklore Society, is edited from James Moreira’s 1995 interview of Edith Cutting: So, when I went home at it was a hand process. And some people said, Cutting and published with permission of Christmas time, I spent the whole Christmas “Two for the cut worm, two for the crow, Traditional Arts of Upstate New York, Canton. The Voices of New York Traditions vacation writing down just as fast as I could two to rot and two to grow.” But a verse series has been produced by Dale W. everything that people were telling me. I had like that was used as a teaching device. A Johnson and Lamar Bliss.

28 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore The Great Migration Stories from the South to the North Exhibition produced by the Hudson River Museum

REVIEW BY NANCY SOLOMON

From 1930 through the 1960s, millions Perhaps to compensate for these of African Americans left their family oversights there are a small number of homesteads in the rural South in search of images that document lunch-counter sit-ins better economic, educational, and social during the 1950s and 1960s, and photo- opportunities in the North. “The Great graphs of segregated drinking fountains. Migration” exhibition documents the One of the persons interviewed, Sophie experiences of fifteen African American Ward, is pictured at a lunch-counter sit-in men and women who eventually settled in during the 1950s, but we do not learn of Yonkers, the largest city in Westchester her experience that day and the County. During the past year, students at circumstances that led her to protest. The Marymount College in nearby Tarrytown vast majority of artifacts, panels, and interviewed residents about their reasons for photographs focus on the interviewees’ leaving, the circumstances of their journey, personal accomplishments, such as church- and their experiences upon arrival in New related traditions and educational achieve- York and Yonkers. The exhibition includes ment. quotes from those interviewed, personal As a result of this “family album” items and family photographs, and images approach, the visitor is left with many of Yonkers during the 1950s–1970s. questions, such as why did these particular The exhibition is divided into five individuals settle in Yonkers, what was the sections: Black Migration, The South, The James L. Green, a narrator for the Great experience of leaving a segregated society Migration exhibition, and his cousin, Joan, Journey, Yonkers, and American Journeys. outside Atlanta in 1939. Collection of James and entering a more integrated one, how Each section contains a contemporary L. Green did they make the transition from rural life portrait by photographer James Hinton, a to living in a highly urbanized community, brief quotation from the person inter- Many African Americans personally and how did they maintain their family ties viewed, objects such as an iron or quilt witnessed brutal lynchings and beatings, over time and distance. In addition, there is brought by the resident, family mementos along with “ordinary” acts of oppression, no information about their experiences such as a diploma or class photo, and a such as nighttime attacks by dogs, and living in Yonkers, which has a long history photograph of their birthplace or their policemen who failed to protect them. The of racial divisions. Although the answers to family. In addition, a simple map identifies students’ interviews reveal these memories these questions and issues can be found in the hometown location of each person in an unedited collection of excerpts at the the interviews in the reading room, they interviewed. A set of small audio speakers museum’s reading room. However, they are should have been presented in the above the panels quietly broadcasts a not found in the exhibition panels and exhibition. It is there that the voices would reminiscence of one of the persons images. The exhibition is presented have the greatest impact. interviewed. primarily as a short biography of the people Creating an exhibition that explores interviewed, rather than a thematic analysis personal, economic, and political decisions of why they left and the struggles they Nancy Solomon, [email protected], is is complex and sensitive, given the endured in their birthplaces and in their new director of Long Island Traditions. She curated the exhibition “Made in Hempstead: African circumstances that lead to such decisions. homes. American quilter Ora Kirkland.”

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 29 The American Play-Party in Context BY NANCY CASSELL McENTIRE

n rural America in the final decades of I the nineteenth century, a curious Take a lady by the hand, example of customary lore sprang up, Lead her like a pigeon, flourished, and then, in the late 1920s, faded Make her dance the Weevily Wheat, from fashion. The “play-party,” “party,” She loses her religion. “party play,” “jig play,” “frolick,” or “bounce —Satirical stanza from “Weevily Wheat” around,” as it was called, was a specialized kind of dance for adolescents and young adults, held in people’s homes. The play-party example, Botkin pointed out that one string banjo (also the fiddle and the guitar) was sung, unaccompanied by instruments, important restriction that prompted the need at entertainments and square dances since and often the verses were borrowed from for the play-party was cultural isolation. In the age of twelve. At the time of the children’s songs and folk songs (Botkin 1963: the days before “railroads, highways, interview, Wilkerson was fifty-eight years old: 16–17). This community-centered event was automobiles, mail-order houses, mail The church’s attitude was against a living paradox: how could a rural pastime delivery, movies, phonograph, and radio, the dancing.…How could a man reconcile be a dance, yet not be called a dance? Why play-party was…one solution of the religious scruples and dancing? He were these “dances” held without amusement problem” (Botkin 1963: 19). didn’t. Active church members didn’t go to dances. If a boy or girl belonging instrumental music? Why did the participants Cultural isolation was not the only factor to any church danced, the saying went use children’s songs as part of their courtship that defined the play-party, however, for if round that they had danced themselves out of the church, and that was made a practices? this had been the case, it would have been moment of history. The reference was The answers to these questions can be no different from a square dance with music made that at such and such a dance a found in the examination of the social provided by a fiddle and other popular boy or a girl danced themselves out of the church. For there seemed no restrictions that forced the play-party’s instruments of the time, such as the banjo ground of justification from the church creation. Like other genres of folklore, such and guitar. The play-party was like the square standpoint for a boy [or girl] to dance. (Botkin 1963: 21) as specialized, secret languages, the play- dance (or hoe-down), yet it was not that party thrived because it challenged authority dance, and even though some of the tunes Botkin describes an incident in Headrick, and resisted social restraints. In order to performed for the play-party were indeed Oklahoma, that further confirms the understand it, therefore, we need to examine fiddle tunes, they were not heard on the negative attitude toward dancing: those restraints and define the play-party in fiddle. terms of how it functioned in rural America For the play-party participant, enter- The convictions or prejudices of the community may further be gauged by at the end of the pioneer days. tainment options were often limited by the incident of the Sunday school Much of the history of the play-party religious and social practices. Throughout superintendent who one Sunday got up deals with creating amusement and courtship rural America, the pervasive religious view and actually wept because he had heard that his daughter had gone to a dance. opportunities when many sources of of the time was one of distrust and, in many He offered to resign because he didn’t entertainment were neither allowed nor, in cases, repudiation of dancing. Leah Wolford feel fit for the place, but the people wouldn’t hear of it. His daughter, a some cases, even available. Like a weed in a noted that even though many religions were graduate of Oklahoma Agricultural and stone wall, this spontaneous rural tradition represented, “…they were one in opposing Mechanical College, was teaching grew and thrived despite physical, social, and the dance as a wicked sport” (Wolford 1959: school and had accidentally mentioned the dance in a letter. (Botkin 1963: 22) ideological barriers. In his classic 1937 114). These perspectives were especially publication, The American Play-Party Song, obvious to musicians, who were aware of the Moreover, many churchgoers were op- Benjamin Botkin forged new ground in power of their music to move people to posed to the fiddle. Wilkerson recounted: folklore studies by examining play-party dance. Botkin, documenting a musical family songs contextually. Botkin’s assessment of from Norman, Oklahoma, obtained the I can’t understand why it was but in my boyhood days—I don’t know how to the play-party gave new meanings to these following statement in 1929 from W.L. express it—but the fiddle was the examples of rural songs for dances. For Wilkerson, who had been playing the five- instrument of Satan. The Devil was in

30 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore the fiddle—that’s the saying exactly RISQUÉ W AIST SWINGS swing instead of the waist swing. In the arm (Botkin 1963: 21; see also Lomax 1964: n. 66). Within this climate of disdain for dancing swing, partners joined right hands or locked and fiddle playing, the play-party thrived. right arms. In the waist swing, the man Alan Lomax gives the following summary Although it contained elements of older, actually held his partner around the waist of opposition to the fiddle and to the use mostly English children’s singing games, it as they danced, thus presumably inviting of the swing in dancing, from the singing was not merely a survival from that period. seductive or licentious activity. If play-party of Jean Ritchie in 1948: A vibrant and spontaneous event, the play- “dancing” was to be tolerated at all, swinging party drew from existing traditions to create was to involve only the hands or arms. The strict religious folk of the frontier a new form that would meet the needs of Botkin notes that in its most extreme form regarded the fiddle as an instrument of the Devil, and the square dance as a its participants. Fashioned by young people of propriety, the swing could also be stepping stone on the road to hell. who despite the repressive mores of the accomplished as the “entirely blameless” Barred from dancing, the young people held play parties where the courtly time needed something to do, the play-party do-si-do, back-to-back dancing (Botkin children’s games of the past were allowed courtship rituals to continue in a 1963: 24). A Tulsa County, Oklahoma, text, played and sung by adults, and where familiar, community-sanctioned setting. collected by Botkin, reveals in a mocking other sung-dances, called play-party games, were invented. Although they Within that setting, adolescents and young tone the connection between dance steps closely resembled the forbidden square adults took part in a dance that was not given and religious beliefs: dances, they were held to be innocent so long as all the music was vocal and the name “dance,” yet followed dance steps, the dancers didn’t cross their feet or moving in time to tunes that were products Do-ce, ladies, ain’t you old enough to know, swing the girls while dancing. (1964: 66 of their own voices. The function of the n.) That you’ll never get to heaven till play-party was to allow rhythmic dance you do-ce-do. Motifs linking the devil and the fiddle are movement, melody (often sung), and court- (Botkin 1963: 24, from Mary E. Vaughn) common in folk literature. Note, for ship to flourish in the face of geographic, If the do-si-do brought the dancer closer example, the following: The devil takes a social, or religious constraints. to heaven, then the offending waist swing violinist when he needs a good fiddler in The play-party, of course, did overlap was surely the path to hell! Botkin points hell (G303.9.5.8), the devil appears to a with other traditional dances and with other out a commentary on the waist swing in fiddler (G303.25.23.1), the devil engages the musical settings, as Botkin, Wolford, and Lynn Riggs’s Oklahoma play, Big Lake, fiddler in a fiddling contest others have noted. In some communities, a produced in 1927. Miss Meredith, the (G303.25.23.1.1), and the devil guides the more liberal religious world view allowed straight-laced teacher, interrupts a play-party bow of the violin player (G303.25.23.3). fiddlers to play for local play-parties. with a tone of righteous indignation: Basic to all of these motifs is the notion Sometimes a fiddle was not used, not for that the fiddle is the devil’s own instrument. religious reasons, but simply because there Stop it, Bud Bickel! (She crosses over right, Folklorist Herbert Halpert cites a story, were no fiddles available. Sometimes a fiddle angrily.) We won’t play any more. collected by Helen White Charles, about the player was expected to show up at a dance Bud (following her over): Whut is it, whut’ve I done? son of a strict Quaker father in Indiana. The and did not show, or a fiddle player would Miss Meredith: You’re swinging the son secretly acquired a fiddle and took to become too intoxicated to play coherently. Waist Swing, Bud Bickel! practicing it in the hay loft. One day his In cases such as these, singing, as it had in Bud: Well, o’ course. Miss Meredith: It’s wrong, it’s wicked. father overheard him and investigated. the past, would fill the gap (Botkin 1963: I’m ashamed of you. I’m surprised at 18; 40, n.11; see also Lomax 1964: 71 n.; you. . . . Don’t you ever do it again, you hear me? And don’t you girls ever let Father said to me, “What is that thing Sandburg 1927: 136–38). Within the with which thee is making such me catch you letting a boy swing you unearthly noises?” I answered, “It is a boundaries of the play-party dance def- by the waist instead of by the arms. fiddle.” He said, “Whoever thought inition, further infractions were noted by (Botkin 1963: 23–24, n. 27) thee would bring that instrument of both observers and by the dancers the Devil here, give it to me,” which Within actual texts of play-party stanzas, of course I did. He then ordered me themselves. For example, one play-party allusions to the waist swing are numerous. to follow him and we marched up to standard, “Weevily Wheat,” offended the house where a good fire was Sometimes the message takes the form of burning in the large fireplace. He dancers who found it too close to the square a playful family dispute: directed me to a chair while he placed dance movements of the Virginia reel the fiddle and bow in the roaring (Wolford 1959: 116; see also List 1991: 152). Paw says swing them, Maw says no. flames. We watched them burn and Here the sensitive issue was how partners Sis says the waist swing or it don’t go. listened for the strings to break. The (Botkin 1963: 23) E string broke first and the others in would accomplish a swing. order, and as the bass string broke I seemed to feel my heart break too. One way that the play-party differed from The message was also subtly delivered, (Charles 1961: 63–64) the square dance was in the use of the arm concealed in folk metaphor:

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 31 Meet your lady, pat her on the head, Once underway, the dances had their own Promenade all, promenade all, If she don’t like biscuits, feed her Bow to your partner and promenade cornbread. spontaneous and individualistic style. all. (Botkin 1963: 24) According to Wolford: (Botkin 1963: 41; played in Custer County, Oklahoma) If these lyrics are referring to competing The walking, the running, the skipping, types of swings, then “cornbread,” or arm and the promenade steps could all be A second type of play-party piece adapts recognized, but the players did not all swing, is the more reserved style, and use the same. The impression which a an existing folk song to the play-party therefore suitable for the play-party. visitor would get from the dance was setting. Consider, for example, how “The that of a jumble of old dance steps, all Girl I Left Behind,” a traditional song of in time, yet related in no other THE PLAY-PARTY FORM way.…What did they sing? The only parting (and also a well-known Anglo- Much like a dance, yet not a square dance, requirement was that the words American fiddle tune; see Bayard 1982: 322– indicate, or at least conform to the the play-party was a distinctive genre of movements of the dance. Since the 25), was modified. In the folk song, a young folklore, in both form and function. In a refrain alone usually accomplished this, man leaves his true love to travel westward, “make-it-yourself-or-do-without” culture, the singers were at liberty to use the only to find later that she has jilted him. traditional stanzas or to improvise the play-party filled an important social others to suit the occasion. (Wolford Although the emotional core is retained in need. Play-parties could be “jumped up” on 1959: 116–17) texts (“That girl I left in old Texas had short notice, or announced beforehand married another man,” and “She stole my The party might not break up until well through word of mouth. If a telephone line heart and away she ran, away down in South after midnight. It was not unusual for men had come into an area, those who were on Carolina”), the play-party version functions to return home in the early morning, just in the same party line could be informed primarily to direct the dancers, not to time to start their chores. “During a siege through a general call. Otherwise, the news advance the story. Compare the story line of parties,” Botkin writes, “one would think could be carried by messengers on horse- as contained in Alan Lomax’s Folk Songs of nothing of going without a wink of sleep back. The setting was usually the front room North America (stanza 4), for several nights in a row” (Botkin 1963: of someone’s home. On summer evenings, 19, 24–27 ). Wolford confirms this practice the “dancing” might be held outside. Indoor As I was rambling around one day all in her documentation of the Indiana play- down on the public square, preparation included removal of all the party: The mailcoach had arrived and I met furniture, sometimes even the stove. Chairs the mailboy there. and benches were placed around the walls. From such a party the boys seldom He handed me a letter that gave me to understand, Entire families came from distances as great reach home before 3 or 4 o’clock. Yet the lateness of the hour is not allowed That the girl I left in old Texas had as ten miles, despite the condition of the to interfere with work the next day. The married another man. roads or the weather. Most people arrived husky country lad oftentimes merely changes from his Sunday clothes to with the play-party stanzas cited by around dark to socialize and eat overalls and goes out to do the feeding, Wolford in The Play-Party in Indiana, refreshments, which could include several ignoring till the next night his loss of kinds of meat, vegetables in season, jelly and sleep. (Wolford 1959: 119) On to the next, and balance four, preserves, pickles, and a generous supply of And bow to them so kindly, TYPES OF SONGS Oh swing that girl, that pretty little girl, cakes and ice cream. Once the young Many play-party pieces contained within Oh the girl I left behind me. children had been taken into a separate She’s pretty in the face, and slim around their lyrics instructions of how they were the waist, room and put to bed, the fun began. Those to be danced. One type of play-party piece, Oh the girl I left behind me. dancing could be as few as four or as many sung to an existing square dance tune, as fifty. At the close of the dance, Wolford contains directions for the dancers. Sometimes the dancers all sang together, reports, each boy takes one step backward Consider, for example, the following lyrics, drawing from children’s games, from folk and promenades, literally, with the “girl sung to the tune of “The Irish Washer- songs, and from square dances for their behind” him: woman”—a tune usually played very material. Sometimes the play-party had a quickly; it would have to be slowed leader, chosen for his or her strong voice Oh the girl, the girl, the pretty little girl, considerably to be sung: The girl I left behind me, and high energy, who would guide the She stole my heart and away she ran, dancers through their steps. A good leader Gents to the centre and back to the bar, Away down in South Carolina. (Wolford 1959: 155–56; see also could improvise new stanzas to fill in lapses Ladies to the centre and form in a star. Gents to the centre and form in a ring, Botkin 1963: 49–50; Ryan 1926: 19) of memory or to introduce humor into the Oh, when you do form, oh, then you do party, sometimes at the expense of those in swing. A third type of play-party song addresses When you do swing, remember my call, attendance (Botkin 1963: 25–26; see also Bow to your partner and promenade the steps not only of dance but of courtship. Wolford 1959: 117–19). all. In “I’m a Poor Old Chimney Sweeper,” the

32 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore instructions for the dancers include a kiss. Tillson note, ______. 1936. “Game-Songs from Southern Documented by Wolford, it recalls in its Oddly enough, before 1890 kissing was Indiana.” Journal of American Folklore 49 (July- proper, waist swinging never—after September): 243–66. gestures the African American wedding that the custom gradually reversed Davis, Arthur Kyle, Jr. 1929. Folksongs of Virginia: custom of jumping over a broom to signify itself.…The play-party served many A Descriptive Index and Classification. Durham, functions…but always more than mere the transition from single to married life: NC: Duke University Press. dance, song, or music. (Wolford 1959: 260) Halpert, Herbert. 1995. “The Devil, the Fiddle, I’m a poor old chimney sweeper and Dancing.” In Abrahams, Roger D., ed. I have but one daughter and cannot Fields of Folklore: Essays in Honor of Kenneth S. In the midst of a climate of hostility keep her. Goldstein. Bloomington, Indiana: Trickster toward such “sinful” activities as dancing Press, 44–54. Since she has resolved to marry, Go choose your lover and do not tarry. and fiddle playing, the play-party had indeed Hudson, Arthur Palmer. 1936. Folksongs of become an important part of courtship for Mississippi and Their Background. Chapel Hill: Now you have one of your own the young. This was its essential function. University of North Carolina Press. choosing, Linscott, Eloise Hubbard. 1962. Folk Songs of Hasten away, no time for losing. At the end of the evening, after the dancing Old New England. Hamden and London: and singing and kissing, there was a flurry Join your right hands, this broom-stick Archon Books. step over, of offers and exchanges regarding the List, George. 1991. Singing about It: Folk Song in And kiss the lips of your true lover. journey home, deciding who would be an Southern Indiana. Indianapolis: Indiana (Wolford 1959: 172–73) escort for the walk or the trip on horseback. Historical Society. Wolford offers this description: Lomax, Alan. 1960. The Folk Songs of North In this dance, all join hands and form a America. New York: Doubleday & Co. circle around one boy, who stands in the In the spare room the dancers Lomax, Alan, ed. 1964. The Penguin Book of center and sweeps the ground with a large continued their games until the boys American Folk Songs. Baltimore: Penguin without “girls” had each summoned Books. broom. At the singing of the line “choose enough courage to ask his partner if your lover,” the boy circles right inside the he might “see her home safe” or until Morris, Alton C. 1950. Folksongs of Florida. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. ring, looking for a partner. He carries the the head of the house, in a rough voice called out the hour. Hasty departure Newell, William Wells. 1963 (1883). Games and broom in his right arm as if it were a gun. was a relief in that awkward moment. Songs of American Children. New York: Harper At the line “now you have one of your own While the boys fetched the horses, the and Brothers Publishers. Reprint. New York: girls slipped on their riding skirts. In choosing,” he places the broom on the an incredibly short time each girl was Dover Publications. ground between himself and his chosen mounted sidewise behind her partner, Randolph, Vance. 1946. Ozark Folksongs. 4 vols. partner. Then, with the line “this broom- and all were riding away, some talking Columbia: State Historical Society of about the party, others singing old time Missouri. stick step over,” the couple step over the ballads, several couples enjoying a lively Ritchie, Jean. 1963 (1955). Singing Family of the broom from opposite sides, each leading horse race. (Wolford 1959: 117; see also Botkin 1963: 380) Cumberlands. New York: Oxford University with the right foot. As they meet, they kiss Press. Reprint. New York: Oak Publications. (Wolford 1959: 173). Ryan, Grace L. 1928. Dances of Our Pioneers. New For young people struggling to start a Kissing, an obvious bonus to the York: A.S. Barnes and Company. romantic acquaintance, this would be the courtship function of the play-party, is often ______. 1926. The Handbook for Dances of Our crucial part of the evening. The play-party Pioneers. New York: A.S. Barnes and Company. alluded to, both in the descriptions of the was only the beginning. Sackett, S.J. “Play-Party Games from Kansas.” dances and in the lyrics themselves. Even Heritage of Kansas 5(3): 2–61. when references to kissing do not appear in Sandburg, Carl. 1927. The American Songbag. New BIBLIOGRAPHY actual play-party texts, they can be found in York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc. Baughman, Ernest W. 1966. Type and Motif Index the instructions for the dancers, as in “Here of the Folktales of England and North America. Wolford, Leah Jackson. 1916. The Play-Party in Come Three Dukes a-Riding” (see List Indiana University Folklore Series Number 20. Indiana. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical 1991: 72). Bloomington: Indiana University. Commission. With this aspect of the play-party, we Bayard, Samuel P., ed. 1982. Dance to the Fiddle, ______. 1959. The Play-Party in Indiana. Edited and revised by W. Edson Richmond and cannot help but wonder: How could a March to the Fife. University Park and London: Pennsylvania State University Press. William Tillson. Indiana Historical Society tradition that arose out of condemnation Publications 20(2). Indianapolis: Indiana Belden, Henry M., and Arthur Palmer Hudson, Historical Society. of something seemingly so innocent as the eds. 1952. Folk Songs from North Carolina. The waist-swing produce lyrics that contain Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina explicit commands for kissing? Part of the Folklore, vol. 3. Durham, NC: Duke University answer may lie in a recognition of the Press. Botkin, B.A. 1963 (1937). The American Play-Party fashions of the times. In the conclusion to Nancy Cassell McEntire teaches folklore at Song. Lincoln: University Studies of University Indiana State University. She also oversees the 1959 edition of Leah Wolford’s book, of Nebraska, Reprint. New York: Frederick the university’s Folklore Archives and directs editors W. Edson Richmond and William Ungar Publishing Co. the Hoosier Folklore Society.

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 33 The Ill Winds of Fair Use BY PAUL RAPP

Copyright law governs the ownership and copied, and for what purpose—must be policy, the public’s right to analyze and use of original creative works. Every aspect evaluated on its own facts to determine what discuss copyrighted works (which of copyright law, from its overriding is “fair.” There are no “bright lines” telling necessarily involves reproducing at least purpose to its minutiae, can be confounding us what is permissible and what isn’t. some portion) is considered more valuable and subject to conflicting interpretations Confronted with fair-use cases, judges than a strict maintenance of the authors’ and applications. And no aspect of struggle mightily to create order out of copyrights. So scholarly, critical analyses that copyright law is more elusive than the chaos. Scholars go though conniptions to quote or otherwise reproduce reasonable (a doctrine of fair use. discern patterns and trends in the numerous loaded word) amounts of somebody else’s Fair use is an exception to the general rule fair-use cases that are decided in the courts work are most likely fair uses. Similarly, that copying another’s work is an act of each year. Every once in a while the parodies (which by definition borrow liberally infringement. The basis for fair use is that Supreme Court takes on a fair-use case and from the work being parodied) were given there are some circumstances in which the tries to set the record straight, with varying the blessing of the Supreme Court in a 1994 social utility of copying outweighs the social decision involving a licentious hip-hop utility of maintaining the creator’s rendition of the Roy Orbison song “Oh

LAWYER’S SIDEBAR LAWYER’S There are no “bright lines” monopoly control over his or her work. In telling us what is permissible Pretty Woman.” This Supreme Court these circumstances, some copying of decision led directly to a federal appeals somebody else’s work is OK. Fair use is thus and what isn’t. court determination last year that the novel a defense against a claim of infringement. The Wind Done Gone was an allowable fair- The doctrine began as a common law levels of success. For example, in 1982 the use parody of Gone with the Wind. Finally, concept, created by judges who simply High Court announced that every that the folklorist is under the aegis of a couldn’t abide by the strict application of commercial use of another’s work was not-for-profit organization or institution— the law, which was essentially “thou shalt presumptively unfair. For the following ten as the vast majority of folklorists are—will not copy.” The doctrine was codified by years, most lower courts decided that this tend to a finding of fair use. The Congress into the 1976 Copyright Act and meant that the commercial-noncommercial commercial-noncommercial factor may no reads, factor was more important than the other longer be the most important, but it’s still a [T]he fair use of a copyrighted work…, three factors. Lots of bad decisions ensued factor. for purposes such as criticism, comment, as fair-use defenses were denied whenever My advice to creators with fair-use news reporting, teaching (including the copying was for a commercial purpose. questions is, Don’t shy away from multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an Then, in the early 1990s the Supreme Court incorporating preexisting works into infringement of copyright. In took another fair-use case, with a different something new, but be reasonable. If you feel determining whether the use made of a set of facts and considerations, and piggish, you probably are! And if you work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall announced that the commercial- question whether your proposed use is a fair include—(1) the purpose and character noncommercial distinction was not all- one, seek the advice of an attorney of the use, including whether such use important. Oops! experienced in fair-use issues, or obtain is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the If even the Supreme Court can’t figure it written permission from the copyright holder nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the out, it follows that creators face a Hobson’s of the original work. amount and substantiality of the portion Choice every time they consider using a used in relation to the copyrighted work preexisting work as part of a new creative Paul Rapp as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use ([email protected]) upon the potential market for or value work: either forgo use of the existing work is an attorney with of the copyrighted work. The fact that (and compromise their own creative the Albany law a work is unpublished shall not itself bar firm of Cohen Dax a finding of fair use if such finding is process) or face a potential claim of & Koenig. He also made upon consideration of all the infringement. teaches art and above factors. entertainment law Despite all the murkiness, for folklorists, at Albany Law This law is hardly a paragon of clarity. It the current atmosphere actually favors fair School. Write to him or the editor offers some guidance to judges, a couple use of existing works in several ways. First, of Voices if you of things to think about, but not much else. critical commentary that incorporates existing have a general- interest question or topic you’d like Every situation is different: every incident works has consistently been given a wide to see discussed in a future issue. of fair use—what is copied, how much is berth by the courts. As a matter of social Photo: Buck Malen

34 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore VaughnVaughn Ward:Ward: A Tribute

The loss of Vaughn is devastating. She was the heart and soul of the community of folklorists in New York State. The work that Vaughn and her husband George did with Sara Cleveland, Larry Older, and other great upstate folk artists was exemplary—a model for us all—and she inspired us with her work with many communities. The Liars’ Club of tall story tellers was especially remarkable. Vaughn had indomitable spirit to the end, and I’ll miss her terribly. —Robert Baron

I was saddened by the passing of friend and teacher Vaughn Ward. As a native of the North Country, when I think of the folklife of northern New York State, I am keenly aware that Vaughn was an inspiration through her many efforts to preserve the folk arts, music, oral history, and storytelling traditions of our region. I am reminded of the words that Vaughn shared with me nearly twenty years ago: “We’re all better talking than we are listening.” We will miss Vaughn’s dedication in listening to, seeking out, and promoting North Country culture. —Bruce Cole

I spent a short but very intense time working with Vaughn on community-based cultural and heritage tourism initiatives. We talked for about twenty-two hours a day during my stay with her and George. She was one of my “wild women” friends and role models. Her energy, intensity, intellectual curiosity, generosity, and indomitable spirit were simultaneously awe-inspiring, draining, and infectious. It was impossible to be neutral about Vaughn and equally impossible not to be changed in a positive way by encountering her. She really was a mother spirit of New York folklore. —Pat Wells

As word about the death of our old friend Vaughn Ward spread through the folklore world of New York State, we were suddenly faced with the realization that a void had been created. In all my years, I haven’t known anyone in the field who cared more about the work she did, about the people she met, about learning and sharing. I have particularly respected and admired the warm relationships she generated with the many artists—ordinary people who learned from her how extraordinary they and their gifts were—she and George discovered and nurtured over the years. Over the years, we had many chances to work together in these northern counties of New York. We planned and plotted many programs, frequently talked over mutual concerns in our work and in our lives, and really enjoyed each other’s company. Though she lived at the opposite end of our region and had to travel through good and awful weather to our meetings and programs, Vaughn had been a loyal charter member of the board of directors of Traditional Arts of Upstate New York and, long after she left the board, a very valued adviser. Recently, we both acknowledged that we had become the old-timers in our work, and I was looking forward to many more chances to work together. Vaughn was strong, warm, gentle, forceful, caring—all of those things, and always with that wonderful laugh! What I will remember most is her dedication to the human side of what we do: the importance of remembering that although folklore makes our study, people make our friends. Not long before she died, Vaughn traveled four hours to see her old friend, neighbor, and protégé, storyteller Catherine Charron, receive a North Country Heritage award. Sick as she was, she would not have missed that day, and she glowed with joy at seeing another of her “recommendations” fulfilled. She spoke then of her determination to keep going as long as she could. It was simply not long enough. —Varick Chittenden

New York State has lost a strong, wonderful woman. Our field has lost a champion. We all have lost a good friend. —Ellen McHale

News of Vaughn Ward’s decease reaches me through Voices in southwest Florida, far distant from her North Country environs and the Adirondack region folk heritage that drew us together as fieldworkers, authors, and public presenters over three decades. Vaughn’s publications attested to her skills as an accomplished interviewer-collector and an editor-writer ever mindful of plain, jargon-free prose and general public outreach. Vaughn had a wonderful sense of an audience. I last saw Vaughn in fall 2001 at Canton, St. Lawrence County, for TAUNY’s annual Salute to North Country Legends. She said nothing of the cancer that soon was to claim her life, but that was typical of Vaughn, directing conversation instead to our families, and my recent retirement activities. She remained the Vaughn Ward who perhaps foremost—and underpinning her many notable heritage advocacy achievements—was insistently a caring “people person.” For me, Vaughn always epitomized the best of a kind of 1960s and 1970s humanism and social consciousness, in combination. Her passing is a profound loss. —Robert D. Bethke

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 35 Introduction to The Witch of Mad Dog Hill BY VAUGHN WARD

Supernatural belief and custom were the order of the day. —Don Bowman Culture is a set of stories we tell ourselves again and again. —Starhawk

ine or ten years ago I was working interested. In retrospect, Don Bowman dramatizing or just plain wispy on occasion. N with Joe and Carol Bruchac on an knew he had helped demolish a world, a way Except for lovelorn suicides and that well- Adirondack tall tale collection. “Joe,” Carol of life. The Sacandaga Valley’s own ancient traveled, transparent, sunbonnet-wearing said, “show Vaughn those letters. maybe she’ll mariner, Bowman is compelled to tell them woman rocking on the porch, the vast have some ideas.” The broken-down manila over and over until we remember for him. majority of Bowman’s ghosts were men. folder Joe produced—four or five inches (Maybe the more mature female spirits were thick and crammed with blue ballpoint or The Tales just glad, finally, to be able to rest!) Dutch penciled letters on lined paper—was my Except for Don Bowman’s exquisite Jake, attached as he is to the details of his introduction to Don Bowman, our garrulous localizations, Sacandaga Valley ghosts, wardrobe, is my favorite. The sinister, Sacandaga Valley guru. witches and demons behave very much like bottomless Big Vly, and Sacandag, the Folklorist that I am, the first words out their 15th and 17th century European and hungry river god—ghosts of a ravished of my mouth were, “Well, let’s start by New England ancestors. place—are there in every telling. classifying them. We’ll know where to go Bowman’s accounts of valley denizens These legends, traveling tales told or from there.” Three years and two from other dimensions are close cousins to believed for true, were passed on to press Adirondack folklore books later, Joe mailed tales collected by Gardener, Jones, home a lesson: Stay away from the strange me copies of the letters, typed and bound. Thompson and Jagendorf in other parts of old woman on the edge of town. Don’t be There were lots of them: history and legend, rural New York State at about the same time. seduced by beauty. Don’t attempt to control humor and horror, personal anecdotes and Stories about devils in the form of black the wild forces of nature. Don’t be curious. contemporary commentary—all so woven dogs, about nightmares (witches turning Don’t go parking (even in the horse-drawn into chatty, fascinating, serendipitous letters their victims into horses and riding them all buggy) with your sweetie. If you don’t that I could not tell warp from weft. When night), about black sabbaths and slipskins follow the rules, you’ll disappear in the the strands were all teased out, I’d found and werewolves and the black cat’s paw swamp or the beautiful girl you can’t resist 425 separate narrative units: tall tales and which, cut off, turns out to be the miller’s will be transformed to a tormenting hag. jokes; supernatural lore; Native American aunt’s hand, are well-traveled and more than Stay within the circle of your own fire. teaching stories. twice-told. People talked—in the woods, Don’t talk to strangers. after church, in the store. As time went on, The Teller tales of real local people or stories set in Granny Women, Powwows and A resourceful, independent, seventeen- actual places were embellished with Witches year-old country kid when he went to work fragments from traveling legends about By the time the notices that the valley on the Sacandaga Valley demolition crew saints, sorcerers, and scholars. was to be flooded arrived, descendants of in 1927, Don Bowman already knew how Valley talkers had charms as old as fear 18th century settlers had intermarried with to do a man’s work. He was smart and itself, for baby, beast, and crops. Spells for Abenakis and Mohawks, creating a hybrid curious and outgoing. In his words, “I managing malevolent entities and tips culture and a barter economy stretching listened and learned.” He put it all down in recognizing the Devil’s many disguises were back five and more generations. Native notebooks. He held onto these stories, until, around for the asking. Sacandaga ghosts shamanistic and herbal healing lore were in retirement, he began sending letters and were helpful, interesting and funny in some overlaid with Mohawk Valley Palatine articles to people he hoped might be cases; violent and vindictive in others; self- German power doctor traditions. Granny

36 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore women descended from Europe’s wise understand not only those which kill band. I asked him if he knew about any and torment, but all Diviners, women practiced midwifery, healing, Charmers, Jugglers, all Wizards, Sacandaga Valley witches. protection from spells. Some of them, for commonly called wise men and wise a price or a grudge, were also known to cast women and in the same number we Oh, yes. Every little hamlet had their record all good Witches, which do no own, you know. They’d tell fortunes spells. hurt but good, which do not spoil and and heal people. May Day, every little In those days before radio or penicillin destroy, but save and deliver. It were a settlement had its own fair. The witches or even that many cars, before anyone thousand time better for the land if all would set up booths and tell your Witches, but especially the blessing fortune. When the dam came in, they except the “storekeep” and a few rich folks witch, might suffer death. all got together and put a curse on it. had telephones, country people carried on . Said they’d fixed it so it would never hold. I think, when the dam held and pretty much as they always had. And I mean These projective, paranoid accusations the lake filled up, that’s about when always. Valley healers operated in a tradition made their way into oral tradition. people stopped believing in ’em. so ancient they didn’t always understand the Occasionally, in one place or another, often words of their own incantations, passed when there was a perceived threat to the Legends warning people how not to be verbatim for who knows how long, from who social fabric, the ghastly unreasoning are called cautionary tales. Sacandaga Valley knows exactly where. erupted and ruined lives one more time. variants remind us of their cousins: Susanna Curing and cursing motifs passed down Disturbingly, more than 400 years after and the Elders, Faust, Odysseus and the Sirens, to the 20th century are ancient and very the Inquisition, a Sacandaga Valley granny today’s tabloids and yesterday’s broadsides. nearly universal. Accounts of miraculous woman was tried in a general store’s back In the Sacandaga Valley, the word powwow healings, as well as of maledictions, are part room. The charges, all without actual referred to a Native shaman or healer, of mythology worldwide. For a very long evidence, were straight from the Maleus usually a man. Even though they practiced time midwives, fortune tellers, traditional Maleficarum and the Salem witch trials. Don somewhat different traditions, it’s likely that, healers and even sorcerers were part of life, Bowman countered these assumptions with by Mr. Bowman’s day, most granny women at court and in the country. Practices similar anecdotes from his own experience and, in and powwows were of mixed European and to ones used by Sacandaga Valley granny at least one case, tells us he was a character Indian ancestry. Bowman’s accounts women and powwows appear to have been witness for a woman charged with confirm what I’ve heard from local families conducted by Egyptian magicians before the witchcraft—in the 20th century, not forty conversant with this sort of thing. Both say time of Moses! miles from where I sit writing. the granny women and powwows learned In the late middle ages, scapegoating of Scapegoating and ostracizing seem to be from one another. Rather like contemporary midwives, eccentrics, psychics, widows, hard-wired human responses. Many stories specialists, each called on the other in a women too beautiful or smart for their own describe the good wives, envious of pinch. good, intellectual dissidents and the mentally younger, independent, attractive women, Here and there, valley healing knowledge, ill was widespread. Healers—as well as Jews whispering about the succubus (a seductive and maybe a little magic as well, continue and Joan of Arc—were branded heretics, female demon). Since an astounding unbroken. The few people I know who still with the church and the urban, male medical number of social ills seem always to have keep the old ways are descended from both doctors the ruthless oppressors. By the been blamed on poor single women, needy New England settlers and Indians. Often witch hysteria’s end, millions in the New widows were suspect. Widows who had they are active members of a Christian World as well as the Old were executed in inherited their husband’s property, on the congregation as well. When I ask them the name of righteousness. Most of the other hand, had more financial where they learned, they will mention a victims (some say 85%) were women. independence than other women and were grandparent, male or female, or sometimes A document commissioned in 1486 by not subject to male control. Imagining these a neighbor. The referent to Native powwows Pope Innocent III and written by German nonconforming women to be evil emissaries and witches mostly has gone the way of old monks Kramer and Sprenger, the Maleus from another realm would have allowed Sacandag himself. However, as Don Maleficarum or The Hammer of Witches, was people to rationalize their fear and jealousy. Bowman himself might say, who knows the text for the European witch purges. The old migrating tales were attached to what lies buried under those deep waters? Motifs from the document found their way these women and retold for true. into migrating tales and became the legacy A friend, now in his 80’s and a descendant The Flooding both of 17th century New England settlers of Lake Luzerne-Warrensburg area settlers, The Great Sacandaga Reservoir was and of their Sacandaga Valley descendants. remembers going with his dad to see the created in 1930 by order of the Hudson Here is part of what that document said: covered bridge Osborn’s Bridge was named River Regulating District. In 1922, public For this must always be remembered, for go under—to the accompaniment of reaction to three serious Upper Hudson as a conclusion that by Witches we political speeches and a festive local brass River flash floods and subsequent epidemics

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 37 overcame legislative resistance to a proposal Albany, Saratoga or Glens Falls, to try a hand (where they lived in retirement), I remembered first introduced in 1867. The state legislature at city life and indoor work. Others, older yet another winter afternoon. voted to dam the Sacandaga River, a main and lucky, found relatives elsewhere to take Maybe ten years before, my husband and I tributary of the Upper Hudson. Although them in. The very plucky picked themselves sat with Lou and Aggie in the stone house, flood control was the publicly stated reason, up and started over. Some just didn’t get over enjoying the fire and their nurturing company. perusal of the list of businesses and the loss enough to do much of anything for While Aggie finished dinner, Lou took us up municipalities among which the costs were the rest of their lives. Some of their children the long, steep stairs to his study, lined floor apportioned suggests a subtext of interest aren’t over it yet. to ceiling with books. When I expressed among the powerful in harnessing the water Known graves—or at least the amazement that he had his own copy of A power of the Sacandaga River: Henry Ford headstones—were transburied to higher Handbook of Irish Folklore, Lou grabbed the and Sons, Green Island; Adirondack Power ground, but older valley natives say no one maroon leather and board-bound volume off and Light Company, Mechanicville; Hudson could have found and moved all the home the shelf, scrawled in red ballpoint, “For Valley Railway Company, Stillwater; United burials. They say they saw coffin parts floating Vaughn with love, Lou,” right there under the Paperboard Company, Northumberland; in the new reservoir. They say those disturbed elegant, black, young man’s script “Louis C. Union Bag and Paper Company, Glens Falls; spirits wander the lake to this day. Jones, Fredericksted, St. Croix, 1946,” and International Paper Company, Glens Falls, Of the original Hudson River Regulating handed it to me across his massive desk. among others. District investors still in business, none uses “You’ll use it,” he said. It is impossible to avoid noticing that none water as a main power source. Now, driving down the back street along of those with a vested interest in creating the lake, past the grand old Otesaga Hotel, the Sacandaga Reservoir were valley The Sources the Farmer’s Museum and the golf course to residents. The Hudson River Regulating I did a great deal of reading, trying to the NYSHA library lot, it seemed I should be District took land and livelihood. It uprooted understand how these stories wound up in getting ready to dash upstairs to class in the congregations where generations had been the Sacandaga Valley…My most helpful room on the left, across from the second floor baptized and married. The reservoir connection, appropriately enough, was a stacks. Instead, I turned in the first door to inundated cranberry bogs, covered bridges, ghost: the right, with its glass window marked factories, schools, blacksmith shops, picnic In January, 1993, I was driving from my “Special Collections.” Laid out on the large spots, barbershops, crossroads stores, the Big home in the Eastern Mohawk Valley to oak library table was a pile of worn folders. I Vly itself. 27,000 acres were annihilated, Cooperstown, in Otsego County, where I had opened the one on top to find yellow, legal- including the elaborate Sacandaga Park with permission to search the New York State size sheets of meticulously classified, red ink its dance pavilion, amusement park and Historical Association’s archives for notes—in Uncle Lou’s minuscule, calligraphic theater; the right of way for the Fonda, supernatural tales. Coming into town from hand with those very tall capital letters! Johnstown and Gloversville Railroad; the Oneonta past the old motel, time collapsed Slantwise, in the margins, he’d even noted titles villages of Conklingville, Day Center, beween that blustery, bleak afternoon and of books he considered critical in Batchellerville, West Day, Beecher’s Hollow, another winter, twenty-plus years earlier, understanding New York State’s demons, Fish House, Osborn Bridge, Benedict, when my husband and I were students in the ghosts, and witches. Denton’s Corners, Cranberry Creek, Cooperstown Graduate Program of “You’ll use it,” it seemed I could hear him Mayfield and Musonville. Three Indian American Folk Culture. say. villages were sacrificed. Buildings not taken The late Dr. Louis C. Jones, my mentor and List in hand, I made my way to the cellar down and moved were abandoned, razed and the founder of the graduate program, was on stacks, where I spent hours going through burned. my mind. Before coming to Cooperstown shelves of old, rare volumes, including copies Some saw the handwriting on the wall, where he made his name as a specialist in of the Maleus Maleficarum, the Long Lost Friend, fixed up their places and sold before word American folk art, “Uncle Lou”—as graduate Cotton and Increase Mather. Old and very about the dam got out. Others held on until students traditionally called him—taught long out of print, everything I’d worried about the very last, even taking children to school folklore at Albany Teachers’ College. A charter finding was there. in rowboats as the waters rose. Those whose member of the New York Folklore Society, Uncle Lou, thanks for being there when I property extended up the mountain, Dr. Jones was first known as an investigator needed you. particularly on the north shore, were able to of New York State supernatural lore. Turning Mr. Bowman, it’s been a privilege. move to higher ground and maintain a between Riverbrink (the rambling, haunted subsistence living. estate where Lou and Aggie Jones lived when Excerpted from The Witch of Mad Dog Hill, by Don Bowman, ed. by Vaughn Ward. Displaced valley natives made their way to they were king and queen of the graduate Published by the Greenfield Review Press Amsterdam or Gloversville, Schenectady or program) and the stone house across the river © 1999. Reprinted bypermission.

38 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore StackedStacked EnchiladasEnchiladas and PizzaPizza PiePie BY VAUGHN WARD

he full-page ad in the Sunday, Migrants to Clayton, settled in 1913 when About every third Saturday ranch T October 6, 2001, Schenectady Gazette the railroads came to southern Colorado, families from the more distant was in English, Arabic, and Pashto—the came from northern New Mexico’s communities came to town. While the kids language many of the Afghan families in Spanish-speaking villages, and from went to the matinee and the moms got our region. It read in part, “The Kentucky, Texas, Indiana, Colorado, and groceries, the dads took themselves off to congregations named below…embrace the Oklahoma. the local domino parlor with the swinging spirit of warm acceptance for diversity that On the frontier, European ethnicity doors and the sign that said, “No Ladies is among the highest ideals of our didn’t have much meaning. Everyone’s Allowed.” Late in the afternoon, mothers American heritage…let us recommit family had been in America for and children met at my parents’ store. My ourselves to creating a community where generations, most since before the mother stood near the brown wooden shoe all are welcome.” Revolution. What we noticed was Spanish chairs with the folding seats, visiting with “What,” I wondered, “is diversity?” It or Anglo, town or ranch. In the spring, the the wives and keeping an eye on the cash depends, I realized, on where you’re Methodists put on an annual, stacked register, just in case a customer needed her. standing and who is standing there with enchilada supper. In the fall, the Catholic I hung over the glass-topped jewelry you. women sold venison tamales I can still counter at the front of the store, enjoying During my early childhood in a central taste. At home, we all ate the foods the kids. Daddy was dispatched to the Oklahoma cotton-farming community, traditional to the places our parents had domino parlor to collect the husbands. “diversity” meant that my parents sent me migrated from. My mother cooked Ninety-one miles from the nearest town to all three Protestant vacation Bible cornbread, cobbler, black-eyed peas, okra, isolated us, but we really didn’t know the schools—not just to our own denom- sweet potatoes—staples from my parents’ difference. We depended on one another ination’s. There were no Catholic families, Southern origins. and made our own fun. The Fourth of July and no Jews, living in town. Although Friends who lived on ranches fifty miles was about the parade, square dancing on blacks from a nearby community, settled or closer rode panel truck buses to school horseback, and the local rodeo where many by freed blacks in the land rush, and in town. That meant a fourth grader might of my classmates competed for prizes— Indians from Chickashay came on be on the bus five hundred miles a week, and one was seriously injured. At Christmas Saturdays to shop, they were not allowed with ranch chores to manage both morning and Thanksgiving, we knew the needy in town after sundown. and evening. Ranch kids who lived more families personally. Our move, when I was in third grade, than fifty miles away went to elementary Sundays we went to church—twice. As back to the northeastern New Mexico school in their local communities. When a teenager, I helped with the church nursery ranching community where I was born time came for high school, either they school and sang in the choir. Sunday nights changed my concept of diversity. boarded in town or, if the family had we went back to church for a hymn sing, There were black cowboys, mostly several teenagers, the mother and the high our Kentucky-born song leader “lining bachelors. Spanish was the language of schoolers lived in town during the week out” the verses, phrase by phrase. Every seventy percent of the population. while the father ran the ranch. summer there was a two-week cowboy

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 39 camp meeting for the many ranch families of women and the dean of men kept a Lawrence was a woods singer, fiddler, and who lived too far from town to get to special eye on us. We were immigrants. We master raconteur who took us in as his own church any other time. There was a men’s needed that focused attention to hold our and mentored us for twenty years. His prayer tree, a women’s gathering place, and own and stay in school. I adapted, as genial presence, his smile, his directness put a barbecue pit where whole sides of immigrants often do, by assimilating. I me at instant ease. In Martha’s kitchen, with donated beef roasted. Families camped for made myself useful in campus Lawrence presiding, I was home. Country the week, but someone had to go home organizations, learned to study more and people, I soon learned, are the same every day to take care of the livestock. dress up less. Having conquered the everywhere, and I, I finally accepted, was People from town came out during the biggest, most sophisticated city I’d ever a country person. evenings for the special singing and the seen, I became an unbearable snob, Way led on to way and, newly married, guest preacher. We were a long way from ashamed for a while of the small town, and we found ourselves teaching in a series of anywhere. I remember once, in high school, the family, that had given me what it took Vermont and New York state commun- the principal’s voice on the intercom to succeed. I didn’t know it, but my concept ities. Our students and their parents invited announcing that a norther’ was on the way. of diversity was about to shift again. us into their Polish and Slovak and Irish Students whose family ranches were Two years out of college found me and Welsh homes. I began to learn how relatively close to town were dismissed teaching in suburban upstate New York various the tastes of home are, that my immediately to go home. Those of us who during the year and going to graduate difference is another’s familiarity. People lived in town were released a few at a time school at an Ivy League college in the gave us stories and songs, shared their to call our parents to see how many kids summers. I was in so many kinds of culture holidays, weddings, and funerals—always from remote communities could stay with shock I didn’t know how to respond. In teaching us, always with great generosity. us. Adagene Dallas and another girl came graduate school, I discovered something We came to believe that learning from home with me. The blizzard was a big one, called social class, a foreign concept on the other people and keeping the fragile oral the kind where men get lost between the Oklahoma and New Mexico frontier. I was tradition alive was a worthy life’s work, so house and the barn, where herds of 1,200 teaching in the corporate community, we changed direction and went off to be beef cattle freeze in the field. The local which was the source for the infamous trained as folklorists. radio station went on the air round the study The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. I saw Fast forward, now, to the late 1980s. I’d clock, telling ranch parents where their students judge others by the clothes they been working in public folklore for some children were staying, announcing anyone wore. Many of my teaching associates were years and had just finished a two-year who was missing. I grew up in a Italian, Irish, Polish, or French Roman survey of Washington County’s traditions, community—in the most heart-centered Catholics. Until someone explained it, I during which I learned a great deal from sense of that word. didn’t understand why my colleagues came many different ethnic communities, Nothing prepared me for the University to school on Ash Wednesday with “dirt” including how they’d been treated by the of New Mexico, three hundred eighty-five on their foreheads! I had never heard of majority culture. We found some 200 active miles away, with only three towns— the High Holy Days. tradition bearers and decided to present Springer, Las Vegas, and Santa Fe—between And so it went. Driving on Union Street them all week at the Washington County these disparate, dissonant worlds. I was so in Schenectady one afternoon, I was on the Fair. We had Scots-Irish farmers, Welsh and excited I couldn’t wait for my parents to receiving end of an obscene gesture. I had Slavic singers, Polish and French Canadian leave. Raised in a small-town business as I’d never, at age twenty-three, even heard a storytellers, a Sicilian singer and lace maker, been, I assumed everyone would be friends man swear, much less this! I pulled my car a French boat model maker, any number and conducted myself accordingly. In my over and cried. I was dating someone at of local country singers, an Irish ballad first week, I encountered girls from Chicago Cornell Law School. Visiting there on singing father-daughter team, and more. who were suspicious that my openness weekends, I was exposed to the brashness And that brings us back to the beginning. meant I intended to steal their Balm Barr of downstate ways, and to young city folk Black Crow Network is about finding and hand cream, and girls from Albuquerque singers who sang the gospel songs I’d telling the stories of the many peoples of who laughed at me because I was from grown up with—as jokes. It was my our region. In this challenging time let us, Clayton. In this university world, “diversity” baptism into cultural difference. indeed, recommit ourselves to creating a was defined geographically: you were from It wasn’t easy, reconciling who I was with community where all are welcome. out of state, from Albuquerque, from Santa where I was, but I had helpers. Shortly after Fe, or from a ranch town. I met my husband-to-be, George Ward, he Reprinted from As the Crow Flies, the Being a student from a ranch town was took me to meet Lawrence and Martha newsletter of Black Crow Network Inc., © so hard, I learned years later, that the dean Older in Middle Grove, Saratoga County. Vaughn Ward 2001, used by permission.

40 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore ARCHIVAL QUESTIONS

The Mysteries of MARC BY NANCY JOHNSON

Every profession has terms that are unique Physical description (300). This includes Using LCSH terminology will ensure that your and extraordinarily useful to its practitioners the “extent,” or quantity of material, and its collection description will turn up in a search but puzzling to everyone else. Archivists, for format: “4 cassette tapes,” “6 record cartons,” with other collections relating to the same example, use the expression “finding aid” but “3 scrapbooks.” Extent is sometimes mea- subject. A thesaurus of terms relating find it invites confusion even if its meaning is sured in cubic or linear feet. To calculate linear specifically to folklore collections is planned. quite literal: a finding aid is something that feet, an archivist stacks the papers or pushes To see what a MARC record looks like, go helps you locate what you need in an archives the files together and takes a measurement. to www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc. This is the homepage or archival collection. It may be a simple Cubic feet is calculated in a similarly for the National Union Catalog of Manuscript inventory, a detailed database index, or a straightforward way: if a collection fits in a Collections, and it provides links to search narrative description of a collection. But there box that measures 2 feet by 1 foot by 1 foot, pages for the archival collections in the RLG is one kind of finding aid that is mysterious its extent is “2 cubic feet.” (Research Libraries Group) Union Catalog, even to some archivists: the MARC record. Organization and arrangement (351). and well as for OCLC (Online Computer MARC, an acronym for machine readable This element indicates how the material is Library Center). Doing a search here brings cataloging, is a descriptive format developed divided into groups, such as series; and then up MARC records for archival collections that by the Library of Congress and endorsed the how the material is intellectually ordered within match your search criteria. When the detailed Society of American Archivists. MARC, a those groups: “Organized into two series; view of a record is displayed, you may click standardization of the usual elements of arranged chronologically within each series.” “Tagged Display,” which will then show the archival description in a coded format to allow Biographical or historical note (545). This MARC record with all the numbered codes, information to be exchanged between field gives background information on the each indicating a specific MARC field. computer systems, includes the following collection’s creator, and thus provides a context The New York State Archives and Records elements: for the collection. It may take the form of a Administration’s pamphlet, “Guidelines for Main entry (MARC code 100 or 110). brief biography or the history of an institution, Arrangement and Description of Archives Although the main entry for a book is its project, or agency. and Manuscripts: A Manual for Historical author, the main entry for an archival collec- Scope and content (520). The heart of a Records Programs in New York State,” tion is the collection creator—the person, MARC record, this is a description of the includes easy-to-understand information on organization, or agency responsible for actual contents of the collection: what kind MARC format. originating or putting the collection together. of material is to be found here, what it is about, Even if cataloging information about an The main entry may be a personal name (“Jane and why it is significant. archival collection will not be entered into a Smith”), a family name (“The Smith Family”), Restrictions on access (506 and 540). computer database, MARC format is worth a business (“Smith’s Tire Repair”), an Restrictions indicate that some material may considering. Following MARC guidelines organization (“Smithtown Historical Society”), not be used for a specific reason or until a ensures that a finding aid will include all the or an agency (“Smith County Department of certain date; that particular permissions are necessary descriptive information, and that Public Works”). required; or that certain procedures must be consistent indexing terms will provide Title (245). Archival collections are best followed to use a collection. maximum accessibility for researchers. It’s served by simple descriptive titles. The title Access terms (600s and 700s). For a really not so mysterious after all. includes a concise description of the material, description of an archival collection to be including its type, function, and possibly even useful, researchers have to be able to find it. Nancy Johnson is a freelance subject: “Family correspondence”; When a collection is indexed, the use of a archivist and a “Membership meeting records”; “Concert controlled or standardized vocabulary of member of the New York Folklore programs”; “Recipe files for the Millennium subject terms, personal names, and place Society Board of Bake-off.” names ensures that a search will pull up as Directors. She has worked with the Dates (245). Dates are as specific as many records as possible. For this reason, society on its possible, or approximated if necessary. If a archivists turn to several accepted sources for archives project, as well as with the collection covers a large span of time but the these access terms. The Library of Congress Center for majority of the material relates to a short Subject Headings (LCSH) is a listing of subject Traditional Music and Dance, City Lore, the Calandra Italian American Institute, period, a “bulk date” may be included. For terms to be used for cataloging books and and the Association for Cultural Equity/ example: “1895–1950 (bulk 1935–50).” other library materials, as well as for archives. Alan Lomax Archives.

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 41 Image, Object, and the Documentary Process

The 114th annual meeting of the American Folklore Society, this country’s professional society for those interested in the study and understanding of folklore, folk art, and cultural heritage

October 16–20, 2002, at the Hyatt Regency Rochester Hotel and the Rochester Riverside Convention Center Rochester, New York

Conference highlights · Presentations by folklorists from around the world · Lectures by Gregory Batchen, University of New Mexico authority on vernacular photography, and other leading authorities · Meetings and special activities for more than 20 AFS interest-group sections · Premeeting tours to sites of interest throughout western New York State · On-site performances and events at the Strong Museum and George Eastman House · Exhibits featuring the folklore publications of leading university presses and the work of regional and national folklore organizations · Native American crafts marketplace on Saturday, October 19 · Macedonian dinner and an evening of multicultural musical performances at a Rochester-area Macedonian church

Registration $75 for AFS members ($90 for nonmembers) $35 for AFS student members ($45 for nonmember students) No additional charge for registering at the meeting

For more information:

Visit the AFS website at www.afsnet.org, or contact AFS Executive Director Timothy Lloyd, Mershon Center, Ohio State University, 1501 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43201-2602; 614 292-3375; fax 614 292-2407; e-mail [email protected].

42 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore MEDIA WORKS

Digital Audio Recording BY BARRY DORNFELD

The audio recorder holds a cherished place in and guaranteeing rapid obsolescence for precious radically from recording with analogue, but a few the history and working lives of cultural investments in gear. Industry experts recommend issues are worth noting. The increased signal-to- documentarians. Since the latter part of the continually updating your archive by transferring noise ratio throughout the duplication chain will nineteenth century, we have tromped through materials to new formats, but I know few folks make background noises more noticeable and the cultural landscape with various contraptions with this much free time or cash to burn. stretch the quality of mic-preamps, so take extra to record and reproduce speech, music, But if you are ready to make the leap to 1s care to avoid problematic sound environments. performance, and the daily ambience of our and 0s, the principal competition for field If you’re conducting high-end recordings, like subjects, and we have generated countless hours recording formats right now is between DAT music for a CD, consider using mic-preamps. of material, much of it still accessible in archives. recorders, an industry standard for some time, When working with digital audio, be more From tin and wax cylinders to magnetic reels and the MiniDisc, a format that has been around cautious with recording levels. The red zone on and now to digital cassettes and disks, these for about ten years and has achieved maturity VU meters, to which many analogue recordists technologies have been a critical tool in the work and technical excellence. Both audio quality and pushed their levels, results in distortion in digital. we do and have shaped our practices, whether broad availability of the technology in Back the levels down a bit, making sure you do in pursuit of preservation, analysis, or professional settings favor the DAT recorder, but not peak. presentation of the cultural forms and rich lives these advantages are fading as MiniDisc evolves. Microphone choice raises more questions than we document. These tools are undergoing great MiniDiscs are rugged and allow easy random I can address here, since these choices depend changes as we wade deeper into the waters of access and indexing during or after recording. on application and budget. But in both analogue digital media. And while these transformations Both formats provide digital output connections and digital recording, microphone placement is threaten to overwhelm us, the new digital audio in most models. crucial; in most cases, getting the microphone devices offer great possibilities for improving how So with the caveat that this information will within two to four feet of the source will optimize we record our material and what we do with soon be out-of-date, let’s get specific about makes recording quality. these recordings. and models. In DAT format, the Sony PCM- Lastly, get yourself a good pair of headphones The advantages offered by digital recorders M1 and Tascam DA-P1 recorders have been to monitor sound. Spend enough to get both are evident. They make possible high-quality offering good results at reasonable prices ($1,000 decent fidelity and good sound isolation (forget recordings with equipment that is relatively light, to $2,000 and up). For higher-end projects, the the variety with foam around the ears). Training unobtrusive, and not difficult to master. The HHB Portadat was considered the cream of the yourself to listen both during and after recording recordings they generate can be duplicated crop, but HHB no longer makes the machine, is indispensable in acquiring better-quality sound, without any generational loss—not the case with signaling its shift away from DAT. MiniDisc no matter what the format. analogue systems. In addition, some digital audio recorders are available at a wider range of prices. formats (MiniDisc and CD) offer random access, At the high end, look for new models like the Additional resources. Useful primers on aspects allowing you to quickly cue your material. HHB Portadisc and Marantz PMD650, both full- of digital audio recording can be found at several But digital recording has its disadvantages. size field machines with professional features and websites: the Sound Portraits, www.sound Some audiophiles would argue that digital professional prices. Midpriced home models give portraits.org/education/how to record/; Jay Rose’s recordings are cold and of lesser quality than you more than adequate quality for most site, www.dplay.com/; and Transom, high-end analogue equivalents (though newer applications, particularly interviews, but are www.transom.org/tools/index/html. For sampling systems are not criticized so often). I limited in their functions. The lower end offers a equipment, try Full Compass, www.fullcom would argue that for field recordings, the digital wide range of choices, including a number of pass.com/; Bradley Broadcast, www.bradley tools deliver much more fidelity for the price inexpensive Sony models like the Sony MZR700. broadcast.com; and B&H Photo Video, which has than any analogue tools available. The more Pick a model that allows control of recording an excellent website, www.bhphotovideo.com. serious concern has to do with format confusion level, if sound quality is critical. and its effect on archival preservation and the An interesting new recorder about to hit the life and death of digital formats. We can safely market is the Marantz Pro CDR300, which will Barry Dornfeld (University of the predict that digital audio recording and storage record directly to CD-R and CD-RW formats. Arts, 320 S. Broad Street, formats—now principally CD, DAT, and This machine, if it lives up to its promise, could Philadelphia, PA 19102; bdornfeld @uarts.edu) is director and MiniDisc, with hard-disk systems gaining fast— simplify the format wars by allowing a common associate professor of the will continue to change and evolve. As new storage medium, at least until another major shift Communication Program at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, formats arrive, older formats disappear, in technology takes hold. and specializes in sound recording threatening our ability to play back archival tapes Recording in digital audio does not differ and documentary filmmaking.

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 43 Transition A Conversation with Hanna Griff BY MARY ZWOLINSKI

or four years Hanna Griff worked in the in Okayama while learning about Japanese F Folk Arts Program of the New York culture and just plain living there. I returned in State Council on the Arts, reviewing grant 1996, did some substitute teaching in applications, meeting with potential applicants, Massachusetts, worked for six months in and developing folk arts policy. For those of us Jackson, Mississippi, helping a Jewish museum who apply to NYSCA and are active in the there start up an oral history program, and then folklore field, she is a great friend and a I saw the ad for the NYSCA job. I was ready wonderful folklorist. She recently resigned her for big city living. The best part of the job was position to join the Eldridge Street Project in not being confined to one ethnic or cultural New York City. group: I got to work with them all, upstate and Hanna, when did you begin to study folklore? downstate—the bluegrass of the Tug Hill, the I had gotten my B.A. in French and American Chinese opera groups of the Lower East Side, studies at Grinnell College in Iowa (and spent the Jews at Eldridge Street. a semester at the Institute of European Studies Hanna Griff. Hanna, tell us about your new position. in Nantes, France). After college I worked for foods to try. When I got to Iowa, I suffered My new job is deputy director of public a year at a convent and all-women’s school, Regis culture shock, everyone was so tall and programming and public information at the College in Weston, Massachusetts. I then moved everyone’s parents and grandparents spoke Eldridge Street Project—a small but incredibly across the country to Seattle and worked for a English as a first language and no one was prolific nonprofit organization. It was year at the University of Washington (before it Catholic or Jewish. Yikes, I didn’t know this established to preserve the Eldridge Street was so cool—I like to think I started the trend). world existed. In experiencing this new world Synagogue, the first great house of worship built And then I enrolled at Indiana University’s and balancing it with my old world back east, I in America by Eastern European Jews, as a Folklore Department. I went there because I began to scratch at the surface of culture and center for historical reflection, aesthetic wanted a good school in American studies and tradition and what makes life. inspiration, and spiritual renewal. Concerts, IU’s department was unique—you had to have Third: My father has a furniture store that literacy events, art installations, workshops for a home base in another department, and when my grandfather started in 1910. As a kid I got schoolchildren, and other cultural and I looked through the catalogue, I found folklore. to dust and arrange the front window and talk educational programs at the site serve diverse As I read the course offerings, I flipped. All my to all sorts of people—loafers, men and women audiences of diverse ages and backgrounds. life I had been doing folklore and now I could who needed a few bucks for groceries and In June, for example, we had a tribute to Itzik study it. would help my father deliver furniture, and later, Manger, a preeminent Yiddish poet of the What was it about folklore that struck a cord all the old men who ended up hanging out at twentieth century who created a remarkable with you? my father’s—a cast of characters for my eclectic body of work with aspects of folklore, I have several answers. First: my sister and I stock of life histories. modernism, and irreverent retelling of sacred had a paper route where we grew up—in To study folklore was inevitable for me. texts. This fall, there will be many interesting Waltham, Massachusetts, twelve miles outside What was your first job in folklore? concerts, lectures, and talks. We do lots with Boston—and it always took me twice as long I taught and did oral history research at the local Chinese community and will be to collect on Fridays because the customers Indiana from 1983 to 1991. In 1991, I got a job working more with other Asian and Latino sensed a listening gene in my ear. They would teaching American studies and folklore and groups. all chatter on, tell me a story, give me a ginger directing an oral history project on the Jews of What made you decide it was time to leave ale or a peppermint before I could go on. Iowa at Grinnell College. I did that for three NYSCA? Second: My grandparents were all from the years while I finished my dissertation, “A Life Eldridge Street had been one of my first old country—Russia, Lithuania, Poland—and of Any Worth: The Life Histories of Retired applicants when I started at NYSCA four years most of my neighbors and friends’ parents were Brandeis Professors.” ago. I remember, when I was ushered into the from Ireland, China, Italy, or French Canada, I went to Japan for two and a half years and sanctuary, thinking, “Oh my gosh, this place is and there were always accents to decipher, new taught American folklore and American studies stunning, I must work here.” This place speaks

44 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore BOOK REVIEWS

to me. It’s located deep in the heart of Chinatown. I have a fondness for Asian culture, Urban Legends and Place having lived three years in Japan and traveling Encyclopedia of Urban Legends. “The Stuck Couple,” and so on. The core all over Asia while there—yet I have always had By Jan Harold Brunvand. Santa Barbara: narrative is summarized in a few sentences, a strong connection to my own culture. No ABC-CLIO, Inc. 2001. 525 pages, introduction, variations are noted, and references are provided matter where I am, I always find a synagogue illustrations, references, bibliography. to more complete texts. Information concerning and fellow Jews to celebrate the holidays. In In his introduction to this new compendium the origination and distribution of these legends Utica, Mississippi (population ten, or something of urban legends and their analysis, Jan Harold is also provided. like that), for example, as I was giving an oral Brunvand makes reference to the popular Other entries introduce the legends by history workshop, I met a rabbi whose mother Hollywood potboiler Urban Legends. In that film, broader subject headings for the reader who was from the same little town in Lithuania as a student notices an apparent connection wishes to study legends by theme: “Earthquake my grandfather…I digress… between a number of grisly campus murders Stories,” “Restaurant Stories,” and “Celebrity I think it is fate for me to be surrounded by and the motifs that appear in some popular Stories,” for example. Each entry refers to the the very stuff I love and know well. The legends. Off to the library she takes herself, and those specific examples that appear in the Eldridge Street Synagogue reminds me so much soon she is seen consulting a large tome entitled encyclopedia. of my mother’s father’s synagogue in Portland, The Encyclopedia of Urban Legends. Although no Of the remaining entries, some introduce the Maine, and I have many fond memories of such work existed at the time of the making of theoretical and methodological approaches to going there. When the executive director, Amy the film, Brunvand had already begun on an the study of these narratives. “The Structural Waterman, asked me whether I would be encyclopedia with the same name. Approach,” “The Linguistic Approach,” and interested in working with them, I didn’t hesitate The anecdote is helpful because it points to a “The Sociological Approach” are among the a minute. NYSCA was a great place for me to special feature of urban legends: they are theories to which the author refers. Finally, others start my adventures in New York—I met so comfortably at home in both popular culture examine urban legends in a larger social context. many lovely people and got to learn the state and the academic library. The popular appeal “Performance in Urban Legends,” “Television first-hand. After four years of helping people of urban legends is all around us. Numerous and Urban Legends,” and “Internet Resources,” figure out their programming, I decided it was collections of legends aimed at the general public for example, explore the relationship between time for me to get creative again. have appeared and are appearing with great the society which creates the story and the story What is it about New York that keeps you frequency. Brunvand himself has produced at itself. here? least seven collections, beginning in 1981 with In brief, the Encyclopedia of Urban Legends does Endless, interesting walks around the city, and The Vanishing Hitchhiker. He is given credit what it sets out to do. It provides a good my sister and her family, who live on the bottom for spreading the popularity of urban legends comprehensive introduction to the study of floor of my apartment; I’m on the third. My through his books, newspaper column, and urban legends. Of course, that is also its sister and I were always close, no matter where numerous television appearances. In addition, shortcoming for the scholar. As an introductory I lived—and happily, now that we are so close, there must be more than a dozen websites today single-volume work, it cannot hope to be both we still love each other! that devote themselves to urban legends. As the broad and deep at the same time. Usually no Are you doing any research these days? author points out, this encyclopedia is intended more than a page is devoted to any single entry, I do a little bit of research with oral histories. for the urban legend “buff ” as much as for the and then the reader is referred to other sources. I have been a consultant with the Jewish folklorist. The selected bibliography appears slim, but Women’s Archive in Brookline, Massachusetts, And of course the author is himself a highly when the referenced articles in the text are added for over five years. They’re working at collecting respected folklore scholar whose interest in into the mix, there seems to be more than oral histories in Baltimore, Omaha, and Seattle, urban legends goes beyond simple collection. enough resource material presented. Those and hope to spawn similar projects all over. I All his books investigate the variations and the familiar with Brunvand’s other work will have enjoyed helping them craft the study. I sources of each legend he presents, which is of recognize this volume. For those who are new love travel writing, memoir writing, and oral very real value for those who wish to pursue to urban legend study, this work will provide a histories and am trying to get the energy to turn these legends more thoroughly. This value useful introduction. my many journals into something publishable. continues in the Encyclopedia of Urban Legends. —John R Roy While in Japan, I did a lot with traditional textiles, As the name implies, the encyclopedia gathers Hudson Valley Community College indigo dyeing, and embroidery; I would love to information related to the study of urban get back into working with that, too. My new legends. Fully half the entries (arranged in America: Naming the Country and job is so full of folklife every day, I hope to standard, alphabetical order) refer to specific Its People. discover something in the neighborhood to legends under familiar headings: for example, By Allen Walker Read, with editorial assistance spark my interest. “The Licked Hand,” “The Kentucky Fried Rat,” from Leonard R.N. Ashley. Studies in

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 45 Onomastics, No. 4. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin “Yankee,” an expression for which, thankfully, Mellen Press, 2001. 267 pages, foreword by he has given up seeking an origin: “I regard the Are you... Frederic Cassidy, preface, list of author’s problem of origin as basically intractable because new to the New York onomastic writings, index. the contextual evidence is so spotty and “I hold that the first step is to collect the indecisive…” (p. 75). These and all the articles Folklore Society? rich data,” wrote Allen Walker Read in 1981, are chock full. and his new book shows how zealous and After collecting data, the next step is “finding missing back copies successful data collecting can be. Leonard patterns and uncovering the social forces that of the journal? Ashley, his editor, rightly calls Read, who is a have produced them” (p. 241). One sort of past president of the New York Folklore Society, naming pattern in America the author calls the dean of American name scholars. His authoritarian. As railroads built their way across You can order the complete set or “immense scholarly production” is now being his home state of Iowa, they conferred names fill in the gaps in your collection. cataloged (preface, p. viii). Fortunately, this book on places (p. 247). The United States Board of Members: Order at the members-only brings to light fifteen previously unpublished Geographical Names tries, as the authority, to discount. To join the New York conference papers, “delivered over a period of fix spellings without prescribing them (p. 203). Folklore Society, see page 48. some seventy years,” discussing “place names Another pattern the author calls “progressive and what Americans have been called or call pioneering,” the naming of new settlements Single Issues themselves” (p. viii). Leonard Ashley puts them after the place you started out from. “A settler Date or volume: ______into readable written form and inserts jocular named Aaron Street emigrated from Salem, $8 $10 nonmembers $______informative notes. Often he reinserts details that New Jersey, to Ohio, and there founded a town the author was obliged to omit from oral called Salem. The next lap of the journey was New York Folklore Quarterly presentation. These are some of the most of the son to Iowa, where he laid out the town 1946 –1974 valuable bits of research, for instance in the essay of Salem in Henry County” (p. 248). The broad 58 issues “What Area Does the Name America Refer To?” pattern of United States naming isn’t surprising: $110 $125 nonmembers $______(pp. 13–25). “the naming falls in various layers, depending The richest data Allen Walker Read collects upon the exploration or settlement pattern of New York Folklore come from travel accounts and other printed the particular area” (p. 239). 1975 – 1998 sources. A major example is his winnowing from Allen Walker Read is well aware of the 32 issues newspapers old and new of names for residents narrowness others see in his field of onomastics: $85 $95 nonmembers $______of New York (pp. 131–142) and Brooklyn (pp. “They think it consists solely of making long 143–150). another paper treats place names in lists and of jotting down fragmented facts about New York Folklore Quarterly New York State. Again and again, nineteenth- them” (p. 237). To my mind, his sense that and New York Folklore century travelers noted the variety of sources naming is a dynamic process does sometimes 1946 – 1998 and derivations represented by Rome, Sullivan, fall short. Take “New York Stater,” for example. 90 issues Utica, “Skeneckaty,” and Oneida (pp. 159–169). Carl Carmer, who lived in the West Village and $150 $175 nonmembers $______Nowadays it seems that the “regional integrity” was hence a “New Yorker,” obviously used this of New York, and other places Allen Walker expression to identify those living outside the TO ORDER Read studies, consists in that very mixing of city; this point could be mentioned. It’s easy origins by which British travelers were so enough to understand why “Palatine [in Publications subtotal $______horrified. The local emphasis of many of the Connecticut] was corrupted into Palestine” (p. Shipping and handling studies, which will commend the book to New 278): the latter is more familiar. Why not say so? Add $4 for 1 to 5 issues, $20 for complete sets. $______York readers, is true to the essence of name And the suffix –nik, as in “Fire Island-nik” of Total $______study. Like all folklore study, it must begin with 1969 (p. 148), comes from the Russian launch the local. of the satellite Sputnik, which isn’t mentioned. Enclose check payable to New York Folklore Society and mail to New York Folklore Society, The number of citations assembled by this But Allen Walker Read’s collecting of data can’t P.O. Box 763, 133 Jay St., Schenectady, NY 12301. collector of rich data is consistently impressive. be reproached. Maybe another book will tell the In a 1994 paper, he gives thirty-nine samples world about his endearing habit of collecting ______Name from his large collection of uses of the handbills and throwaways from students at the ______expression “The States” to designate this country 116th Street subway station. Shipping Address ______(pp. 25–47). In three articles (pp. 75–110), he —Lee Haring City, State, Zip treats extensively the folk etymologies for Emeritus, Brooklyn College

46 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore ANNOUNCEMENTS Announcements

Upcoming: AFS Upstate in a marketplace area featuring bead workers, label, Badenya: Manden Jaliya in New York. Available October 16–20. The annual meeting of the basket makers, and other traditional in July, this compilation offers ten tracks of new American Folklore Society is coming to New craftspersons. Scholarship about deaf culture and material from some of the finest West African York State for the first time in more than three storytelling will be featured in sessions involving musicians living in New York, including decades. The conference will take place at the members of Rochester’s considerable deaf Abdoulaye Diabate, Keba Cissoko, Abou Sylla, Hyatt Regency and the adjoining Riverside population. and others from Mali, Guinea, and the Gambia. Convention Center in Rochester on October 16– Preconference tours, offered on Wednesday, For more information or to order a copy, visit 20, 2002. October 16, will include visits to Niagara Falls, www.ctmd.org AFS convenes one of the largest folklore Haudenosaunee sites, vineyards and orchards, Sunday, August 4. Lincoln Center Out of conferences in the world. Each year hundreds the Erie Canal, industrial heritage sites, the Doors: “Heritage Sunday.” The Center for of folklorists, cultural specialists from a wide vernacular cobblestone buildings near Lake Traditional Music and Dance is curating a day variety of other disciplines, and community Ontario, the homes of Susan B. Anthony and of music and dance of the Mexican community members who study their own culture participate Frederick Douglass, and historic sites associated of New York City, at Lincoln Center for the in forums, panels, poster sessions, film and video with the women’s movement, the Underground Performing Arts, 65th Street and Broadway. presentations, and workshops relating to folklore. Railroad, and the Church of Latter-day Saints. Among participating groups are Mariachi Real This year, tours, receptions, performances, and During the conference, digitization workshops de Mexico, Los Rayos del Norte, and Estampas traditional arts demonstrations will showcase the organized by the New York Folklore Society will y Tradiciones Dance Company. Admission is free. folk culture of upstate New York. enable participants to learn about cutting-edge For more information, call 212 875-5108 or visit In contrast to most academic conferences, technology of great value for field research, www.lincolncenter.org AFS meetings are open and welcoming to websites, and folklore archiving. September 20–22. The World Music Institute nonacademics, including community scholars The Education Section of AFS will offer its and Center for Traditional Music and Dance and members of a wide variety of professions. annual half-day workshop for folklorists and present the New York World Festival: “Music Voices readers will find the meetings an ideal educators on Saturday, October 19. The Around the Mediterranean,” featuring three days opportunity to learn about current scholarship workshop presents the latest methodologies and of music, dance, workshops, and food with and professional practices in the field of folklore. models, with speakers who discuss how to apply premier local and touring artists from all around “Image, Object and Processes of local cultural resources to curricula. Participants the Mediterranean. Bohemian Hall. 21-19 24th Documentation” is the title of this year’s can also register for visits to museum collections Avenue, right off Broadway in Astoria, Queens. meeting—a theme that will suit Rochester well, and benefit from an intensive view of objects For more information, go to www.hearthe since it relates to the cultural and intellectual and interactions with curators at the George world.org or www.ctmd.org. strengths of the “world’s image center.” Eastman House, Strong Museum, and Rochester Presentations will explore enduring issues of the Museum and Science Center. Maritime Folklife Festival folklore discipline relating to processes, ethics, New York State traditional folk artists will be Sunday, October 6. Long Island Traditions will and approaches to documentation—the objects featured in performances during breaks between present “Celebrate the Bay,” its sixth annual folklorists create as documents, material culture, sessions, receptions at several of Rochester’s Maritime Folklife Festival, at the Long Island photography, and imagery of objects, museums, a dinner dance, and a square dance. Maritime Museum, 86 West Avenue, West communities, and tradition bearers. Participants The dinner dance will take place at St. Dimitria Sayville, NY, 11 A.M. to 5 P.M. Artists will include are not limited to these topics, however, and Macedonian Orthodox Church in Henrietta. baymen and dragger fishermen, clamshell artist presentations will deal with a wide variety of Tentative bookings include the acclaimed and welder Harry Saarinen, duck hunters and folklore topics from throughout the world. Campbell Brothers sacred steel group, along with decoy carvers, model makers, and other The AFS conference always links closely to a hot rhythm-and-blues band and several other traditional maritime artists from Long Island. The the locality, region, and traditional communities ethnic and regional performing groups. festival will explore the contemporary and historic where the meeting takes place. Session organizers The annual meeting program, registration traditions of commercial and recreational have been encouraged to include community forms, and other information will be available fishermen, the factors affecting these traditions, scholars, tradition bearers, and colleagues from on line in August at www.afsnet.org. and their future on Long Island. other disciplines as equal participants. Native John Remsen Jr. of Freeport, the fourth American scholars will participate extensively in Traditional Music and Dance generation of his family to work on the bay, will sessions. The extraordinary crafts of the The Center for Traditional Music and Dance show how he catches killies and other bait fish, Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) are to be presented is issuing a new CD on the Smithsonian Folkways using handmade killey traps he learned to make

Spring–Summer 2002, Volume 28: 1–2 47 from his grandfather. Cory Weyant, a Freeport Festival admission is $4. The program is funded languages. This Sunday afternoon concert will bayman, will demonstrate fish smoking. in part by the New York State Council on the celebrate the rich history and traditions of Baywoman Flo Sharkey of Patchogue will Arts, the Suffolk County Office of Cultural Affairs, Sudanese culture. demonstrate clam shucking and harvesting, skills and Suffolk County Legislator Ginny Fields. For Sunday, August 18. The Schweinfurth she learned from her father. Bob Kaler of East more information, please call Long Island Memorial Art Center is hosting an outdoor folk Patchogue will demonstrate crabbing and eeling. Traditions at 516 767-8803 or the Long Island arts festival and concert, showcasing rural folk Lowell Ockers of West Sayville will show how Maritime Museum at 631 HISTORY. art traditions and the lively musical entertainment pound traps and nets are designed and of a traditional fiddler. Demonstrations by six constructed using traditional methods he learned Schweinfurth Concerts, Festival regional folk artists will provide an engaging from his father and grandfather. Jones Beach Sunday, July 21. The Schweinfurth Memorial family activity. Refreshments will be served. lifeguard Reggie Jones, the longest-working Art Center and the Thompson Memorial AME Artwork created by students attending the lifeguard at the beach, will tell stories of rescues Zion Church will cosponsor a folk arts festival Schweinfurth’s summer programs will also be and training exercises from his fifty-year career. at 2 P.M. at the AME Zion church on Wall Street on display for friends and family to view, from 1 Peter Ames, of Little Neck, and his son Pete in Auburn. Enjoy an afternoon of traditional to 5 P.M. The Art Center’s Summer Art Camp Ames Jr. will show how to make fishing rods. music and folk arts featuring the AME Choir for Kids runs from July 8 through August 16 Decoy carver Larry Udell of Center Moriches and the Sudanese A Capella Choir of the Refugee and offers an array of week-long visual arts will share his experiences as a duck hunter and Resettlement Center in Syracuse. classes, including drawing and painting, sculpture, guide, skills he learned from his grandfather. Known as the “Lost Boys,” the Sudanese A and printmaking. Performing at the festival will be the “Strike Capella Choir is an informal group of singers the Bell” duo of Stuart Markus and Judith who celebrate life and survival. Displaced from Capital Region Zweiman, along with Oscar Brand & Jon Pickow. their homes in the Sudan by the ongoing civil July 12–September 22. “Pinocchio: The Story There will also be screenings of Glenn Gebhard’s war, many Sudanese have found refuge at the Behind the Story.” This exhibit explores the documentary Baymen, produced with Long Island Refugee Resettlement Center in Syracuse. The transformations stories undergo in their journey Traditions in 2000. choir sings in Swahili, English, and tribal from oral narrative to the most recent video. Using the story of Pinocchio, we track the visual Members: Order your copies of New York Folklore Society books at a and textual changes that occur over time as stories members-only discount. To join the New York Folklore Society, see page 7. become the vehicles for presenting the moral state of the times. Sponsored by the New York ADD THESE ESSENTIAL RESOURCES State Council on the Arts and the New York TO YOUR LIBRARY! Council for the Humanities. Exhibit at the Working with Folk Materials in Self-Management for Folk Artists: Knisely-Ayers Gallery, The Arts Center of the New York State: A Manual for A Guide for Traditional Artists and Capital Region, 265 River Street, Troy, NY 12180; Performers in New York State Folklorists and Archivists 518 273-0552. Edited by John W. Suter By Patricia Atkinson Wells With contributions by leading New York State This handbook is a must for traditional artists in August 17. Centro Civico of Amsterdam archivists and folklorists, this manual introduces New York State interested in managing and presents the 11th Annual Centro Civico Cultural marketing their own businesses. Topics include folklore to the archivist and archives to Arts Festival in Riverlink Park, Amsterdam, New folklorists. It is required reading for those promotion, booking, contracts, keeping records, working with collections of folklore materials taxes, and copyright. York, from noon till 9 P.M. This year’s special in any part of the country. 148 pages, loose-leaf notebook guests are the Cuatro Project, who bring their 168 pages, loose-leaf notebook $30 $40 nonmembers $______exceptional musical skills to the festival. Also $25 $35 nonmembers $______TO ORDER included are traditional arts demonstrations, food, Folklore in Archives: Books subtotal $______and other activities. Sponsored by the New York A Guide to Describing Folklore Shipping and handling Add $4 for the first book, State Council on the Arts. and Folklife Materials $1 for each additional item. $______October 4–January 17, 2003. “St. Anna By James Corsaro and Karen Taussig-Lux Total $______Written primarily for archivists and others who Ameen: Traditional New Foundland Hooked care for collections of folk cultural documenta- Enclose check payable to New York Folklore Mats.” This exhibition features traditional hooked Society and mail to New York Folklore Society, tion, this manual describes the theory and mats by visionary folk artist St. Anna Ameen practice of folklore and provides essential P.O. Box 763, 133 Jay St., Schenectady, NY 12301. information on how to accession, arrange, and ______from Newfoundland. Sponsored by the New describe folklore materials. Name York State Council on the Arts. Exhibit at the 128 pages, loose-leaf notebook ______Knisely-Ayers Gallery, The Arts Center of the $25 $35 nonmembers $______Shipping Address ______Capital Region, 265 River Street, Troy, NY 12180; City, State, Zip 518 273-0552.

48 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Images from the Meet the Artist Gala

Members of Comhaltas Ceoltoiri: Eireann performing at the NYFS Meet the Artist Gala. Photo by E. McHale.

Board member Eniko Farkas with guest Members Ed and Emily Koch speak with Ellen Fladjer at the NYFS Meet the Artist Gala. Eniko Keresztesi at the NYFS Meet the Photo by E. McHale. Artist Gala. Photo by E. McHale.

Board member Stanly Ransom and member Bill Healy perform at the Meet the Artist Gala to benefit NYFS. Photo by E. McHale. Join the New York Folklore Society today and become a subscriber to Voices

Join NYFS and become part of a community that will A Public Voice Yes, I want to join the New York deepen your involvement with folklore, folklife, the The NYFS raises awareness of folklore among the Folklore Society. traditional arts, and contemporary culture. As a general public through three important channels... member, you’ll have early notice of key events... Name______Print. Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore, published Organization ______Fall Conference. People travel from all over to meet twice a year, brings you folklore in the words and images in a different part of the state each year for the NYFS of its creators and practitioners. The journal’s new look Address ______Fall Conference and Annual Meeting. Professionals in distinguishes it from other publications in the field. Read City, state, zip ______folklore and related fields join with educators and Voices for news you can use about our field and legal practitioners to explore the culture and traditions of issues, photography, sound and video recording, and Country ______the area. Lectures and discussions are balanced with archiving. Telephone ______concerts, dancing, and tours of cultural sites. Radio. Voices of New York Traditions is a series of radio E-mail ______New York State Folk Arts Forums. Folk arts documentaries that spotlight the folklife of the state, professionals, colleagues in related disciplines, and lay aired on public radio. Stay tuned! $35 Basic member people come together each year to address a topic of $20 Full-time student Internet. Visit www.nyfolklore.org for the latest news special interest–whether it be folklore and the Internet, $20 Senior (65+) on events in folklore. Updated weekly, the NYFS website heritage tourism, cultural conservation, or intellectual $50 Joint (two or more at the same address) is designed to appeal to the public as well as keep property law. $50 Organizations and institutions specialists informed. Please add $5 for additional postage for foreign memberships. Help When You Need It Advocacy New member. Become a member and learn about technical assistance The New York Folklore Society is your advocate for Gift membership. Introduce a friend or programs that will get you the help you need. relative to the world of folklore! sympathetic and informed attention to folk arts... Mentoring and Professional Development • We represent you on issues before the state legislature Make a tax-deductible donation and help Program for Folklife and the Traditional Arts. and the federal government when public policy affects support the organization that supports folklore! Receive technical assistance from a mentor of your the field. Visit the advocacy pages at www.nyfolklore.org My donation over and above my basic member- choosing. You can study with a master traditional artist, to learn what we’re doing and how you can help. learn new strategies for marketing, master concert and ship fee will entitle me to the following • The society partners with statewide, regional, and additional benefits: exhibition production, organize an archive, or improve national organizations, from the New York State Arts $60. Supporting member. Book. your organizational management. and Cultural Coalition to the American Folklore Society, $100 and up. The Harold W. Thompson Folk Artists Self-Management Project. If you’re a and frequently presents its projects and issues at meetings traditional artist, you know the importance of business, of professional organizations in the allied fields of Circle. A complete set of New York Folklore management, and marketing skills to your success in archives, history, and libraries. 1974-1998.* the marketplace. NYFS can help you with workshops, 2001 2002 mentoring, and publications. So Join! Membership dues $______$______Folk Archives Project. What could be more critical Become part of a community that explores and nurtures the traditional cultures of New York State and beyond. Tax-deductible than finding a repository for an important collection? donation $______$______The NYFS is a leader in the preservation of our cultural Membership in the New York Folklore Society entitles heritage. Attend our workshops and order copies of you to the following benefits: Total enclosed $______$______NYFS books at a discount. • A subscription to Voices: The Journal of New York The amount of memberships greater than $20 and all donations are Folklore. tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Consulting and referral. The NYFS offers informal • Invitations to conferences, workshops, and meetings. counseling and referral services to the members in the Make your check payable to New York Folklore • Updates on technical assistance programs. field. Contact us by telephone, e-mail, or letter. Society and send it with this form to: • Opportunities to meet others who share your New York Folklore Society Publications. Members receive discounts on all NYFS interests. P.O. Box 764 , Schenectady, NY 12301 publications. Visit www.nyfolklore.org for current titles. • Discounts on NYFS books. *Some sold-out issues are only available as photocopies.

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