Spring–Summer 2003 Volume 29: 1–2

The Journal of New York Folklore

Occupational Folklore at the Racetrack

Exhibit: Black Homesteaders in the Adirondacks

Upstate’s Dance Music Traditions

B.A. Botkin’s City From the Director

This spring saw the Armour, Mark Van Sluyters, Jeni Friedland, gress study, Collections in Crisis, and working completion of two and Jackie Hobbs. Also assisting in the de- with archival and digitization specialists, projects that have velopment and distribution of the curricu- NYFS decided to develop a digitization been in development lum guide was Tracy Racicot of BOCES/ project to help in the preservation and ac- for several years. Questar II. cessibility of audio folklore collections with- First, our series of Please see NYFS News, page 2 of this in the state. The collection of the Fiddlers’ radio documentaries issue, for details on the eleven documenta- Hall of Fame became a test case. Support on folklore and folk- ries, and contact the New York Folklore was received from the New York State life topics finally saw its completion and was Society for further information. Council on the Arts and the National En- released to be aired by public radio and in- The second project has a basis in an on- dowment for the Arts to accomplish this dependent radio stations throughout New going concern of the New York Folklore work. This spring, with the assistance of York and elsewhere. The series comprises Society. Since 1991, NYFS has been an ad- audio technician Jameson Bruhn, the Hall eleven radio documentaries highlighting folk vocate and champion for the safety and of Fame tapes were digitally copied onto arts within New York State. The documen- preservation of folklore archives through- audio compact disk. In addition, an archive taries describe the work of specific individ- out the state. This “archives project” began copy of each taped interview and recorded uals as well as the vibrant and diverse tradi- in 1991 as a survey and needs assessment fiddler was made on reel-to-reel analog tape. tions within New York State. Several indi- of folklore collections. At that time, several The New York Folklore Society would viduals lent their expertise to this major collections were identified as being of par- like to make this technology available to project, including radio producers Ginger ticular concern. Archivists were sent to sur- other collections within the state. If you Miles, Joyce Kryszak, Robert Brown; Lamar vey these collections and to make recom- have a collection, or individual tapes, which Bliss was executive producer. Dale Johnson mendations for their storage and long-term you would like to have rerecorded onto dig- served as project director and collaborated care. One of these collections was the col- ital CD, please contact us. with folklorists Mary Zwolinski, Beverly lection of the New York State Fiddlers’ Hall Butcher, Karen Canning, Jim Kimball, Jamie of Fame in Osceola, New York. Since 1976, Fall Conference Moreira, Varick Chittenden, and Nancy fiddlers had been recorded and interviewed The New York Folklore Society’s annual Solomon, as well as myself. Acknowledg- through the vision and efforts of the late meeting will be held October 24–26 in Sack- ment is also due to Rebecca Miller, who Alice Clemens. Herself a fiddler and a long- et’s Harbor, New York, on the shores of originally conceived this project, albeit in a time champion for the preservation of old- Lake Ontario. This year’s conference will be different form. time fiddling in New York State, Clemens a collaboration with Traditional Arts of Acting on the suggestion of Lamar Bliss, had initiated a documentation project with Upstate New York, and the theme will be we expanded the project further. We re- support from the New York State Council “Common Places, Uncommon Stories: Is- ceived assistance from the National Endow- on the Arts. Consulting folklorist Nancy sues and Examples of Cultural Landmark- ment for the Arts to develop a curriculum Groce had worked with the Hall of Fame ing and Cultural Conservation in Upstate guide to accompany the completed radio to develop a project to interview Hall of New York Communities.” As with all our documentaries and serve as a resource guide Famers. More than one hundred and fifty meetings, there will be provocative presen- for schools, especially for fourth-grade lan- tapes were recorded, creating an important tations, visits to significant North Country guage arts. The curriculum guide will receive audio collection showcasing New York’s sites, and plenty of opportunity for experi- widespread distribution within the school old-time fiddling styles. encing the local cuisine and musical fare. districts of New York State. Kathy Condon In 2000, the New York Folklore Society Details will follow by mail, or visit our web- has served as chief consultant for this received support from the New York Foun- site, www.nyfolklore.org, for updated infor- project and was assisted by folklorists Chris dation for the Arts to begin to explore the mation. Muia and Dale Johnson. Teacher-consult- issue of the audio digitization of folklore Ellen McHale, Ph.D. Executive Director, New York Folklore Society ants for the project included Linda Kelly materials. Responding to a Library of Con- [email protected] “Today, unchecked mass communication bullies and shouts humanity into passivity and silence. Artists everywhere are losing their local audiences… If we are to have a rich and varied musical future, we must encourage the development of as many local musics as possible.” —Alan Lomax, “Appeal for Cultural Equity,” Journal of Communication, Spring 1977 Contents Spring–Summer 2003

7 Features 7 An Ethnography of the Saratoga Racetrack by Ellen McHale

12 The Making of an Exhibition by Amy Godine

22 Zillah by Thea Kluge

24 Old-Time Dance Music 12 in Western New York by James Kimball

34 Cities within the City: B.A. Botkin’s New York by Michael L. Murray

39 Ruby Marcotte Remembers

Departments and Columns 2 New York Folklore Society News 4 Upstate by Varick A. Chittenden 5 Downstate by Steve Zeitlin 20 Eye of the Camera 26 by Martha Cooper 21 Foodways by Lynn Case Ekfelt 32 On Air 33 Lawyer’s Sidebar by Paul Rapp 41 Archival Questions by Nancy Johnson The “backside” community at 42 Obituaries the Saratoga Racetrack has its own folkways and occupation- 43 Announcements al lore. See page 7. Photo- graph by Dorothy Ours, courtesy of the National 34 Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 1 New York Folklore Society News

Forums Afield If your organization is interested in host- create in their everyday lives—their tradi- Every year the New York Folklore Soci- ing a forum, call the NYFS at 518 346-7008. tional art forms, unique community life, and ety holds forums on topics of interest to We also welcome suggestions for future the sense of order and aesthetics that per- the folklore field, professionals in related topics. vades both work and play. The series taps fields, and NYFS members. On April 9, the the cultural riches found in the folklife of a New York Folklore Society conducted a Breakfast at the Capitol state that, perhaps more than any other in forum entitled “What to Do with Those On March 18, 2003, the New York Folk- the Union, is the product of many cultures. NYFS NEWS Oral Histories,” hosted by the Center for lore Society initiated its first-ever folk arts Each documentary features one master Folklife, History and Cultural Programs at breakfast. “A Taste of New York” was a pro- of a traditional art form recorded on loca- the Crandall Public Library in Glens Falls. gram of Arts Day, an advocacy effort orga- tion. In their own words—the voices of The forum addressed issues of use for col- nized primarily by the Alliance of New York New York traditions—these tradition bear- lected narratives and oral histories beyond State Arts Organizations. Held at the New archival storage and access for researchers. York State Capitol, Legislative Office Build- Special guest was folklorist Greg Sharrow, ing, Arts Day brings arts administrators, art- director of education at the Vermont Folk- ists, and other arts professionals to Albany life Center. The Vermont Folklife Center has to advocate for support for the New York Fall–Winter 2002 · Volume 28: 3-4 found compelling uses for its collection of State Council on the Arts. This year, with Editors Karen Taussig-Lux ([email protected]) recorded narratives, including a series of the involvement and support of the folk arts and Sally Atwater ([email protected]) Photography Editor Martha Cooper children’s books and radio programming. community throughout the state, NYFS or- Design Mary Beth Malmsheimer Sharrow offered ideas and practical advice ganized a gala breakfast to bring together Printer Digital Page, Inc. Editorial Board Varick Chittenden, Amy Godine, about exhibitions, publications, and other legislators and the arts community. Kate Koperski, Cathy Ragland, Kay Turner, Dan products that can be developed from nar- This breakfast reception featured Italian Ward, Steve Zeitlin ratives, which otherwise have a tendency to specialties prepared by John and Cathy Lan- Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore gather dust. ci of Lanci’s Tavola Caldi. Featured were is published twice a year by the New York Folklore Society, Inc. The presentation was in conjunction with performances of Kuchipudi dance, a clas- 133 Jay Street the Crandall Library’s exhibition, Family sical Indian dance, by Kantham Chatlapalli P.O. Box 764 Schenectady, NY 12301 Stories, Family Sagas, an audiovisual instal- and Harika Chatlapalli of Hopewell Junc- New York Folklore Society, Inc. lation showcasing the remarkable histories tion, and Irish traditional dance music per- Executive Director Ellen McHale Director of Services Dale Johnson of six New England families who share a formed by Father Charlie Coen of Red Administrative Assistant Deborah Mustico powerful tradition of storytelling to pre- Hook and Danny Guerney of Rhinecliff. Web Administrator Patti Mason Voice 518 346-7008 serve their identity and heritage. The breakfast was cosponsored by the New Fax 518 346-6617 In August the Maybee Farm, the oldest York Folklore Society and Senator Hugh Website www.nyfolklore.org Board of Directors continuously inhabited Dutch farm in the Farley of Schenectady. Special thanks to President Mary Zwolinski Mohawk Valley, will host another NYFS Dan Ward and Jean Crandall for their as- Past President Todd DeGarmo Vice President Hanna Griff forum, “Built to Use, Not to Last: Tempo- sistance in this endeavor. Secretary-Treasurer Ladan Alomar Beverly Butcher, Karen Canning, Pam Cooley, rary Structures and the Use of Space in James Corsaro, Eniko Farkas, Nancy Johnson, Community Life.” This meeting will take Ready to Air Madaha Kinsey-Lamb, Ted McGraw, Stan Ransom, Bart Roselli, Greer Smith, Midge Stock, Lynne place in a reconstructed Dutch barn on the The completed series of radio documen- Williamson property in Rotterdam Junction, just west taries titled Voices of New York Traditions is Advertisers: to inquire, please call the NYFS 518 346-7008 or fax 518 346-6617 of Schenectady. The topic complements the now being sent to public radio stations

November 2002 forum on the vernacular throughout the United States. After field Voices is available in Braille and recorded architecture of the Hudson Valley and the testing, a curriculum guide linked to learn- versions. Call NYFS at 518 346-7008.

stone structures of Ulster County, which ing standards will be available to accompa- The programs and activities of the New York Folklore Society, and the publication of Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore, are made was hosted by the Huguenot Historical So- ny the series for use in schools later this possible in part by funds from the New York State Council on the Arts. Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore is indexed in Arts & Humanities ciety in New Paltz. This will be a continu- year. Citation Index and Music Index and abstracted in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life. Reprints of articles and items from Voices: The Journal of New York ing series: we are planning more forums on The New York Folklore Society devel- Folklore are available through the ISI Document Solution, Institute for Scientific Information, 3501 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104. 215 vernacular architecture; check with the oped the folklife radio series to celebrate 386-0100. ISSN 0361-204X NYFS office for future events. the people of New York and the art they © 2001 by The New York Folklore Society, Inc. All rights reserved.

2 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore ers describe how they learned their skills, page 32 in this issue for a transcription of Baskets of varying sizes were an everyday whether from family members or from el- the interview.) item used for storage, food gathering, and ders handing traditions down to a new gen- Bill Smith: Traditional Storyteller. Bill Smith organization in the home. In the nineteenth eration. The series seeks to show the is a well-known storyteller and basket mak- and twentieth centuries the baskets assumed strength and power of folk traditions and er who tells traditional tall tales of the Ad- economic importance, and styles became how they affect people’s lives and shape their irondacks as well as stories of growing up more innovative and decorative. Voices of identity. It demonstrates that traditions can in the North Country. He mixes narratives New York Traditions looks at the souvenir remain remarkably similar over time, change about the humorous antics of relatives and basket trade at the Akwasane reservation, from outside influences, or become vehi- community members with song to present located on the U.S.-Canadian border along cles for personal expression as people in- portraits of life in this region of the state. the St. Lawrence River. fuse tradition with their own artistic sensi- Sara and Colleen Cleveland: A Rich Legacy of African American Quilts and Their Makers. bilities. Folksong. Sara Cleveland was a folksong col- The late Ora Kirkland and Virginia Hall The series consists of eleven documen- lectors’ dream, singing a vast repertoire of speak about their art as African American taries (some of which have been transcribed British ballads and American folksongs dat- quilt makers. Africans brought to America and published in this journal), each four and ing back hundreds of years. Her contribu- a long tradition of working with textiles. a half to five minutes long: tion to the recording and preservation of They added their own aesthetic to quilting James Donato: Out of the Woods. This docu- these songs as documented by folklorists is techniques, overturning rules of geometry, mentary explores the art of chainsaw carv- a chronicle of the music traditions of early balance, and order to create a unique blend ing, told by carver James Donato from Al- New York settlers. Now her daughter Col- of cultural forms. tamont. James discusses at the process of leen continues this tradition of folksong, La Quinceañera Dressmaking: Francisca “Pan- making a chainsaw carving. Most of his and she and her father Jim describe their chita” Davila. Seamstress Francisca Davila work depicts animals and fishermen and family heritage of music. was born into a family of farmers in 1934 other outdoor subjects. Square Dancing in Western New York. This close to the town of Ponce, Puerto Rico. Polka Music in Western New York State. Pol- documentary shows that dance traditions She learned the art of crochet and tailoring ka has been a strong tradition in the Polish developed by early Americans from Euro- from her mother. Panchita moved to Am- community of Buffalo and the surrounding pean styles were retained and practiced in sterdam in 1961 and today is known region since the early 1900s. Brought by im- New York State. Interviews with square throughout the local Latino community as migrants from Poland, the music is part of dance callers and musicians give a glimpse a quinceañera dressmaker and party plan- the identity of their descendants, who today into the celebratory life of community ner for Latinas. La Quinceañera is a fifteen- continue to celebrate their East European members in the region and explore how year-old girl’s celebration of her passage into heritage through music and dance. In this these traditions have changed as well as con- adulthood, and Panchita helps maintain this documentary performers Joe Macielag and tinued over time. important cultural tradition. Jerry Darlak talk about both the mechanics Edith Cutting: Folklore Collector. A pioneer The features are “evergreen”—they are and the significance of polka music. collector of Adirondack folklore, Edith not tied to a specific date, season, or holi- Mark Hamilton: Old-Time Fiddler and Square Cutting grew up near Elizabethtown, in Es- day and can be heard anytime—and exem- Dance Caller. The late Mark Hamilton is con- sex County, where her family had farmed plify traditions found in various regions of sidered one of the finest old-time fiddlers the land since the early 1800s. In the 1930s New York State. They are intended for all from New York State. This documentary she attended the Albany Normal School and ages and are free for nonprofit use. Includ- uses narrative and interviews to explore a took classes from folklorist Harold Thomp- ed in each documentary are an introduc- much-loved tradition bearer’s life and mu- son, a cofounder of the New York Folk- tion and funding credits to be read by radio sic and reveals the historical perspective of lore Society. She was inspired by a class as- stations’ local announcers. old-time music and square dance, as seen signment to collect stories from her family The radio series provided a unique op- through his eyes. and community, some of which appeared portunity for folklorists around the state Shad Fishing on the Hudson. Shad fishing in Thompson’s book, Body, Boots and Britch- to partner with professional radio produc- has been an occupation on the Hudson Riv- es. Later she published her own book, Lore ers. We enjoyed successful collaborations er since New York’s early years. Although of an Adirondack County. She continues to with Joyce Kryszak of WBFO in Buffalo, shad populations were affected by pollution collect and teach folklore. Lamar Bliss from Potsdam, Robert Brown and the fish nearly disappeared, they are now Akwesasne Iroquois: Native-American Basket of WMHT in Schenectady, and Ginger making a comeback. Producer Ginger Miles Making Traditions. Baskets made of sweet- Miles of New York City. The project was interviews fisherman Everett Nack about grass and black ash splints have an impor- produced by Dale Johnson and Lamar the folkways of this occupational craft. (See tant place in the Mohawk Iroquois tradition. Bliss.

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 3 An Evening at Cooks Corners BY VARICK A. CHITTENDEN

For a local shortcut going south into the schoolhouse. The North Country is still Since that time, the schoolhouse has been Adirondack foothills, I have taken Orebed home to many such buildings. If they are their community center. Road in the town of Pierrepont scores of used at all today, they have been converted For years, Bill has told me that Cooks Cor- times in the last few years. It’s a lovely drive, to family homes (some beautifully restored ners is a special place, and that Cooks Cor- in all seasons, winding and rolling through and adapted to modern use), antiques shops, ners people are special, too. He’s described UPSTATE maples and oaks, pines and tamaracks, some animal pens, or in one instance, a manure them with great admiration and respect, call- much older than the road itself. Along the shed for a dairy farmer. ing them hard-working, family-oriented peo- way is a scattering of modest farmhouses and But the Cooks Corners schoolhouse is dif- ple who’ve known poverty and how to sur- rustic bungalows, tucked into the woods for ferent. I know this because of my good friend vive, and who are content with their simple privacy from neighbors and protection from Bill Smith, who grew up and today lives a tastes and basic values, learned from ances- the weather. Most of them have been there couple of miles away as the crow flies. tors in the neighborhood and passed to chil- a long time, too. Though Bill didn’t attend that school, he dren whom they raise there. A few miles off the state highway, I come knows plenty of people who did. This school- So I was pleased that he arranged an invi- to Wilson Road, where I usually turn left and house, like many others in the area, was tation for “TAUNY folks”—Jeanmarie Fal- continue toward what the old-timers called closed in the late 1940s, as children from lon, Jill Breit, our summer intern Cris Muia, the Great South Woods. But it’s the sight of rural roads were transported to nearby vil- friend and photographer Marty Cooper (who a small white building on the opposite cor- lages for centralized education. Unlike many was visiting us at the time), and me—to a ner that regularly catches my eye. A simple other districts, the people of Cooks Corners summer social event this past July. Because wooden sign in front declares “Cooks Cor- decided soon thereafter that they needed a the gathering was announced by word-of- ners Community Center,” yet I’ve always rec- gathering place where they could vote, con- mouth and telephone tree only a few days ognized it by form and size to be a one-room duct neighborhood business, and socialize. before, organizer Brenda Bonno worried that continued on page 6

Homemade desserts were offered at the end of the evening at the schoolhouse. Photo: Martha Cooper

4 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore The Folklore Fundamentalist BY STEVE ZEITLIN

“Why were human beings created?” goes words of the Koran, dictated by the Angel Story. Such a simple term, and yet one that a traditional saying that I first learned from Gabriel to the Prophet Mohammad in the holds a key to an issue that continues to Elie Wiesel. The answer: “Because God seventh century, could not be paraphrased elude us: peaceful coexistence. As we teach loves stories.” Some years ago, I used that or improved upon, she said emphatically. our children to grow up in a world where phrase for a title of a book of interviews, Besides, inserting a question into the piece we can’t afford to hate our neighbors, the stories, and essays—an anthology of Jew- was nothing short of blasphemy. wealth of folktales that folklorists and oth- ish storytelling. I thought of the last line of the tale, spo- ers have researched and made available can As I happily slaved over that work, I be- ken by a bird: “Every person on this earth make a difference. As my friend the story- came interested in interviewing a Hasidic possesses as much knowledge as the quan- teller Roz Perry put it, “It is difficult to hate woman who, I had heard, told remarkable tity of water I have taken from the ocean someone whose stories you know.” In the stories about surviving the Holocaust and with my beak.” We apologized for our ig- shadow of conflagration, folklorists have a her subsequent life in Crown Heights. I norance and struck the Koranic tale from role to play in creating tolerance, and what called up the family to ask about setting up the book. But I came away with a renewed they bring to the table is stories (sometimes an interview and spoke to her daughter. appreciation for the importance of stories in the form of songs), tales without bor- Since most folks seem to want a chance to as key to cultural understanding. ders that can be shared because they can be tell their stories, I was surprised when the apprehended and appreciated whether or daughter hesitated. She asked if I could In the shadow of not the listener believes they are “true.” show her anything I had written previously Perhaps this explains the fanaticism of folk- to help the family decide. Not long before, conflagration, folklorists lorists—our dedication to documenting sto- I had coauthored a children’s book of Jew- ries, preserving and sharing them—and al- ish folktales with Nina Jaffe, called While have a role to play in lowing the literal truth of each story to re- Standing on One Foot. It contained some beau- main in the minds of their readers and au- tiful Hasidic tales. I sent a copy to her, con- creating tolerance... diences. fident that this would prove me worthy. A I love the story my wife Amanda tells of week later I called and asked about setting When I was writing those books, I was her South Carolina grandmother, who be- up an interview. not conscious of shifting narratives from lieved above all in the literal truth of three “The answer is no,” the daughter said. the domain of religion into the realm of things: the Bible, professional wrestling, and “No?” I said. “Didn’t you like the book?” story. Like most folklorists, I work on the the Democratic Party. Once a great uncle “Your book is a collection of folktales,” assumption that it is not only acceptable but asked her if she believed that the whale lit- she told me. “These stories are not our folk- laudable to collect and present stories, even erally swallowed Jonah. tales—this is our religion.” though the context for each story is crucial. “I do,” she said. Needless to say, the book was published I took for granted that even the faithful “And if the Bible had said that Jonah without the Hasidic woman’s stories, and I would appreciate the way that those who swallowed the whale, would you have be- eventually became involved in a new writ- did not share their beliefs might enjoy the lieved that?” ing project—a collection of tales from texts as beautiful but secular stories, uplift- “Absolutely.” around the world on the theme of justice. ing nonetheless. One person’s religion is As cultures clash over religion in our DOWNSTATE Each story would pose a question, asking another’s mythology. world, we all sit in the belly of the whale, young readers what they would have done The Hasidic family and the Arabic schol- and would do well to consider the stories had they been in the protagonist’s shoes. My ar believed that I was disparaging the ve- that brought us here, and turn an ear to the coauthor and I discovered a story from the racity of the stories by placing them under stories we may not yet have heard. Koran, a theodicy legend, that addresses the the rubric of folklore. Perhaps they shared age-old and still compelling question, “Why the popular conception of the terms folk- Steve Zeitlin is do the righteous suffer and the wicked pros- lore and myth as untruths, falsehoods—“it’s executive director per in life?” We retold the story in our own just a myth.” As folklorists, we recognize of City Lore and words, and as the book was nearing com- codirector of the that folklore is a useful term because it en- Place Matters pletion, we sent the manuscript to an Ara- compasses myth, legend, and oral history, project, 72 East bic scholar to ask whether it contained any First Street, New because it embraces both what is verifiable York, NY 10003; inappropriate material. She could barely and embellished—sacred myths, tall tales, [email protected]. hold her temper with me on the phone. The oral histories, and everything in between.

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 5 there would be small attendance. So she had added the incentive of a night of music and stories to the invitation: Bill Smith, Don Woodcock, and neighbor Dawn Atkinson would be the entertainment, with old-time fiddling, songs, and stories. When we arrived an hour before the an- nounced start time of seven o’clock, several cars were already there. I should have known. Country people always arrive early. Some were unpacking lawn chairs and blankets; others were carrying baskets or foil-covered plates of cookies or cakes or other desserts for ritual refreshments later in the evening. Everybody, it seemed, had brought some- thing. There were cheery hellos, concerned- but-friendly inquiries about crops or personal

health, warm introductions of us to them and Cooks Corners native Paul Norman shared a story about his family living in the old vice versa. Much to organizer Brenda’s de- schoolhouse for a few months after their nearby home and grocery store burned in the light and surprise, the cars and people kept 1950s. Photo: Martha Cooper coming. By the time the music began, a hun- erations there at one time, someone pointed as these and had died recently. There were dred people were arranging themselves on out—nearly everyone knew each other, also very special Kodak moments—one the grassy schoolhouse lawn under the hun- where they lived, and what they had in com- when someone realized that nearly a dozen dred-year-old maples. mon. Between such old musical favorites as elderly men and women, most in their eight- What followed was a folklorist’s dream. “Red Wing” and “Listen to the Mockingbird” ies, were sitting in a row enjoying this time From toddlers to octogenarians—four gen- and “Silver Threads among the Gold,” peo- together, another when Ashley Bonno, Bren- ple stood up to recall schooldays and past da’s twelve-year-old-daughter, demonstrated gatherings. There were stories about Mrs. Ella the generations-old game of walking the Corcoran, a favorite teacher, about playing schoolhouse foundation wall without falling. ball in the adjacent pasture at noon recess, Everybody there understood what was hap- and Everett Waite (whose mother taught pening. there years ago) remembered one morning The stories and music stopped about nine, after Halloween, when Maurice Roach’s wag- but only because it was dark. All those des- on was found perched on the schoolhouse serts were still waiting on long tables set up roof. There were stories of square dances, on the lawn, so there was more talk and laugh- birthday celebrations, bridal and baby show- ter to come. ers, anniversary parties, even a funeral for a The ride home was memorable, too. I can poor family’s child who had been killed by hardly think of a time when I have seen more lightning. Rena Davis got up and talked about sense of community and mutual respect than box socials and courtship games; Fay Van I did then. We talked about it all the way home Brocklin and his sister Norma June Casolara and for days afterward. If I ever want to be recalled favorite movies—cowboys-and-In- reminded of what we do and why we do it, dians and Laurel and Hardy—shown at the Cooks Corners is one of those places I hope schoolhouse for 25 cents for a double fea- I can always go back to for reassurance. ture; and Lynn Hewitt described wintertime Varick A. Chittenden fun at pedro parties, a popular card game still is professor emeritus played at the center. of English, SUNY Canton College of There was joking and gentle ribbing and Technology, and occasional gales of laughter. There were executive director of Traditional Arts in Ashley Bonno demonstrated a favorite recess some tears when someone remembered Ber- upstate New York game of “crawling the wall” at the former Cooks nice Hewitt, who truly loved such gatherings (TAUNY). Photo: Corners schoolhouse. Photo: Martha Cooper Martha Cooper

6 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore An Ethnography of the Saratoga Racetrack

By Ellen McHale

The backstretch of the thoroughbred racetrack at Saratoga Springs, New fourth day. The grandstand, still in opera- York, is an “intentional” community, a voluntary community forged through tion today, was built for the meet in 1864. a common occupation—the care of the racehorse. Here the assistant train- The newly constructed racecourse was con- ers, exercise riders, jockeys, and others tend to the horses that are a locus sidered the best race course in the country, for wealthy owners and high-society spectators and bettors. This back- an opinion still expressed by many Sarato- side community creates its own identity through naming practices, speech, gians today. From these beginnings Sarato- and the use of language. It is a community that views itself as generous, ga has become a world-class thoroughbred open, and regular yet is marked by secrecy and control and ruled by chance. racetrack that supports a six-week season Because the workers’ future is never certain, allegiances are tenuous and with ten races each day. identities are constructed. A unique world of work revolves around the racetrack, with specialized roles and rom the second week in July through Funded by the New York State Council on tasks, specific language and vocabulary, rit- F Labor Day, Saratoga Springs expe- the Arts, my survey has taken me through uals, and a shared knowledge and history riences the carnival known as the Racing the hierarchy of racetrack officials and among the people who make the races oc- Season. During this six-week period, thou- workers, from the placing judges who de- cur. Because of their common experience, sands of spectators throng into a city of termine the races’ winners, to the grooms those who work at the racetrack make up a 60,000, swelling its population into the mil- who muck out the stalls and the hot walk- distinct occupational folk group, with shared lions. The subject of interest, the thorough- ers who cool the horses down. This is a work experiences, a specialized language, specif- bred racetrack, employs thousands of peo- in progress with substantial fieldwork still ic tools and techniques, and unique customs ple: betting clerks, wait-staff, custodians, to be undertaken. and beliefs. Their occupational world is dic- parking lot attendants, food service work- tated by the horse. Each day has a routine, ers, groundskeepers, tip sheet hawkers, se- The Track and Its Workers ritualized series of activities that constitute curity guards—all of whom take tempo- Saratoga has a long and distinguished his- an attempt to control the unpredictable and rary employment during the racing season. tory as a first-class racetrack. Already a re- make a racehorse run to its full potential. Besides the workers of the “frontside” sort in the mid-nineteenth century because One groom explained: are the thousands of workers in the “back- of its mineral springs, Saratoga Springs had I come in about four-thirty. Feed break- side.” This underclass of track workers com- an early reputation for an interest in fast fast. Most people have watchers [who prises temporary residents of Saratoga horses. This interest was confined to wealthy observe a horse to make sure it is eat- ing well and shows no signs of illness] Springs who are permanent employees in residents and resort-goers until an Irish- when they feed breakfast. We don’t the business of racing. They are the people born boxer and gambler, John Morrissey, because the stable’s not that big. But I whose lives are inextricably linked to the returned to upstate New York from New come in about four-thirty. Feed. Muck out my stalls. Then about five-thirty– horses: the grooms, “hot walkers,” trainers, York City in 1863. Placing an advertisement six we start training. You know, we pack assistant trainers, and exercise riders. in a racing newspaper, The Spirit of the Times, them up and send them to the track. They come back, we bathe them. But Since 1996, I have been documenting the Morrissey proclaimed that there would be that lasts until ten or ten-thirty. Then traditional arts and culture of the back- three days of racing at Saratoga, with two we do them up. We put all kinds of lin- stretch under the auspices of the National races each day. Attendance warranted more iments and poultices on them and put bandages on them. We feed about elev- Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. racing, and the meet was extended to a en A.M. Then we come back about

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 7 Juan “Bon Bom” Galbez demonstrates the Chilean art of braiding manes and tails at the National Museum of Racing’s annual Fiesta of Racetrack Traditions. Galbez is an outrider for the New York Racing Association. (See the front cover for a completed hacerle chapé.) Photo: Dorothy Ours, courtesy of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame

three-thirty. Muck out the stalls again It is the exercise riders’ job to advise the who will fit each horse entered in the day’s and feed them about five. And then trainer about the mood and fitness of the races with new aluminum shoes. we’re done. horse. He or she will let the trainer know if If a horse is entered in that day’s race, It’s a long day. We do get a little bit of time off but you can’t do a lot. Not the horse is “off,” an indication that there the trainer has the groom remain with the really. We’re usually gone by twelve and might be a hidden physical ailment. The horse and accompany it to the track. Many you have to clean up, so about twelve to three, what can you really do? You workouts continue for the next few hours, grooms are proud of the part they play in can’t go shopping. What we do, we get as each horse is run through its paces. Un- the success of their horses, but they are frus- every other afternoon off. tried horses—two-year-olds that have not trated as well, for the grooms are the most We both come in every morning. I rub three and Jerry rubs three and the yet raced—are schooled during this period. invisible people at the track. Although they, hot walker, he’s rubbing the pony. If they are entered in an upcoming race, the exercise riders, and the hot walkers have That’s good…we come back every oth- er afternoon. Because the mornings, they will be taken to the practice starting been involved with the horse on a daily ba- that would be too tough to do for one gates. The horses are then led to the shed- sis and are present at the race, in the win- person. But it’s not bad, every other row between the barns and walked until their ner’s circle, it is the owner, trainer, and jock- afternoon. And sometimes we swap afternoons or I pay him to come back body temperature cools. They will be ey—who arrives only minutes before the for me. Something like that. bathed, rubbed down, and returned to their race to take his mount—who receive the stalls. Other service people begin to ap- accolades. By six or six-thirty A.M., the exercise rid- pear—the salespeople for feed, shoes, and The jockeys get ten percent [of the ers have begun the horses’ daily workouts. medicines are arriving—as do the farriers purse]. It’s too much for them. I’ve

8 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore spent more time with this horse in the morning time than with my wife. You know what I’m saying? I’m feeling like the groom should be getting more than what they’re getting. How much time do they spend with them? Two minutes? They’re on them maybe two minutes. They come out and work them some- time and that’s it. You could put a mon- key on a horse and it could win. They should at least recognize the groom and the hot walker.

The racetrack world is a stratified society and the hot walkers are at the bottom. It is in this low-skill position where many people begin their racing careers. A former jockey who is now the wife of a trainer began by “walking on the hots.” From that position, one can move up to groom and become in- volved with the horses’ training regimen and Ted Baxter, a veterinarian’s assistant, practices horse dentistry at the 2001 Fiesta of Racetrack Traditions. Photo: Dorothy Ours, courtesy of the National Museum of Racing care. From there, one can become an assis- and Hall of Fame tant trainer or, if one is an aspiring rider, begin to gallop the horses. Both of these positions can be a springboard for the more prestigious repeated in an attempt to duplicate the fa- clockwise in the shedrow, at a certain pace posts of trainer or jockey—provided one vorable outcome. One trainer routinely with the horse at a certain distance from enjoys the mentoring and intervention of a shares his best Scotch with a certain horse, the walker. The ground around the stables sympathetic owner or trainer. believing that it makes the horse run faster. is raked into smooth concentric circles at To move up the ladder, one has to fall in Other trainers use magnetic blankets, deep the conclusion of each day’s grooming, but with “the right people.” Many workers re- tissue massage, or specially mixed salves for not just for neatness: uneven ground could main at the level of groom or rider, waiting sore legs and feet. Trainers are not allowed cause a horse to stumble or twist a joint. for an opportunity to move up. As one wom- to practice veterinary medicine, and any in- Carole Case points to the efficacy of these an groom said, fractions of the strict rules governing ac- rituals as a way to mitigate the uncertainty cepted treatments can lead to censure or loss of life at the track. A groom cites an exam- I got a training permit over a year ago of one’s training license. However, salves ple of how suddenly a reversal of fortune but it’s so tough for women. So tough. can strike: I’ve talked to a couple of people and and liniments are often concocted from se- they say, Yes, yes, I’d love to have you cret recipes. train a couple, but they never say when. You can see it’s not the easiest. All that Come on, give me a break. horse wants to do is bite at that guy. I had a filly that had bad feet and [my And anything can set them off. They father would] tell me some kind of just feel good and want to play. All of Those born or married into the world of stuff to use. It was a combination of a that stuff. medicated mud, a poultice with bran, [They can take off on you] easily. the racetrack often find a niche. One wom- Epsom salt, and a black drawing salve Yeah, so easy. We had a filly not too long an began making racing silks—the jackets which is a combination of all of that ago. She was getting a bath and she’d stuff. You use that as a drawing to get worn by jockeys—after she married a jock- just come over from England so they’re the heat out. That was pretty good. not used to having the shank over their ey. One of their children is now a jockey in The old-timers, they made their own nose. That’s how we had it across her Europe, the other is a sales representative medications. Now they buy everything. nose. And something spooked her. She I don’t think that’s so good. Like when went straight up and flipped and broke for a large horse auction house. my father trained, he’d use like cucum- her shoulders. She broke both withers. bers, stuff like that for cracked heels. But she’s O.K. now. She had a lot to Chance and Ritual Now they’ve got all those salves and come off and she came back and she’s stuff. I mean, it does the trick but it won in races. Thank God. Just as with other sporting activities, takes so long to do it. With the cucum- horseracing involves elements of chance, bers and whatever stuff he’d use, in two or three days it was gone. The element of chance that is experi- but as sociologist Carole Case points out, enced in the backstretch of the racetrack activities in the backstretch to prepare the Just as with other routine activities, there can negate weeks of training. A pebble is horses are ritualized to minimize the risk. is a proper way to groom a horse, to wrap kicked up, a horseshoe is thrown, a saddle Techniques that appear efficacious will be its legs, to walk it. Walking is always done slips. Any of these seemingly minor events

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 9 In addition, it is commonly believed in the backstretch that ultimately, the train- er’s care has little effect on the horse:

You know, there’s one old-time trainer says, Any dumb son of a gun can train a horse but the guy that can keep the horse at the races, that’s the good horse- man. Which I believe is about the truth. If you just use common ordinary sense, you can get a horse fit and ready to run.

Identity Markers In his edited volume, Usable Pasts, Tad Tuleja draws attention to the variety of stylistic resources people use to manipu- late their identities: any cultural trait can denote group membership. In the back- stretch, one’s identity is often a construct- Juan Orozco, a ranchera player, relaxes with fellow track workers in the evening hours. Photo: Ellen McHale ed identity. Personal and family identities take second place to one’s job position, employer, or ethnic group. Nicknames abound, and surnames are virtually non- existent among grooms, hot walkers, and gallopers. To locate someone in the back- side, one must know who that person works for and what number barn he or she is in. Some positions change during the day. One’s location might be described as, “He rubs for Sciacca in the morning and then he gallops for Lukas. You can find him in the receiving barn. That’s where he hangs out.” There are no ad- dresses. Those who work in the low-skilled posi- tions of hot walker and groom are wholly at the mercy of the trainer—and the hors- es in their care. If a horse is not perform- Saratoga Racetrack is known for its extensive decorative plantings, whose colors indicate the owners of the stables they surround. Photo: Ellen McHale ing well at one racetrack, it can be shipped without a moment’s notice, and the groom may cause a chain reaction in which a horse in large part by the excellence of the horse. and the hot walker ride with the horse in is injured and those who work with the hors- The “jock” plays only a small part in the the trailer to the new racetrack or perhaps es are reminded that their occupation is outcome. Dave Erb, a former jockey and back to the home barn in Kentucky or Flor- highly dangerous. One exercise rider was trainer, said, ida. Because of the migratory nature of this thrown from his horse during a morning work, allegiances are tenuous and identi- gallop; his broken ribs left him unemploy- There’s no limit to what you can do if ties are constructed. you’re lucky and get a good horse. able for the remainder of the year. A groom There’s an old saying “Riders don’t Nicknames reflect one’s constructed is stepped on by a horse, his foot breaks, make horses but horses make riders.” identity. They may connote physical char- You only have to get on one or two and he is temporarily out of work. Unem- good horses and then you’re in demand. acteristics—“Red” for a red-headed ployment can be devastating in this world I’ve seen a lot of riders, real good rid- groom, or “Chicaleen” for a walker who of contractual employment. ers who could compete with anyone, is short and baby-faced. “Cowboy” comes just never got that break. Just never got Despite all the rituals and efforts to mit- a good horse to ride. from Michoacan, Mexico, known for its igate risk, the race, I was told, is determined horses and cattle. “Cookie” and “Bon

10 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Bom” have other, perhaps more personal origins. One marker used at the racetrack is the specialized vocabulary that denotes mem- bership in the life of the backside. Wisdom and lore are imparted through proverbial expressions. “Riders don’t make horses but horses make riders” acknowledges the horse as the determinant of a jockey’s fate: jock- eys need to win races before they can be hired to ride winning mounts. Another prov- erb that speaks to the uncertainty of life at the racetrack is, “Chickens today, feathers tomorrow”: one’s fortunes can change with- in moments. As with other occupational groups, a spe- cialized argot serves as a marker for group membership. A groom “rubs” a horse. A Accessories such as these crocheted pommel pads were often made by Saratoga-area horse that wins his first race “breaks his women and peddled at the racetrack. Photo: Ellen McHale maiden,” as does a jockey who wins her first race. When a horse “spits the bit out,” he has been running well and then all of a sud- Even the plantings around the barn are the backstretch are forged through one’s re- den falters. An exercise rider “gallops” hors- color-coordinated to match the owner’s silks. lationship with the horse. In a world where es. The horse who isn’t being worked hard The planting of flowers is one of the first the horse is king, it is truly “Chickens to- but is being ridden for daily exercise and to activities in the week before the meet begins. day, feathers tomorrow.” keep in shape is said to “cruise.” This spe- As trainers arrive with their horses and work- cialized language is important in maintain- ers to set up the barn, flowers are planted in References ing a boundary between those who inhabit color schemes that mark territory for the six Abrahams, Roger. 1982. Play and games. Motif: International Newsletter of Research in Folklore and the horse world and those who are merely weeks of the meet. Literature. June (no. 3). spectators on the frontside. Outriders, employed by the New York Case, Carole. 1991. Down the backstretch: Racing and Racing Association to serve as assistants and the American dream. Philadelphia: Temple Uni- versity Press. Material Culture troubleshooters within the race course fenc- Harrah-Conforth, Jeanne. 1992. The landscape of Jules Prown, in his work on material cul- es, own their own horses and also use col- possibility: An ethnography of the Kentucky Derby. ture, defines material culture as “the study ors on their tack as well as in mane and tail Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University. Hotaling, Edward. 1995. They’re off: Horse racing at through artifacts of the beliefs—values, ideas, decorations. When seen from afar, the rid- Saratoga. Syracuse University Press. attitudes, and assumptions—of a particular er may be unidentifiable but the horse’s dec- Jones, Michael Owen. 1997. How can we apply community or society at a given time” (Prown orations will be seen, indicating identity. event analysis to ‘material behavior,’ and why 1982: 1). Material culture in the backstretch should we?” Western Folklore Summer/Fall:
199–214. serves as another indicator of identity. Rac- Those who work in the backstretch ex- Thomas, Jennie B. 1995, Pick-up trucks, horses, ing silks, the jackets and caps worn by the perience risk within their daily work and women, and foreplay: The fluidity of folklore. jockeys during a race, are identity markers. have little sense of control over circum- Western Folklore July: 213–28. Tuleja, Tad. 1997. Usable Pasts: Traditions and Group Each owner registers his colors and silk de- stances. Consistency is described as “What Expression in North America. Logan, Utah: Utah sign with the Racing Association, and from have you done in the last few minutes?” and State University Press. then on they identify his horses, jockeys, and the concept of luck peppers everyday barns. Trainers use color-coordinated feed speech: “It’s one business where you can go Ellen McHale is exec- utive director of the tubs, and initialed and color-coordinated sta- from nothing to having great wealth—if the New York Folklore ble gates. A Jewish trainer incorporates the luck is with you.” Within this bounded world Society. Her research Star of David into his stable designs, and an ritual persists, on the chance that it might was supported in part by a grant from the Irish trainer colors all his stall decorations affect outcomes and contain the chaos that New York State Coun- and accoutrements in the orange, green, and lies just underneath a thin veneer of order. cil on the Arts and by the National Museum white of the Irish flag. In this intentional community, identities in of Racing and Hall of Fame

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 11 The Making of an Exhibition

BY AMY GODINE

very hardworking New York folk- can American Boston scholar Katherine tradition, John Brown Day at the John E lore scholar has surely tangled with Butler Jones. When social activist Martha Brown Farm in North Elba, near present- material so dramatic, so rich with possi- Swan first encountered Banks’s novel and day Lake Placid. Through the first half bility, it seems to beg for a really great ex- Jones’s moving account of her effort to of the twentieth century, black and white hibition—but how to pull it off? How to locate her family’s roots in the Adiron- families gathered at this state historic site put on a memorable show without pro- dack wilderness, she was astonished. She on the anniversary of John Brown’s birth fessional curatorial experience, with no was working for an environmental agen- for a day of commemorative speeches standing in the hothouse world of muse- cy at the time, living in the tiny Adiron- about the man who in 1859 tried to cap- ums, with no legitimizing degree? dack hamlet of Westport on Lake Cham- ture a federal arsenal in Harper’s Ferry, This is the story of a successful travel- plain, only a few years out of a career as a West Virginia, and to incite a multiracial ing exhibition, Dreaming of Timbuctoo, that grassroots organizer in New York City revolt against slavery. John Brown Day went from a gleam in a social activist’s and the South. She loved the Adirondacks, languished in the 1960s, when black and eye to a three-year tour of New York State but she had never thought to link the wil- white activists began to pursue discrete, and a four-column notice in the New York derness with a lost saga of political re- not always sympathetic political agendas, Times with nary a hardcore credentialed form and racial justice. This aspect of Ad- but by the 1990s some forward-thinking museum maven involved. I was part of irondack history—enlivened not only by souls, including Martha, decided it was this exhibition, and to my mind the story the family farm of the nation’s most re- high time for a revival. Several hundred of its conception and production is as nowned abolitionist but by a vanished people showed up for John Brown Day interesting as it is instructive. Are there antebellum black farm colony—was a in 1999, and attendance held firm in the lessons here that Voices readers can put heritage, she felt, aching to be honored. years that followed. to use? I’m no folklorist but so what — Working out of her spartan apartment, The second project was more amor- when it comes to getting a toehold in the Martha Swan founded a community edu- phous. More ambitious, too. Swan was rarefied world of exhibition production, cation project called John Brown Lives! and familiar with the cultural institutions of we’re all interlopers. then set about dreaming up projects wor- the region—the Adirondack Museum, the It started with a novel, a magazine arti- thy of that galvanizing name. Adirondack Center Museum, various cle, and one keen reader. The novel was The first task was collaborative. With a town museums, art centers, shoestring Russell Banks’s enthralling saga of the ab- New York City–based human rights historical societies. Why had none of olitionist John Brown, Cloudsplitter, and the group, the New Abolitionists, John Brown these venerable outfits ever taken up the magazine piece from Orion was titled, Lives! resurrected a long-defunct, near- saga of John Brown and the story of Tim- “They Called It Timbucto,” by the Afri- forgotten, hundred-year-old Adirondack buctoo, the black settlement that drew

12 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Brown to the Adirondacks in the first place? What if she tried to work this rich material into an exhibition—would any- body bite? The story was extraordinary. In 1846 the voters of New York State yet again denied free black New York males the right to vote unless they could meet a pro- hibitive $250 property requirement, which effectively barred them from the fran- chise. Gerrit Smith, a land speculator, passionate abolitionist and good friend to many black reformers, knew well the dev- astating impact of the antisuffrage vote on the black political elite. Giving black New Yorkers land enough to parlay into a vote was his answer to the 1846 refer- endum—a way of saying, OK, if land is what you need to vote, well, here it is. Let’s get started. And so commenced the quiet, steady parceling out of one-fifth of a more than half-million-acre land fortune—a hun- dred and twenty thousand acres in forty- to sixty-acre lots—to three thousand Af- rican American residents of New York State. Most of the grantees, as they were called, were city dwellers, but in the end black men from almost every county in the state were represented in Smith’s 122- page inventory of grantees. Smith’s only requirements were that the grantees be black, poor, landless, sober, and between the ages of twenty-one and sixty. A heart- felt agrarian, Smith hoped fervently that his “scheme of justice and benevolence,” as he called it, would enable New York African Americans to make a break from city slums, rum shops, immigrant mobs, and job discrimination for a safer, more spiritually sustaining and self-sufficient life on small farms of their own. If it helped them get a leg up on the vote, so much the better. I should add that Gerrit Smith was very happy to lose this land, some of which he’d tried and failed to unload be- fore. Smith’s taxes were ruinous, his fi- nancial distress immense—and giving away unsalable land was as sensible an act

Panel from Dreaming of Timbuctoo exhibit: Gerrit Smith. Courtesy of Madison County as any. Historical Society. Oneida, New York

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 13 To identify his three thousand grant- ees, Smith asked ten or so prominent black reformers to pitch his giveaway from their pulpits and at suffrage conventions, in newspapers, and at neighborhood ral- lies. For a few years they went to bat for Smith, signing on grantees as fast as they could find them, not for pay (there was none) and not for glory, but for their shared conviction that getting black fam- ilies out of racist cities and onto the land was the best way to get ahead and claim a portion of the American dream. Long story short: the settlement effort failed. Some families moved north. A few even stuck around and tried to make a go of Adirondack life. But fifty families out of three thousand grantees isn’t much of a showing. Regional historians routinely blamed the settlement’s failure on the grantees (they were clueless, lazy, unedu- cable; they couldn’t hack the rigors of the Adirondack winters; their land was lousy; they were city folk at heart), or on Smith’s own craziness in thinking this could ever work. But mostly, regional historians didn’t deal with the settlement at all. Their interest was John Brown. Martha Swan approached me because I had previously written about lost pock- ets of Adirondack social history and had curated local exhibitions on ethnic en- claves in the region. So I knew about Tim- buctoo. Or thought I did. Taking my cue from local history sources, I had assumed it was pretty much a nonstory, another cautionary fable about an Adirondack speculator’s ambition gone risibly awry. And then there was the John Brown an- gle, which seemed to me had been done to death. But Martha suspected there was more, and she was right. I’d never thought about the critical role of Gerrit Smith’s ten black apostles, for example—surely the most intellectually prominent, politi- cally sophisticated group of land agents ever to attempt to settle homesteaders in northern New York. I’d never considered the suffrage angle: land for votes. I’d never Panel from Dreaming of Timbuctoo exhibit: Arguing the Point. A. F. Tait. Drawn on seen the story framed in a wider political stone by Louis Maurer. Courtesy of The Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, New York context. The idea that this Adirondack

14 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore land giveaway project was hitched up to civil rights drew me in. In this, I was not alone. Everybody who eventually volunteered to help out with the project—with the research, the map- ping, the design—was compelled by this angle, a view of the Adirondack region from a freshly politicized vantage, a per- spective that yoked Adirondack history to the national scene. That’s what kept me and a score of others engaged in doing a lot of work for much less than we knew our skills and labor to be worth, or in many cases, for nothing. That, and of course, the charismatic example of Mar- tha’s own steady zeal and her conviction that the issues of racial justice that drove Gerrit Smith and the black abolitionists 150 years ago were no less pressing to- day. Through Martha’s eyes, the story as- sumed an urgency, a feeling of necessity, that overwhelmed its antiquarian appeal. And Martha, remember, was an organiz- er from way back. She knew how to make people feel good. And we needed people, lots of them. We needed volunteer researchers to help us out all over—to comb census records in Madison County, to share findings on grantees from Queens, to check out can- didates for the antislavery Liberty Party in Clinton County in 1845. This was a jig- saw with a thousand scattered pieces, some of them mired in the state archives or squirreled away in the Gerrit Smith Collection at Syracuse University or bur- ied in The Black Abolitionist Papers. What was the demographic profile of the grant- ees? Why did thousands of grantees who signed their deeds never come north? What was happening in Brooklyn, or for that matter, up in the Adirondacks, that may have dissuaded them? Were they in- ept farmers? (No, not at all—but they were undercapitalized and inadequately outfitted from the first.) Did John Brown really serve as the “kind of father to them” he’d promised he’d be in a letter to Gerrit Panel from Dreaming of Timbuctoo exhibit: Black convention goers, around 1840. Smith? (Not by half: he mostly left his Engraving courtesy of William Loren Katz wife and children to manage his Adiron- dack farm while he pursued other agen-

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 15 From Dreaming of Timbuctoo exhibit: Black Farmers at North Elba, New York. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of The Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, New York

das in England, Kansas, Ohio, and Harp- grantees from counties as remote as Erie was himself an Adirondacker with an in- er’s Ferry.) Did the settlers really huddle and Ontario. We journeyed, sometimes as terest in Gerrit Smith and the dream of in an African-like encampment with a a group, more often solo, to the state li- Timbuctoo spoke to his own heart. With tattered flag flapping from a tilted pole? brary, county archives, Syracuse, Peter- Stephen on board and a few crucial grants (Sheer literary fancy: in fact, many of the boro, the New York Historical Society in rolling in, was it time to rethink the whole settlers never stayed on their appointed Manhattan. We made tracks. And inevi- concept? What if we delayed the open- lots, preferring to squat on better land tably, of course, as the findings piled up, ing, expanded the narrative and visuals, nearby.) Did white racist storekeepers do as the circle of our story widened to in- and shot for a venue as professional and them in? (Some did. Other white neigh- clude not just the brief abortive tale of ambitious as our own expectations? bors worked closely with their new neigh- Timbuctoo but the savage political con- Which in the Adirondacks could only bors to found a singing school, a library, text that engendered it, our vision of the mean the Adirondack Museum at Blue a church.) exhibition grew accordingly. Mountain Lake. Among the volunteer researchers who I did not expect to face this crossroads. The benefits of an Adirondack Muse- labored on this project were a labor law- Martha and I were figuring on a small- um opening were immense. A regional in- yer from Albany who was a long-time scale, bare-bones exhibition with foam- stitution would lend our shoestring pro- Gerrit Smith admirer, a Parks and Recre- board labels backed with Velcro, smallish duction a cachet and credibility that could ation worker with a passion for Adiron- images, something that would suit the catapult it into a dozen venues that might dack social history, a site manager for the basement in the barn at the John Brown not otherwise consider it. Not to speak John Brown Farm, a graduate student Farm—a rather dank, low, unprepossess- of the exposure! Ninety thousand peo- with a keen eye for the minutiae of the ing room without windows. But the story ple visit the fourteen-building museum census, a self-taught scholar of the ver- got bigger and deeper—and better. It annually. But would the Adirondack Mu- nacular architecture of Saranac Lake, an deserved more. It snagged the interest of seum give John Brown Lives! the time of African American historic sites photog- exhibition designer Stephen Horne of day? The museum has its own stable of rapher, a retired Radcliffe College librari- Kevan Moss Designs, who agreed to work gifted curators and an exhibition sched- an, and numberless local and lay histori- on it for less than his usual fee, not for ule planned years in advance. Why would ans who contributed information about any love of losing money but because he they go for a show they’d neither curated

16 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore From Dreaming of Timbuctoo exhibit: John Brown Farmstead. Courtesy of West Virginia State Archives, Boyd B. Stutler Collection nor originated, a script over which they’d al institutions as they hadn’t felt since the no stuff. Of the perhaps two hundred have no say, a story with much more po- early decades of John Brown Day. And if grantees who actually visited northern litical content, more text, and fewer arti- this was as big a deal for the museum as New York after getting deeds for land facts than their audience might expect? the museum’s approbation was for us, we from Gerrit Smith, we had but three fac- On the other hand, we weren’t exactly, figured they would jump. es—three sad-faced old men some de- as they say, from nothing. Jackie Day, then We figured right. Dreaming of Timbuctoo cades past their homesteading prime— the director, knew and admired Martha’s would be launched at the Adirondack Mu- and one solitary photograph of a group work with John Brown Lives! Stephen’s ex- seum with the full support of its staff and of unsmiling black men and women in hibition skills were well regarded. And I’d all the fanfare of one of its own home- wide-brimmed hats posing in a field in been in and out of the museum on vari- made productions. North Elba, occasion unidentified, par- ous consulting, lecture, or research Then came the bad news. For every sen- ticipants unnamed. As for other material projects for years. More importantly, this tence in the exhibition narrative, I need- evidence: nothing. No traces in the woods exhibition had something the museum ed to come up with a compelling image. of makeshift cabins. No portraits (who needed: most people assume that the Stephen warned me gently that this was among them could afford a portrait?). But Adirondacks is white folks’ country, with an exhibition, not a book. So start look- that’s how it goes when your subject is a no part in the largely urban black experi- ing. And this was when the going got se- vanished underclass that lacked the means ence. This exhibition explored the region riously tough. The story, really, was all text, to immortalize itself on canvas or to build in a new way: as an idealized landscape a brilliant paper trail of letters, handbills, enduring structures. of equal rights and black self-sufficiency, lists and ledgers, reams of vivid quotes That left me scrambling for generics— a place with meaning and value for black from radical abolitionists, lush agrarian never a first option, but we really had no Americans no less than white. In hosting rhetoric in the black press, resolutions at other choice. Happily, the Adirondack Dreaming of Timbuctoo, the Adirondack black conventions, letters from John and Museum had in its own collection splen- Museum gained an opportunity to expand Mary Brown, progress reports in Freder- did paintings, photographs, and etchings its audience and, perhaps, its agenda. Af- ick Douglass’ Paper (yes, Douglass too was that could help me illustrate a raft of rican Americans might come to recognize a Gerrit Smith grantee), survey maps, long points: images of the Adirondack fron- a connection to the region and its cultur- lists of grantees—but no color, no art, tier in the mid-1850s, early homesteads,

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 17 backcountry roads, farmers talking poli- tics, John Brown’s farm in a hundred dif- ferent moody lights. New York City mu- seums and archival repositories supplied gripping illustrations of the problems— unemployment, racist mobs, bigotry, slave catchers, routine violations of civil rights—that gave rise to the idea for a black Adirondack farm colony in the first place. Local historical societies and librar- ies provided us with images of the story’s prominent abolitionists, black and white. The Library of Congress, American An- tiquarian Society, the Schomburg, the West Virginia State Archives—we bor- rowed from them all and were even able to display John Brown’s surveyor’s tran- sit, the same one he likely used to help the black settlers determine the bound- aries of their land. I’m satisfied with the images I found, but the real visual coup was the overall design. Stephen had to find a way to put some flesh, or an illusion of flesh, on this bare-bones display of talking walls. His strategy was inspired. Instead of settling for stand-alone hinged panels, he worked with an Adirondack craftsman to devise a set of freestanding rough wood frames, easy to break down, secured with wood- en pegs. The text panels—not paper or foam board but sailcloth-heavy two-sid- ed grommet-studded banners—were laced in place between the frames with short lengths of rope. All the banners were digitally imprinted with a burlap pat- tern that lent the cloth the warm look of home-spun. The textured backdrop neatly contrasted with the digitally superim- posed illustrations and text. Among the research team’s achieve- ments was determining the exact location of each of the three thousand grants of land, even if this land was never visited or settled. The long, tedious work saw us through several late-night large pizzas. But we had to do it—we really wanted to get a feel for the physical range, the scope of Gerrit Smith’s giveaway. What it came to Panel from Dreaming of Timbuctoo exhibit: African American farmer with team of oxen in upstate New York. Courtesy of DeWitt Historical Society of Tompkins County, on the map was a patchy rectangle of wil- Ithaca, New York derness than ran roughly forty miles north

18 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore to south, maybe fifteen miles across. Museum at Skidmore College, the Peter- a book on the lost dream of Timbuctoo. That’s a lot of woods. Then Stephen boro Historical Society, and the Adiron- I’ve often thought about the feverish work Horne took our colored-in survey map dack History Museum in Elizabethtown. that went into the exhibit and why it and matched it to a topographic map of Stephen’s structure is holding firm, and I seemed so compelling. I think it had to northern New York. He overlaid the topo can still read the panels without getting do with some spirit of necessity, a con- with an outline of the disbursements and bored. From the New York Times to the viction shared by everyone who helped turned that map into a banner. This way Plattsburgh Republican, press and radio cov- put it together that here was a story not you could see exactly where in New York erage has been extraordinarily generous. merely interesting or résumé-enhancing State the parcels were—how far from It’s a story makes people sit up and take or marvelously unexpected, but needed. A Plattsburgh, Utica, Malone; which lots heed. good feeling. It should be there for ev- were on mountaintops, which under twen- As for the exhibition’s movers and shak- erything we do. ty feet of lake water. For me, this was the ers, we’re all on to other things. John Brown capstone of the exhibition, the image that Lives! sponsors summer lecture and per- drove home the immensity of Gerrit formance series geared toward issues of Smith’s gesture as no amount of text social and political justice, and such is could hope to do. People stood before it, Martha’s reputation that small-town Ad- Amy Godine mesmerized. So much land, such wild land! irondack audiences have thrilled to lec- ([email protected]) No wonder they didn’t come! tures from Eric Foner, James Loewen, and lives in Saratoga Springs. She is Since the exhibition opened at Blue William Loren Katz. Stephen Horne and available as a lecturer Mountain Lake, Dreaming of Timbuctoo has Kevan Moss continue to design award- through the New York Council for the traveled to Paul Smith’s College, SUNY- worthy exhibitions. I’m doing the usual Humanities speakers Plattsburgh, Utica College, the Brooklyn miscellany of freelance writing about program. Photo: Emma Dodge Hanson Public Library Main Branch, the Tang Adirondack social history and working on

Members: Order your copies of New York Folklore Society books at a members-only discount. To join the New York Folklore Society, see inside back cover. ADD THESE ESSENTIAL RESOURCES AND FASCINATING BOOKS TO YOUR LIBRARY! Working with Folk Materials in Self-Management for Folk Artists: Folk Arts Programming in New York State: A Manual for A Guide for Traditional Artists and New York State: A Handbook and Resource Guide Folklorists and Archivists Performers in New York State By Karen Lux Edited by John W. Suter By Patricia Atkinson Wells Written for anyone considering starting a folk With contributions by leading New York State This handbook is a must for traditional artists in arts program at their institution. Shows the archivists and folklorists, this manual introduces New York State interested in managing and potential of a broad range of different types folklore to the archivist and archives to marketing their own businesses. Topics include of fold arts presentations and provides folklorists. It is required reading for those promotion, booking, contracts, keeping records, information on how to carry them out. working with collections of folklore materials taxes, and copyright. 108 pages, paperback in any part of the country. 148 pages, loose-leaf notebook $10 $______168 pages, loose-leaf notebook $30 $40 nonmembers $______$25 $35 nonmembers $______TO ORDER Island Sounds in the Books subtotal $______Folklore in Archives: Global City: Caribbean A Guide to Describing Folklore Shipping and handling Popular Music and Identity Add $4 for the first book, and Folklife Materials in New York $1 for each additional item. $______Edited by Ray Allen and Lois Wilcken By James Corsaro and Karen Taussig-Lux Total $______Written primarily for archivists and others who A collection of articles focusing on the care for collections of folk cultural documenta- relationship of Caribbean popular music and Enclose check payable to New York Folklore tion, this manual describes the theory and cultural identity in New York City, this books Society and mail to New York Folklore Society, P.O. practice of folklore and provides essential examines a broad spectrum of New York – Box 763, 133 Jay St., Schenectady, NY 12301. based musical styles from Puerto Rico, the West information on how to accession, arrange, and ______describe folklore materials. Indies, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Name Trinidad. 128 pages, loose-leaf notebook ______$25 $35 nonmembers $______185 pages, paperback Shipping Address $15 $17.95 nonmembers $______City, State, Zip

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 19 Getting Close BY MARTHA COOPER

Whenever I go on a folklore shoot, I make ture, the less of your subject will be in fo- to inquire exactly how close it will focus. If sure to bring along a close-up lens—a mac- cus. The width of the aperture corresponds you need to get closer than a few inches ro. Even when the job description doesn’t to the amount of light passing through the from your subject, you can buy an exten- include shooting artifacts, I almost always lens. With your lens set on f/2.8, you may sion tube to attach to the macro lens. The find a use for this indispensable piece of have plenty of light to make a good expo- tube cuts the amount of light coming equipment. sure, but you will have shallow depth of through the lens, requiring you to shoot at The most common macro has a 55mm field—only part of your image will be in even slower shutter speeds. Sometimes, by focal length and a ratio of one-to-one, focus. getting so close, you end up blocking the meaning it’s neither telephoto nor wide-an- If you are shooting something flat, such light with your lens to get the angle you want. gle—it will record things pretty much the as a painting, or copying a photograph, shal- Again, a tripod is the solution: it allows you way your eyes see them. Many people like low depth of field is not a problem. Shal- to step away from the camera so as not to to use it as their “normal” lens instead of low depth can even be useful to blur a back- cast a shadow on the object. the 50mm nonmacro, which is standard is- ground in order to emphasize the fore- Many ordinary digital cameras have a sue with most cameras. The macro lets you ground. However, when you are shooting built-in macro function. I’ve had great re-

EYE OF THE CAMERA EYE OF fill the frame with a small object. The down- pottery or a decoy or some other three-di- sults using this focusing option, but I make side is that it’s heavier and more expensive mensional object, close down your lens to sure that I have enough depth of field by than the 50mm. You can also buy cheap at least f/8, or preferably f/11 or f/16, so using the aperture selection setting. Anoth- close-up lenses that attach to your existing that the entire object is in focus. er advantage of digital cameras is that they lenses, but these are not as sharp or clear as Some cameras have a depth-of-field pre- automatically balance the light so that with- a quality macro. Some zoom lenses have a view button that lets you see exactly what out extra filtration, you can get much better built-in macro function. If yours does, be will be in focus. If your camera has this fea- results than on film indoors with fluores- sure to read the manual and find out how ture, experiment with it. Try focusing about cent or tungsten light sources. to use it. one third of the distance behind the front If you are using film, try to shoot arti- My favorite macro is a 105mm with a 2.8 plane of the object. If you are shooting slide facts in daylight either outside or with win- aperture. This is a medium telephoto lens, film with an ASA of 100–200, you will need dow light and reflectors. Without correc- so I don’t have to get uncomfortably close a lot of light to shoot at f/11, even when tion, tungsten lights turn daylight film or- to the subject. If you are shooting anything outdoors. If you try to compensate for lack ange, and fluorescent lights turn it green. that moves—like hands weaving a basket— of light by shooting at a slow shutter speed, Luckily we can now correct color balance you will need some working space. In addi- such as 1/20th of a second, you won’t be in Photoshop. Direct flash on your camera tion to being a useful lens for shooting de- able to hold the camera steady. Solve this is not a good way to light artifacts at any tails of embroidery or activities like fly-ty- problem with a tripod. time, but especially not when shooting close ing, a telephoto macro is also an excellent Although unwieldy, a tripod is a necessi- up. portrait lens. ty when shooting artifacts. It allows you to Photographing crafts and artifacts is a When shooting small objects with a mac- shoot at a slow shutter speed so that you staple of folklore photography. A good ro, you’ll probably need to shoot with your can hold the lens open longer at a small macro lens is expensive, but the results are camera on a manual setting. Think careful- aperture and let in more light for more worth it. ly about which speed and aperture to use depth of field. In addition, a tripod lets you for best results. Automatic or “P” (pro- frame the shot much more precisely than if grammed) settings will not give you enough you are holding the camera. Trying to fo- Martha Cooper is the director of depth of field for most artifacts. Macros cut cus a hand-held camera on a small object photography at City down the light coming through the lens, so can be enormously frustrating, as any body Lore. Her images have appeared in make sure your camera meters light through movement will throw a closely framed ob- museum exhibitions, the lens, and if not, compensate for a loss ject out of focus. Along with a tripod, you books, and maga- zines. If you have a of light by opening up the aperture. will need a cable release so as not to jar the question that you’d Remember that the closer to an object camera by pressing the shutter. like her to address, send it to the editor you are, the more depth of field you will Some macro lenses focus more closely of Voices. need. The wider your lens opening or aper- than others. If you’re buying one, be sure

20 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore FOODWAYS

Buffalo’s Other Claim to Fame BY LYNN CASE EKFELT

A food column on Buffalo? Hmm, must it is too much to expect a German sand- minute and eighteen seconds for all the be about chicken wings. To anyone outside wich to make sense of French prepositions), beer they produced that year to clear the western New York, that would be a reason- for dipping. Alternatively, the cook some- brink of Niagara Falls, had it replaced the able assumption. But those of us born with- times dips the top of the roll into the jus usual water. These breweries owned most in hailing distance of the Peace Bridge know just before serving it. In either case, the beef of the taverns in town and offered sumptu- that long before Teresa at the Anchor Bar on weck sandwich must be accompanied by ous free lunches to their customers. came up with her inspired solution for un- a pot of freshly grated, sinus-clearing horse- The hearty buffets were an inexpensive desirable chicken parts, Buffalo had a sig- radish. way to eat. Tables were loaded with ham, nature food. My fellow expatriates, home Although the exact history of the sand- pickled herring, sardines, pickled pigs’ feet, for a visit, have been known to hug the rel- wich can’t be documented, it is believed that and beef on weck—all accompanied by hot atives, pat the dog, dump the suitcases, and William Wahr, a German baker, brought the mustard, raw onions, and horseradish. But head directly out for…a beef on weck? kummelweck to Buffalo from the Black For- the tavern keepers knew what they were And not any beef on weck will do—it est. German immigrants had already made doing. The food was so salty that custom- has to be that special one. Buffalonians hotly the city a center of brewing. Becky Mercuri ers built up a thirst that could only be slaked debate the merits of one emporium over in Sandwiches That You Will Like (Pittsburgh: by repeated trips to the bar. Nowadays, of another. There’s even a webpage rating the WQED Multimedia, 2002, p. 40) reports course, there is literally no such thing as a best beef on weck in the city. If you don’t that in 1908, even though consolidation had free lunch, but fortunately beef on weck is believe me, check out www.digitalcity.com/ reduced the number of breweries from thir- still readily available, and it still goes very buffalo/entertainment/article.adp?aid ty-five to twenty-five, it would have taken a well with a tall, cold beer. =3493. Luckily, there is enough beef on weck Kummelweck Rolls around town to suit everyone’s taste. My 2 1/2 tablespoons sugar cousin, a weck connoisseur exiled to Ohio, 1/4 cup caraway seeds 1/3 cup oil took my husband and me to his old college 1/4 cup coarse salt 2/3 cup milk haunt when we were all home for Christ- 2 envelopes active dry yeast 3/4 cup warm water mas, commenting that he liked the sand- 5 cups (approximately) flour 2 eggs wiches there because they came with “real 2 teaspoons salt horseradish, not little packets of a creamy horseradish-like substance.” Combine the caraway seeds and the coarse salt in a small bowl and set aside. I grew up calling these sandwiches “beef In a large mixing bowl, combine the yeast, 2 cups of flour, the salt, oil, milk, and on wick.” Linda Stradley on her History of water. Mix well at medium speed for 2 minutes, scraping the bowl occasionally. Add the Sandwiches webpage describes this spelling eggs and beat the mixture another minute, adding as much flour as the mixer will take. as “an alternative usually used by older peo- By hand, stir in enough remaining flour to make a soft dough. ple from Buffalo and eastern suburbanites.” Turn the dough onto a floured board and knead, adding flour if necessary, until it is Once I’d taken German, it was easy enough smooth and elastic. Place it in a large greased bowl, turning it to grease the top. Cover to see the error we “eastern suburbanites” and let the dough rise until it has doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes. Punch the dough had been making. Weck is short for kummel- down and knead it for two minutes on a floured board. weck, a combination of the German words To shape the rolls, cut the dough into 24 pieces. Tuck the edges of each piece under kümmel (caraway seed) and weck (roll). and shape it into a flat, round roll. With a sharp kitchen knife, cut four evenly spaced, And in fact, it is this roll that makes the shallow arcs into the top of each roll from the center to the edges, pressing at the center sandwich unique. Made only in the Buffa- with your thumb to make an indentation. The pinwheel pattern should resemble that on lo-Rochester area, the kummelweck—often a Kaiser roll. Sprinkle the tops of the rolls with the caraway-salt mixture, then transfer alternatively spelled kimmelweck—is basically them to baking sheets and cover them. Let them rise until they have doubled in bulk. a Kaiser roll topped with lots of pretzel salt To bake, place a heat-proof pan of water on the floor of the oven and preheat the and caraway seeds. Inside, very thinly sliced oven to 350 degrees. When the oven is hot, put in the rolls and bake them for about 30 roast beef is piled high, and the whole thing minutes, until they are brown. is served with a dish of “au jus” (I suppose Source: www.geocities.com/library/buffwingsalad

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 21 Zillah

BY THEA KLUGE

am the oldest daughter (Thea) of an ry mostly through her, it was not very dif- Another Zillah story that my mother I oldest daughter (Christine) of an old- ferent from what I remembered: Zillah recalls is how as a retiree, Zillah took a est daughter (Louise) of an oldest daugh- was walking to the grocery store, proba- job in a card shop. Places upstate were ter (Zillah) of an oldest daughter (Ber- bly without much money. When ap- less likely to close in a snowstorm because tha). My family says I resemble Zillah the proached, she refused to give up her purse the people were used to bad winter weath- most. This story is about her, and it takes and was beaten and left in an alley, where er. But one year there was a huge blizzard place in Schenectady. she almost died. As she was regaining that caused even General Electric to close My mother grew up in Schenectady. To consciousness, she thought she saw her down. Nevertheless, the elderly Zillah this day, I can spot people from upstate father, Ai, and he told her that her time walked all the way to work. To my moth- New York by their immunity to the cold. had not yet come. Eventually someone er, this story exemplifies her grandmoth- Many of her family members were em- heard her moaning and saved her. er’s work ethic and strength. ployees of General Electric. In fact, In Zillah, my mother found serenity and Schenectady was often called “The Elec- Different people in a safe haven from her cranky father and tric City.” My mother worked there, brief- two brothers. But toward her own chil- ly. Her father and uncle worked there, and different generations dren, Zillah is said to have had a temper. her mother worked there. Even her grand- remember and retell their Maybe these stories wouldn’t be heroic to mother, Zillah, worked there. them. I call my Great Aunt Nancy for her My great-grandmother died when I was family stories in recollection. She does not remember the eight years old, so I knew her mostly different ways. blizzard story but says “the weather nev- through stories. One story, told to me by er held her up,” adding, “unfortunately.” my mother, stands out. As an elderly My mother doesn’t know whether the But she remembers the mugging very woman, Zillah was mugged on her way muggers got Zillah’s purse in the end, but clearly because it was she whom Zillah home. When she refused to give up her she says it doesn’t matter. I ask her if the named at the hospital as an emergency bag, which could not possibly have con- story means the same things to her as it contact, and she who went to collect her tained more than a few dollars and change, does to me. She says the main thing it mother. Her story is more detailed than the muggers beat her to death—or so they shows about her grandmother is her my mother’s. thought. They left her in an alley, where a strength of character: she walked every- Zillah was living in senior citizens’ hous- vision of her late father appeared to her, where, raised six children pretty much ing in a “changing neighborhood.” She saying, “It’s not your time yet.” Zillah sur- alone, and grew up one of ten siblings. I left to walk downtown after watching her vived and made a full recovery. ask whether she thinks this story says any- favorite soap opera. She was “strutting,” I remember thinking that the moral of thing negative about Zillah—I am think- carrying her purse and a totebag that read the story was about her stubbornness— ing about how she stubbornly refused to “A Touch of Class,” and as usual was she would rather have been killed than let go of her purse—and she says no; she “looking neat” and wearing some make- give up her purse—and her strength. Zil- admired her grandmother and never had up. She came to a row of two- and three- lah’s story fascinated me. anything but positive thoughts about her. family houses, which were going to be Tonight, I ask my mother to recount Zillah let my mother sleep over and taught demolished to make way for a new fire the story again. Since I had heard the sto- her to bake, among other things. station, when two people came up behind

22 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore it says about Zillah, Nancy says, is that “she had someone to take care of her— she came and lived with me.” I realize lat- er that she has not mentioned anything about Zillah’s father comforting her in the alley. I ask what else this story says about Zillah and she adds, “This didn’t keep her down”—her mother continued to walk everywhere. I told her that I had always heard that Zillah wouldn’t let go of her bags, and that’s why she was beaten. Nan- cy figures that it was just Zillah’s first re- action to having her bags pulled from behind—considerably less heroic than the version in which an old lady defies vio- lent muggers. While I am talking with Aunt Nancy, my mother calls her cousin Connie, Nan- cy’s daughter. Connie remembers more about the visit by Zillah’s father’s ghost, saying that he comforted her and stayed with her until she was found. Different people in different genera- tions remember and retell their family sto- ries in different ways. Some find lessons, some find strength, some define them- selves, and some attach spiritualism and faith. Each person stretched the details of the story about Zillah to create the message that she got from the story. My mother’s cousins call it “the inten- sifier gene”; my mother calls it -issimo. They believe that at least one child in each nuclear portion of our large, extended family is born with this gene, which am- plifies his or her personality. No question, Zillah had that gene.

Thea Kluge Zillah at age 19 or 20, with her first daughter. Photo: Ives family, Kluge family was born and raised in northern Westchester her and grabbed her purse and totebag. it was a cat before realizing that it was a County, New York. She If they had come up in front of her and woman calling, “Help, help!” in a weak moved to New demanded the bags, Nancy is sure that voice. Zillah had an “in case of emergen- York City in 2000 to attend her mother would have just handed them cy” card that named her son. Since he the Cooper Union for the Advancement of over. The muggers then broke Zillah’s wasn’t home, the hospital workers had to Science and Art, where she is now a third- year art and design major. She is spending arm and wrist, gave her a concussion, and wait until she woke up and named Nan- the current semester in Basel, Switzerland, threw her between two row houses, leav- cy. studying graphic design and typography at the Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst ing her for dead. She woke up enough to I ask Aunt Nancy what this story says Basel HGK. Photo: Ives family, Kluge cry out, and people living nearby thought about Zillah. The most important thing family

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 23 Old-TimeOld-Time DanceDance MusicMusic in WesternWestern NewNew YorkYork BY JAMES KIMBALL

Dancing and dance music have a long tradition in upstate New York’s rural communities. Although some details—instrumentation, tunes, style of calling, and dancers’ attire, not to mention transpor- tation to the dance—have changed, the joy and energy of today’s dancers in western and central New York would be familiar to their counterparts from the nineteenth century. Old newspapers, diaries, dance cards, and other primary source documents, combined with the recollections of aging tradition bearers, give us a look at not only the music and dance but also the social and business dealings of the era.

Nunda News, April 5, 1879 tinual source of entertainment, and a repos- well, the farmers quit and went into the “The Fat Men’s Ball,” which is to be itory of local and not so local lore. Today, city; and the city started movin’ out this given at Canaseraga, N.Y., on the 17th, way, and that’s what happened.” under the auspices of the heavy men alongside diaries, tune and call books, and of the Erie Rail Road, with conductors dance cards, they are a good source of in- Chapman and Hatch of Attica, as gen- Maher was a fine old fiddler, up to his eral managers, will be an interesting formation on dancing and dance music in ninety-sixth year. He remembered trapping event, and is all the talk among the rail- New York’s rural communities in the nine- road men. . . 200 lbs. is the lowest limit, “mushrats” when he was young, to pay for and it is confidently expected that Un- teenth and early twentieth centuries, from lessons with Fred Bissell, the old bachelor cle Ben Wales, of the C.C.&C.R.R., who pioneer log cabin parties to today’s dances who had led the Bergen Quadrille Orches- weighs 413 lbs., will be present with his in community halls and school gyms. From “best girl” who tips the scales at 372 tra back in the 1880s. Fred had taught him lbs. . . earlier periods we can document many to play “Opera Reel,” “Money Musk,” events and their music. More recent versions Ontario Repository, February 27, 1816 “Crooked-S,” the “Irish Trot,” “Do-Si-Ball- Wife Advertised of the tradition, of course, we can experi- inet”—all popular dances in the 1880s and, Whereas my wife, Mrs. Briget ence ourselves; we can dance with tradition in Maher’s neighborhood, up to the 1930s. McDallogh, is again walked away with bearers and eat supper with the musicians. herself, and left me with five small chil- Today most younger callers have turned dren and her poor blind mother, and But the participants are aging. Some of the to more modern styles and venues, includ- left nobody else to take care of house best and most colorful callers have passed and home, and I hear she has taken up ing modern squares and contras and line with Tim Guigan, the lame fiddler, the away or stopped calling because of illness. dances. In my roles as historian and ethno- same that was put in the stocks last The rural population itself has shrunk as musicologist I appreciate and recognize the Easter, for stealing Barney Doody’s the suburbs move out into the country. For game-cock: This is to give notice, that inevitable changes that come to any art; the I will not pay for bite or sup on her Clarence Maher, who farmed in Riga (at the folklorist and presenter in me would like to account to man or mortal, and that she southwest corner of Monroe County), the had better never show the marks of her encourage the older repertoire and styles as ten toes near my house again. major turning point was World War II: long as there are those who will enjoy them. PATRICK McDALLOGH “Old-time” in this paper refers to the mu- P.S.—Tim had better keep out of my When the war broke out…everything sight. went haywire for a while. Then people sic and dance of old-timers, especially those went to work, the women went to work, who grew up going to local rural “round One couldn’t believe everything printed and country life quit then, more or less. and square” dances. Each generation of Good ol’-fashioned country life ended in the old small-town papers—any more there…as far as I’m concerned. Before dancers in western New York, however, has than one can today—but they were a con- then, everybody was mostly farmers— blended its tradition with influences from

24 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore The Fat Men’s Ball, late nineteenth century. Courtesy of James Kimball changing popular culture. In the earlier nate New York square dancing since the ad- band here averaged about sixty-five in age, nineteenth century a tradition of localized vent of PA systems in the 1930s. Lou’s band and the dancers were mostly in their forties contradances gave way to the newer qua- included his wife on lead electric guitar and up to seventies or more—the generation drilles or squares. These in turn began to three or four of their teen-aged to young- that had square danced so actively in school make room for trendy couple dances twenties kids. The one boy played a full rock gyms and grange halls in the 1940s and (round dances) of the day. From the 1840s drum set. The sets of three square figures 1950s. (Many a basketball game was fol- to the 1940s we see one after the other the were perfectly traditional and always ended lowed by a square dance in the small schools arrival of the waltz, polka, schottische, with a “jig figure,” or “hoedown,” which fea- across western New York in those days.) two-step, fox trot, jitterbug, and beyond— tured one of the daughters playing tunes like The square sets were about the same as any of which might still be part of an “Ragtime Annie” or “Devil’s Dream” on fid- Ramblin’ Lou’s; the round dances here, how- evening’s round and square dance. dle. The round dances were a mix of slow ever, consisted of waltzes, schottisches, a Among the first round and square danc- country favorites and energetic rock music. reinlander, sometimes a Rye Waltz, jitter- es I attended when I started looking A favorite of every dance was the drum solo bugs, and older country standards. around western New York in the early on “Wipe Out,” which accompanied free- I was interested in the dress at these danc- 1980s were those held at the Oakfield Fire- style rock dancing. Older folks came espe- es. There was one couple in their eighties: hall, music by Ramblin’ Lou, part old-tim- cially for Ramblin’ Lou and Accordion Zeke; the man wore a dark suit and tie and his er and part WWVA-styled country musi- younger folks followed the younger members wife a dress, the same as they would have cian from the 1950s. Lou ran a country of the band and responded most to the coun- worn to any special social event for their radio program out of Lancaster, New try and rock music. The firehall ran a bar, generation. Middle-aged couples dressed York, and the dances were broadcast live, which attracted yet another group. comfortably, as their generation usually did advertisements and all. The caller, Accor- In contrast, we also had Ken Roloff ’s band, for similar events: women wore slacks, the dion Zeke, was a master of the older sing- which played regular dances at the East Pem- men did not wear jackets or ties. Everyone ing call style, which had come to domi- broke grange hall, not far from Oakfield. The had comfortable flat shoes. The few teens

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 25 ever, have long been part of the rural in- strumentation, as important to the chang- ing venues as the microphone for the caller. Fiddlers are still appreciated; but not every band has one. To the dancers, the instru- mentation is not critical as long as the mu- sic can inspire the movements on the floor and good energy among the crowd. The square dancing I had grown up with in northern Ohio was taught by school gym teachers or recreation leaders and usually done to records. Often just one or two cou- ples did a figure while the others watched. Years later I realized that some of the records had been made by Floyd Woodhull, one of the most influential traditional call- ers and band leaders from New York State. Woodhull kept very busy from the 1930s into the 1950s, collecting and playing danc- es in central and western New York. His recorded square dances on RCA Victor were to influence most of the rural callers in the area today. While still in Ohio I took piano lessons, sang in the church choir, and learned to play some on my dad’s ukulele and my mother’s violin. In time I went to Cornell University, whose music department was best known for its historical musicology, combining the study of earlier musical forms and techniques with performance in historically appropriate styles on period in- struments. At the same time, the early 1960s, I got caught up in the folk revival fads then sweeping campuses across the north: international folk dancing, hoote- nanny-style sing-alongs and coffee house performances, guitar and five-string ban- jo, Sing Out magazine, Pete Seeger, and the published collections of John and Alan Lomax. Poster for a dance. Courtesy of James Kimball Quite apart from these activities at Cor- nell were regular square dances that attract- present wore tee-shirts, jeans, and sneak- many of the same calls could be heard from ed a mixed crowd, including some ag stu- ers. There were no “square dance” outfits dance to dance. It struck me that this was dents I didn’t see at the other folk music or cowboy hats to be seen. There was also in fact a very genuine folk dance tradition activities. The principal caller was Roger no teaching done at any of these dances, and that everyone on the floor was what we Knox, who had brought a strong apprecia- and all I asked, of any age, said they had would now term a tradition bearer. tion of square dancing in both recreation learned as part of growing up or from fam- To an outsider, today’s bands might seem and club settings from the West Coast. In ily and friends. The dances themselves were less than ideally old-time. Electric guitars, the East, Knox involved himself with New generally uncomplicated and repetitive; accordions, saxophones or drum sets, how- England traditional dance scholar Ralph

26 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Unidentified fiddlers, c. 1880s, western New York or Horace “Hod” Case, fiddler and caller, c. 1925. Photo: Pennsylvania. This old tintype, acquired from an antiques Courtesy of Patricia Orr dealer in Jamestown, New York, matches the frequent late- nineteenth-century descriptions of first and second fiddle duos, as well as the involvement of young players in neighborhood dances. Photo: Courtesy of James Kimball

Page. In addition to the Cornell dances, sics and cultures, however, nobody at Wes- University in this case—I became aware of Knox started dances in nearby Dryden, leyan seemed to be particularly aware of any a growing interest in New England con- which drew rural folks who had danced to distinctive, local Connecticut rural music or tradancing. Two or three times I drove to the Woodhulls and others of the small coun- square dance—at least no one among the New Haven to back up Dudley Laufman, try bands and callers. I once asked him if faculty or student body. As I later learned who came to town to lead appreciative new- the Dryden dancers had distinctively local at Geneseo, one might more likely learn comers through traditional figures from old ways of responding to square dance calls. about these traditions from secretarial and New England. Laufman’s activities and the He said he had long ago taught them away maintenance staff and by reading local Pen- contra revival were another influence of the from their old ways. nysaver or Shopper papers. Ralph Page legacy. After an overseas stint in the Army, I A big fiddle contest at Hartford attract- Folk dancing also took me to Poland in entered the ethnomusicology program at ed both revival and, in the senior division, 1974 to play and dance with a group of Wesleyan University in Connecticut. This traditional players. One of the winners, I Americans at a festival in Rzeszow. One program emphasized the study of world seem to remember, was Jay Ungar. I took thing led to another and I got hooked on music but always in context of other ele- third in some category. The best to me, old-time dance music traditions in western ments of society—related dance, religion, however, were the few older traditional play- Poland. This in turn led to a call from Alan language, history, social strata, gender roles, ers, who seemed less worried than the rest Lomax to put together a Polish program for modernization, even politics. Wesleyan also of us and above the details of rather citi- the bicentennial Folklife Festival at the encouraged gaining some performance fied rules that governed the judging. Smithsonian Institution. Working under skill in the music being studied. Through my continued involvement in Lomax and Ralph Rinzler gave me a much For all its very wide view of world mu- international folk dancing—at nearby Yale greater sense of “living” as opposed to ar-

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 27 ranged or revived “folk.” The Polish gov- from Rose Hill. She is quite a cute little Morris at 8:30, they stopped at the Ea- girl and a dandy dancer. gle Hotel, and half an hour afterwards ernment wanted to send a professional Feb. 16. Didn’t get to bed at all but were enjoying one of [Mr.] Scoville’s song-and-dance show. We wanted rural per- did the chores as soon as all the danc- best suppers.…and at 10, commenced formers who still performed this music in ers had left. Pa slept while I was doing keeping time with dancing feet to the them. The musicians left for home soon good music of Sedgwick’s fiddle, as- an older style and in their regular lives. It after light... sisted by McArthur and Chilson of Mt. took the Smithsonian some time and some Morris. They were assisted in this de- lightful amusement by another sleigh- political arm twisting but they got their way: Grove’s father’s, John Purchase, noted the ing party from Geneseo. The dancers we got traditional performers. following in his diary: were not ready to start for home until When I came to Geneseo in 1976, it 4 a.m. Saturday and looked somewhat Feb. 15. A beautiful day. Grove and I weary when they rode into Dansville seemed a natural step to transfer my inter- put up 9 bags oats and barley. he took at 7 a.m. ests to old-time music in western New York. it to the mill and left it. We got our barns ready for the evening party. Jack But what was it? I started reading old news- Flanigan & Lewie Nye, the music, came A year later they did it again, and a fol- papers from the region and visiting flea about 4 p.m. There was two loads came lowup article notes the following: markets, antiques shops, and old-book deal- from Rose-Hill. they all danced till near- ly morn before they broke up. Paid ers. I combed the weekly Pennysaver for auc- Music $3.10 apiece. Every one enjoyed Dansville Express, February 14, 1878 themselves tip top. That sleighing party which went from tion and yard sale ads and found small no- Dansville to Mt. Morris one night last tices of local round and square dances. week had an elegant time at the Scov- We have another good example from Before long my home was filling up with ille house…one of the party, he who Orleans County, the diary of Miss Julia wears the big black moustache, it is said, musical instruments, sheet music, published kissed a Mt. Morris girl so suddenly that Hoag, age 20, of Kendall. and manuscript tune collections, instruction she went out of the room for a mo- ment to blush. books, dance cards, early recordings, and Oct. 5, [1877,] Friday. Cold and pleas- notebooks of interviews and material tak- ant. Cloudy to-night.…I finished my I asked Clarence Maher about sleigh rides en from old papers. dress to-day. I think it looks very pret- ty now, better than it ever looked to dances when he was young, this being The following turned up in a collection before.…Mary and I dressed up for the the normal way to get around in the winter, of diaries I bought at the Avon flea mar- [apple] pareing bee before dark. I wore my red dress. It sets perfectly. We went when most of the parties were held. He said, ket. Grove V. Purchase, of Borodino, was over after supper. We were almost the “It was damn cold.” twenty years old when he wrote these en- first ones there. Eli Hagadorne was Mark Hamilton, fiddler, caller, and old- tries: there, he came over and got our pare- ing machine. Emma Wilson was there time singer from Wolf Run in Allegany and she and I enjoyed ourselves splen- County had more pleasant memories of the Feb. 12, 1907....We moved Grand- didly. Everybody was there from all mother’s stove and some chairs and around. I didn’t know as there was so winter rides when he was a child in the dishes down here to use at the party....I many young folks about. We pared and 1920s. He also remembered that families went to Borodino and got 6 gal of oil sliced apples till quite late and then had usually took any children with them. at Rick’s on account. refreshments and a dance. I didn’t sup- Feb. 13....We took the bench out of pose there was to be a dance. There the ballroom. Pa mended some har- was one violin and the melodeon made My father never drove a car. Always nesses Ma & I cleaned out the ball- nice music. I never danced before but drove horses. We had a lot of fun room. We went to Borodino to an en- I did to-night. Ella Winegard said I goin’, and we’d go to sleep on the way tertainment and dance and got home done well. I danced 5 or 6 times, once back. I can remember my mother used at one a.m. with Eli and twice with Mr. Hudson, to get us out when it was just so nice Feb. 14. We set up two stoves in the once with Robinson and Winfield. Sin- and warm. I don’t see why we couldn’t ballroom and Ma mopped it. Pa and I da Buggles was there and a good many stay right there till morning. She’d sawed up a log. We borrowed a bag of I didn’t know. Alice was there with Jed- make us get out of that nice warm coal of Lee Durbin. Pa telephoned to dy. Mary and I came home about half straw…and go and get into an old cold Ralph at Skaneateles to get 75 paper past two. We had a splendid time. I bed. Buffalo robe and straw kept us napkins. waltzed once. The room seemed to spin nice and warm. They used to have Feb. 15. I went to mill and left 6 bgs. around for a while, but I got over that. some great times around here. ’Fore they had automobiles, somebody’d oats and 3 bgs. barley. We got the barns Oct. 6, Saturday.…Mary and I didn’t feel much like anybody to-day… hook a team of horses on a pair of in shape to hitch horses in and made all bobsleds an’ then start runnin’ in the the final preparations for the dance. J.J. Small-town newspapers often gave re- valley; an’ they’d just pick her right up Flanagan and Louis Nye came about until they’d have a load…Somebody 4:30. They played from about 9 till 4:30. ports of similar events: else’d start on the other end and they’d There were about 80 couples people have three, four sleigh loads. Oh, here and they all seem to have a good Dansville Advertiser, February 1, 1877 they’d sing an’ have a big time, goin’ time. Leon Briggs and Lloyd Harper On Friday evening last, a party of 24 and comin’.” came to Marietta and came down in the young ladies and gentlemen seated Rose Hill load. Glenn Harvey and Ray- themselves in a huge sleigh box on a mond Church brought loads. I got quite pair of bobs and started for Mt. Mor- Did Clarence Maher have young children well acquainted with Miss Lena Hall ris in merriest mood. Arriving at Mt. at his house parties?

28 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Oh sure! Hell, we’d park ’em—we’d put Thursday evening. All were engaged in Horace H. [Case] born in Bristol July ’em all to bed. One night we’s at a dance dancing, with Martin Webster as lead- 7th, 1855, devoted considerable time down here to Miller Menzie’s an’ we has er of the orchestra. Jim Bort came to instrumental music but his principal twenty kids upstairs in different beds, down from Fair Haven to tell them occupation is farming and hop grow- an’ we was dancin’ all night. which way to “which.” ing. He married Oct. 7th, 1876 Julia Reardon…daughter of Dennis and Catherine (Gordon) Reardon, natives Sometimes the old papers or diaries tell Local family tradition tells us that Martin of Ireland. Horace Case is a member us just what instruments were played. A Webster was generally accompanied by his of the Peoples’ Party and has been Jus- notice from 1878, for example, lists the brother Huron on melodeon. Huron’s old tice of the Peace four years. He is a member of Eagle Lodge no. 619 F. & musicians with their instruments: Prince melodeon still works and currently A.M., and the Farmers’ Alliance of resides with his great-great-granddaughter, Bristol. Nunda News, February 23, 1878 musician and folklorist Karen Canning. Jan 17 1868 Had an old folks party here. Dave Thomas played. The Nunda Quadrille Orchestra is A particularly newsy and long look at lo- Mar 25 1869 I traded my little fiddle furnishing good music for parties now cal dance musician history can be found in to Frank Mitchell for a sled. and includes the following musicians: Jan 18 1870 [age fourteen and a half] L.F. Willey, 1st violin and director; the diaries of Hod Case of Bristol. Case Went to school, all the scholars to Caleb James Carroll, 2d violin and prompter; started keeping diaries when he was eleven Simmons in eve. Herb Case and I H. Willard, cornet; O. Willett, banjo; [and] George Daggett, bass. years old and kept them up for seventy-three played for them to dance…my first at- tempt at calling for dancing…I played years, until he died in 1940. All but five years and called one sett. Note here the second violin as prompter. is preserved and in the historical collection Feb 24 1870 Herb Case here…and Sometimes we have to identify the instru- of the Town of Richmond in Honeoye. wanted me to go to John Johnson’s beyond Slab City and play with him to ments from other sources: Excerpts from Case’s diaries follow, preced- a dance…Rode with him and his wife. ed by a thumbnail autobiographical descrip- Herb and I played I rec’d $2.50. First money for fiddling. Holly Standard, February 2, 1899 tion (from the back of his 1890–92 jour- Morton: A lot of the young friends Feb 11 1871 …I to Carter’s and took of Lyell Storer made him a surprise nal): music lesson.

The Checker Boys, early 1940s, a Wyoming County round and square dance band. From left: Keith Morgan, Lynn Rowley, Elmer Brewer, Woody Kelly, Ken Lowe. Photo: Courtesy of James Kimball.

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 29 dier’s Joy,” “Pistol Packin’ Mama,” or “Ala- bama Jubilee.” The first two figures (or changes) were frequently taken from the collections of quadrille sets published in Boston, New York, or Chicago. Such sets were commonly included in violin instruc- tion books from the 1840s through the 1880s. Especially important to music-read- ing New York dance musicians were sets of quadrilles, available in part books, put out by E. T. Root of Chicago and by Cub Berdan. The first two or three tunes usually had no individual titles, and most were in 6/8. The standard eight-bar phrases were generally not repeated, and key changes were common. I asked Mark Hamilton, of Black Creek, if he knew any tunes that changed keys. He Mark Hamilton, fiddler and caller, c. 1945. Photo: Courtesy of Mark and Katie Hamilton thought of several but had no titles for them. And he played them without re- peats—a characteristic of Hamilton’s play- Oct 2 1871 …Carter and I played to The listing of old-time dances tells us at ing in general. In the following months and party at Tine Phillips at night. he gave me $1.00. least some of the tunes Case played, but years, he recalled more two key tunes. As I Nov 3 1871 John, George, Sammy the tune books he received by mail and the met old-time dance musicians, I found that and I to Honeoye Lake cooning and tunes he copied out are gone. Music men- duck hunting.…I played to Thos. they all knew at least a couple of these tunes, Hunns…[went] to a dance, played with tioned in the diaries includes waltzes, schot- generally untitled or called “Uncle Luke’s Carter and Sam Lepeyn. I rec’d $1.00. tisches, novelty songs, and quadrille sets tune” or the like. These tunes had fallen Feb 8 1872 …I bought Sidney a vio- lin today gave $2.50. (square dances). In one case, he mentions from their active repertoires; they were not Feb 12 …Father…brought home a practicing sets of quadrille tunes received used in modern dances or concert contests violin from Finley’s [in Canandaigua] from Cub Berdan, who composed and pub- for me to try, price $25. I don’t like it. (but the mere question prompted these Sep 11 …We threshed. had 230 bush lished sets of quadrille tunes in the 1870s musicians to come up with pieces they of oats, 100 of barley, 75 of wheat. got and 1880s in Michigan. hadn’t played for many years), and organized done at 4:00…put oat straw in barn I footed it to Lorenzo Bissels and played “Opera Reel” was a favorite of both Case fiddlers’ clubs and contests had long since alone for hop dance. rec’d 6.25. came and Maher, who remembered it from the taken no interest in them. The heart of older as far as John Smith’s hop house and first dance he ever played, around 1912, until stayed til morning. New York dance fiddling hadn’t made it into the end of neighborhood house dances be- modern public venues. Case documents about seventeen hundred fore World War II. The Hod Case diaries tell us what instru- dances over the next fifty-five years. By the Other than the named contradances (in- ments were used and in what combinations. 1910s his music has gone out of fashion, cluding “Opera Reel”) and a circle dance About a hundred dances—some six per- though he does attract some attention as a man or two, old descriptions and dance cards cent—are for solo violin. More than five who can still play and call old-time dances: don’t usually identify what tunes were hundred, or thirty percent, are for two vio- played. Much of the evening was taken up lins. The next most common ensemble is Ontario County Times, December 9, 1910 with quadrilles, each divided into three or two violins and five-string banjo (the com- Bristol. The dance by the stockhold- ers of the Bristol Center Improvement more figures. The last and liveliest of these bination that Maher remembered from his Co., held last Friday night, was the jolly figures, commonly referred to as the jig fig- first dance). After violin and banjo we find affair it always is, where old and young ure, involved the most swinging, often with clarinet, cornet, reed organ, bass (double- join in dancing the opera reel, money musk, Irish trot and even Old Dan a chance to swing all the other ladies or gents bass or cello), piano, trombone, piccolo, and Tucker to the tune of Hod and Sid in the set. The tune might be a popular old harp. In all there are sixty-eight combina- Case’s fiddles as in the good old days. “hoedown” or reel (or a newer tune in that tions involving one to five musicians. Gui- The fun kept up until nearly daylight, the dancers stopping only long enough style) or a lively popular song—“Rickett’s tar is mentioned only four times—twice at to eat one of the best of suppers. Hornpipes,” “Turkey in the Straw,” “Sol- dances, once played in the home by a young

30 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore lady, and once (in 1932) when Case’s great- to the fact that the caller usually was nephew shows up carrying a guitar and an instrument-playing musician. It is wearing a cowboy hat. It was in the 1920s simply easier to sing the call along and 1930s generally that guitar, piano ac- with the tune than to just shout it cordion, and sometimes tenor banjo, sax- out while playing. We know that ophone, or drum set started to become sig- many rural dancers came to pre- nificant in western New York square dance fer the singing calls over the bands; second fiddle, reed organs, and five- older shouted or prompting string banjos vanished. The newer instru- style. Old-timers around ments let the band play the foxtrot and Geneseo still remember Ed jitterbug round dance repertoire, as we see Peterson, the African in this mix of musical styles and fashion American fiddler and at a local house party: Civil War veteran who sang most of his calls Livonia Gazette, February 5, 1926 This little burg is agog and agape as he played local over two surprise parties held in the dances into the vicinity the past week. As was noted 1930s. Mark Hamil- in last week’s Gazette, Annebelle Reed was given a party on the evening of ton learned his first February 2d. Miss Dora Somerville singing calls from was the victim the following Friday night, the occasion being her 21st his father. Clar- birthday.…As is usual…there were ence Maher re- cards and tables for those who cared membered “old to play pedro. Riley Ward was present with his old violin and was the center Mike Sheehan” who of attraction. After all had arrived at had to sing his calls because he stut- the party the music began when Wayne Woodruff struck up with tered. When Floyd Woodhull (Elmira) and “Hail! Hail! the Gang’s All Here.” Both Monty Williams (Hornell) started singing into classical and old-time music were microphones in the 1930s, this became the Edward G. Peterson, Geneseo fiddler and played until supper was served. Sup- caller. From The Livingston Republican, per over, the young people enjoyed norm. Geneseo, January 24, 1926. Photo: dancing. Wayne playing the music for Plenty of people still enjoy local-style Courtesy of the Livingston County the Charleston, bunny hug and fox trot historian types, and Clark Reed and Riley play- square dancing. There are, however, fewer ing the old-fashioned pieces. Leon musicians who want to play that music. It Barrett called off the old-time danc- doesn’t attract crowds the way driving fid- Mark Hamilton, or others from the com- es, and in the language of the street, “he was a scream.” It all reminded the dle tunes do, or Nashville-style country munity to lead the calling. But old-timers, writer of the old days when Clark round or line dance tunes. There are even most from rural backgrounds, are very Reed and Herb and Joe Bennett fur- nished the music for the dances fewer callers still able to give a full evening pleased when they find the dances as they around the “Hollow.” Herb usually of the traditional local squares (singing or have known them all their lives. It is the played second fiddle and called off. otherwise) that were once so popular. Mod- save-the-tradition approach that some in He would some times do this in a sing- song way or, as I remember it, some- ern callers tend to want to teach something folklore circles have sometimes been crit- thing like this: “Alamen left, balance different than what the local folks grew up icized for. Given the alternatives, I rather to the corner; four hands round; down the center, meet your sweet, swing that with. Those interested in sustaining a local like it. girl right off her feet.” As Samantha art have to be satisfied with repetition, un- has it, “although I do say it as hadn’t complex tunes and steps, and with learn- ought to,” I must admit that in this age of bobbed hair and fig-leaf mode ing from older participants. My own prac- of dressing, when the young men did tice in putting on local college, church, club, James Kimball swing their sweets at the Reed party, ([email protected]. gay and gaudy garters were a bit more or festival dances has been increasingly to geneseo.edu) teaches at in evidence than in the old days when do it their way. The students who attend, SUNY-Geneseo. A ladies wore long trails to their dress- and who may play in the band, tend to have version of this article es. was originally presented no or little previous experience in square as the Phillips Barry Note the reference to a sing-song way of dancing. They’ll do, and have generally en- Lecture, sponsored by the Music and Song calling. Characteristic of western New York joyed, what we give them—especially as we Section, at the American Folklore Society calling, it can be attributed, at least in part, have been able to bring in Kenny Lowe, meeting in Rochester, in October 2002.

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 31 ShadShad FishingFishing onon thethe HudsonHudson

ON AIR Fishing on the Hudson River in New York Jensen Kill is the marina where Nack keeps the fish come up and they stick their heads for shad has a long history as one of the his boat, just south of the Rip Van Winkle in it, and they get stuck behind their gills. oldest traditional industries on the coast Bridge. As we head out on the river, the Amtrak So I mended all winter, and I patched up of North America. For hundreds of years, train passes. the bigger holes, and my buddies and I went both Native Americans and European col- Nack: I got out of the service in ’53, out. We borrowed an old fourteen-foot row- onists have netted American shad. Shad and there was a fisherman whose name was boat and we made enough money to buy a fishing has spawned a variety of traditional John Bicus. I kind of like to fish a lot so I nylon net. arts and occupational skills. For the New went to work for him. Back then we So the next winter, I worked down in the York Folklore Society’s Voices of New rowed—there weren’t many outboard mo- cellar and I put that nylon net together all York Traditions, Ginger Miles spoke recent- tors—and we would row way up the river, winter. Then you had to make your buoys. ly with a veteran shad fisherman. throw our nets out, drift down, pick ’em Those old nets had eight-inch rings on the bottom for weights, and I got some rod and my uncle helped me web ’em together. We made our rings, we made our buoys, and we put the whole net together, and the next year I made enough money to buy a fourteen- foot aluminum boat. Well, we fished that for three or four years, then we had enough money to buy another net, and then we finally got enough money to buy a bigger boat, and we worked our way up. We now have three eighteen-foot boats. The shad come up in the spring as soon as the weather temperature gets to the right degree. They lay their eggs and go back. They get here about the fifteenth of April. And they come up here out of the ocean to spawn because they can’t lay their eggs in saltwater. A few years ago, we tagged

Everett Nack and his son launch their fishing boat on the Hudson River. Photo: Ellen McHale four thousand shad up by the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, with the Canadian govern- Everett Nack owns a bait shop. He’s a garden- up, and then row back. And you’re always ment. It’s amazing. The next year we re- er, a winemaker, and environmentalist. For a fish- rowing against the tide. And two of us captured them, right at the same spot erman on any river, as Nack sees it, it’s impossible rowed. After a week you think your wrists where we tagged ’em. Those shad went not to be an environmentalist. He recalls a conver- are going to come apart. from the Hudson River up to the Bay of sation he had with the governor of New York. So I worked for him for two years, and Fundy, over to the Bay of St. Lawrence, Nack: I said, You know that if a frog my pay was the buck shad that he didn’t down to North Carolina, and all the way jumps in your swimming pool, the next day want. You know, I’d bring ’em home and back up—and they came right back to their he’s dead. I said that’s exactly what’s hap- my mother would can some and freeze some home river. pening in the river. So what they did, they and I’d sell a few to the neighbors. And fi- implemented the regulations back in 1990. nally I thought, “This is ridiculous,” so I This interview was conducted by Ginger Last year, the little fishes started hatching swapped my uncle eight muskrat skins for Miles. For more information about The by the millions all over. It’s a lot better than an old linen gill net that he was going to Voices of New York Traditions radio documentary series, see “New York it was when the chlorine was in the river. throw away. You know, they’re like five hun- Folklore Society News,” page 2 in this Come on, we’ll go for a ride. dred feet long and twenty feet deep. And issue of Voices.

32 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore LAWYER’S SIDEBAR

Unfair Use of Folklore BY PAUL RAPP

What happens when somebody copyrights What should they do? Folktales cannot be plucked out of gen- a version of an old folktale? Is the folktale My job is not only to tell my clients what eral circulation by a simple copyright. How- taken out of circulation for everybody else the law is, but also to help them accomplish ever, copyrights do wreak havoc on the folk- for the duration of the copyright (which, what they seek to do. I often find myself lore process. Folklore is often an iterative thanks to our Congress and Supreme Court, saying, “Maybe it’s infringement, but go process: stories morph as they are told and is now basically forever)? Disney, which ahead and use it anyway.” retold and as they filter through different made films of numerous folk and old tales And that’s what I told the storytellers. I cultures. The process comes to a grinding (Cinderella, Snow White, Pinocchio), has didn’t think that there was much likelihood halt if every time someone tweaks a story, been accused of doing precisely that, since of their getting into any trouble for adapting the tweaks are copyrighted and declared off- the company holds copyrights granted in the copyrighted version of the African folk- limits to everybody else for a hundred years the mid-twentieth century that are now go- tale. First, the author (or the publisher) of that or so. Disney took the Snow White story ing to last until well after 2020. version would have to find out about the sto- and did the definitive version of it. Should But Disney hasn’t stolen Snow White. rytellers’ use. Then the author would have to they own this version, maybe the only ver- When someone creates a new version of a determine that the storytellers were using the sion that matters, for ninety-five years? Why folktale or anything that is in the public protected portions of her version (if indeed should my storytellers go through connip- domain, the new version does carry a copy- there were any), which means she would not tions over the telling of a particular version right, but this copyright does not cover the just have to hear about the storytellers, but have of an African story that is at least eight hun- new version in its entirety. The only things to hear them, in person or on the radio or on a dred years old? Should anyone own any ver- protected by the copyright are the new parts recording. Next, the author would have to be sion of these stories? of the folktale—the embellishments, the upset enough about the storytellers’ use to Disney would say (and actually has said, additions. Everything that existed before the want to do something about it. ad nauseum) that the ninety-five years of ex- new version was made remains in the pub- Perhaps the author wasn’t claiming any clusivity provides the financial incentive to lic domain, for all to use. ownership rights for the version of the sto- make Snow White and Pinocchio in the first So Disney has a claim to the visual as- ry in her book. The author’s copyright no- place. Although there is some truth to this, pects of the characters, the songs, and per- tice might have been relevant to other sto- the failure to recognize the folk tradition in haps the exact wording and sequences of ries in the book, or to the arrangement of the current scheme of things constitutes a certain events in its animations. But anyone the stories, the introductions, and the illus- lack of balance. Should there be a folklore can still tell the Snow White story; anyone trations. The author might be more con- exception in the copyright law? Perhaps a can make another animated film of Pinoc- cerned about someone taking the entire shorter copyright period for works derived chio, so long as the new work doesn’t take book than about professional storytellers’ from public domain material, or maybe any of the protected parts of the Disney using her version of just one story. Or she some type of folklore “fair use” exception? film. Don’t have dwarfs singing “Hi-ho! Hi- might be a fervent folklorist herself, disin- Unfortunately, such changes would require ho!” unless you want to be paid a visit by clined to go after fellow folklorists for car- an act of Congress, and as recent events Disney’s attorneys. rying on the tradition. have shown, on copyright matters Congress A few years ago a pair of professional For her to call her lawyers and pay for listens to Disney. Hi-ho! Hi-ho! storytellers came to me because they want- their time, she would have to consider how ed to retell what they knew to be an ancient much damage the storytellers were causing. West African story. However, the only ver- Something between slim and none? Even Paul Rapp ([email protected]) sion they could find was in a children’s book in the worst case, the storytellers would re- is an attorney with that carried the author’s copyright notice. ceive a stiff and formal letter concerning the Albany law firm of Cohen Dax They weren’t sure what parts of the story exclusive rights, statutory damages, ceasing, & Koenig. He also were traditional and what parts might have desisting, blah, blah, and blah. Such a letter teaches art and entertainment law been added by the author of the book. They would mean it was time to stop using the at Albany Law planned to make their own adaptation of African story. Only if the storytellers were School. Write to him or the editor the story, but they knew that embellishing a making a fortune on this story (selling movie of Voices if you copyrighted work is as much infringement rights to Spielberg, perhaps, or licensing a have a general- interest question or topic you’d like as copying the work verbatim. And they’d line of action figures) would there likely be to see discussed in a future issue. tried to contact the author, without success. a serious legal issue. Photo: Buck Malen

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 33 Cities within the City: B.A. Botkin’s New York

BY MICHAEL L. MURRAY

“Al Smith made the sidewalks of New York popular,” said a Sawkill poultry farmer to tellectual richness of modern life became a me, “but we sent them in from here.” He was referring to the Ulster County [New reality. It was home to new works of litera- York] bluestone, quarried by Irish workers toward the middle of the last century, and ture composed and published within the city, worn by the feet of immigrants who came here expecting instead to find streets paved as well as Old World tales brought directly with gold. from Old World nations. —B.A. Botkin, New York City Folklore (1956: xv) Botkin, far before others in the discipline, understood that modernity was not a threat hough born in Boston, Benjamin A. interest, including his appreciation for Lewis to traditional culture, but rather an impor- T Botkin was sometimes more com- Mumford and his understanding of the role tant influence on existing and emerging folk fortable with his New York identity than of the metropolis in regional culture, deep- expressions. As Bruce Jackson wrote, he “re- with his New England roots. As an under- ly influenced Botkin’s own studies of the fused to distinguish between what people graduate at Harvard, he confronted and folklore of his adopted urban place, New wrote, what happened in a movie, and what overcame his childhood struggles against York City (Botkin 1935). Many years before was said on a street corner. For him, the stuff anti-Semitism and Brahmin attitudes, and academic folklorists began to consider the and process of folklore were truly protean” he remained proud of this experience folk culture of urban spaces (Dorson et al. (Jackson 1986: 29). Botkin’s theory of folk- throughout his life (Hirsch 1996). Yet New 1970), Botkin looked to the unique charac- lore was ideally suited to the protean nature York City represented his cosmopolitan ide- ter of life in New York City and saw the of New York City’s streets. He often wrote al, and it would become both a rich inspira- ways in which the urban experience both about the character of urban life in his New tion for his scholarship and his home. Bot- provided a place of union between the in- York Folklore Quarterly column, “Downstate, kin first came to New York in 1920 to earn digenous and the metropolitan and inspired Upstate,” explaining in 1953 the difference a master’s degree in English literature at the emergence of new traditions that ex- between the state’s folklorists as typified by Columbia University, and he returned to the pressed the reality of modern life. With his the diverse and ever-growing qualities of city in 1923 to spend two more years teach- regionalist’s attention to the relationship urban culture. “The real difference between ing “Americanization” and English to im- between art and place, Botkin turned many Downstate and Upstate folklore and folklor- migrants. In 1938, he traveled to New York times in his scholarship to the nature of life ists,” he wrote, “is the difference between the as the national folklore editor for the Fed- in New York City. He considered all aspects ‘sounds of our times’ and those of other eral Writers’ Project. And later, when he of urban and suburban life in his attempt times...” (Botkin and Tyrrell 1953: 232). The decided to pursue a career as a freelance to uncover the personality of New York and folklore of urban and suburban New York writer, Botkin returned again to the city to characterize the folklore of what, for him, City was something emerging in time, real- (Botkin 1946). Settling in Croton-on-Hud- became the quintessential urban place. ized in the daily lives of a cosmopolitan folk; son, a northern suburb, he routinely trav- As Jerrold Hirsch notes, Botkin never at- rural folklore echoed traditions that emerged eled into the city, writing about it, collect- tached to New York City the same “sym- from a historical landscape. ing its lore, and considering its role in the bolic importance” he afforded his tenure at In this contrast, the metropolis becomes a folk culture of the Middle Atlantic region. Harvard. Nevertheless, the city had a deep unique place that requires attention to the As a scholar, Botkin allied himself with impact on his understanding of folklore and forces of change defining its folklore. The regionalism and its efforts to explore the modernity in the urban world (Hirsch 1996: specific character of life in the metropolis local character of American culture. This 315). New York was the city where the in- shapes and colors the lives of its inhabitants

34 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore A Russian dancer in lower Manhattan celebrates the American Bicentennial in 1976. Photo: Katrina Thomas in all the forms and places of that expres- rigid right angles of the urban grid are trans- city are at work building a myth of the city, sion. Carrying this concept into practice, formed into the circles and spokes that make charting its spaces based on routines of Botkin saw the exploration of New York up the wheel. Botkin saw the neighborhoods navigating and dwelling within its landscape City’s folk culture as a natural extension of as cities within the city and was fascinated (de Certeau 1984: 93, 102). Botkin under- his research into America’s regional culture. by the ways in which New York’s streets, stood and valued this experiential connec- He would break up the metropolitan re- buildings, and people were known and nav- tion to urban space and urban life, and he gions—the various neighborhoods and quar- igated in terms of a sense of urban space. stressed to his WPA fieldworkers in New ters of the boroughs and the metropolitan On the sidewalks of New York, Botkin York City that they would learn of the “re- area—and consider how the culture in each recognized a relationship between culture lation between art and life, between work was shaped by occupational, neighborhood, and space that was later echoed by Michel and culture” almost naturally “on the side- and ethnic affiliations. de Certeau, who wrote that New York City’s walks of New York skipping rope and In the introduction to New York City Folk- reality exists somewhere on the streets “be- bouncing ball” (1939: 7). Botkin developed lore (1956), his collection of folklore and low the thresholds at which visibility begins” a strategy of urban ethnography, which took folk-say from the city, Botkin illustrates this (de Certeau 1984: 93). Walking, for de Cer- into account the city’s unique personality, process by mapping New York City as a teau, is the fundamental form by which the created by the lives and lore of its people “circle or wheel whose center or hub is New Yorker experiences the city. In the and the shape, smells, and sounds of its Manhattan and whose radii or spokes are bustle of everyday life, city dwellers make physical form. Eventually, he worked this the boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn, their way through a metaphorical place, theory of urban culture into his own writ- Queens, and Richmond radiating into the which sits transparently on the literal and ing on New York in his efforts to define metropolitan hinterland” (1956: xvi). In his readable city. The reality of this experien- the city’s personality through its lore. visualization, he translates the city’s geo- tial city is realized through practice rather than When Botkin came to New York City to graphic reality into a figurative image. The geography or geometry. The walkers in the train his WPA fieldworkers, he examined the

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 35 city through his regionalist’s lens. Thinking of the neighborhoods as regions within the metropolis, he suggested a modified region- al approach to their study. He instructed his fieldworkers to travel to the places where New Yorkers lived and worked and played to uncover the relations between place, art, and life. He wrote, “We learned early in the game that you cannot collect folklore by simply walking the streets of the city. Folk- lore is not on the surface” (Botkin 1958: 193). Rather, folklore dwells within the spokes of New York City’s wheel. It is la- tent in the neighborhoods, the cities within a city, which produce unique expressions in and of unique urban habitats. If the “key to living lore” is, as Botkin wrote in his New York Folklore Quarterly essay of the same name, “the relating of the foreground, lore, to its background in life,” then the places his informants lived would naturally be an excellent point of departure (1958: 191). A WPA fieldworker quoted by Botkin char- acterized the relationship between art and life in the city as a business of “bread and song.” The phrase emerged from an interview with a Yugoslavian tailor who tried to sing a song for the fieldworker but was frustrated and unable to concentrate. The tailor tells the fieldworker, “We ought to live, too. Some- thing happen if this keep up.…If I could only put my head to it for a few hours, I could make a few songs.” The fieldworker replies first by placing herself within the tailor’s New York: “Oh, don’t be worried. I understand. You see, I don’t come from Park Avenue ei- The San Gennaro Day feast on Mott Street in Manhattan’s Little Italy is New York’s ther.” Persistent in recording a song, she largest and longest “street party,” usually lasting about ten days. The greased pole climb is no longer performed because of liability issues; this image was taken in 1978. Photo: eventually embraces her own statement of Katrina Thomas solidarity and confesses, required fieldworkers to establish this degree projects, the neighborhood approach did My, how you lied! You certainly didn’t sing when you had no bread! You of empathy with the folk of the city and pay not succeed in practice. He and the field- couldn’t remember your own name, attention to the nature of life in the depressed workers found the city’s map sometimes too never mind about where you lived four streets of the WPA era. As much as she was difficult to decipher, its many neighbor- years ago. And your voice was so weak the relief investigator told you to take occupied by “this bread and song thing,” she hoods and streets too complex an entrée a couple of sips of water to moisten connected with the tailor as a fellow laborer into the culture, even though he acknowl- your throat!...Great thing this bread and song business! Messy world, messy struggling in a city where Park Avenue rep- edged the importance of place in studying world! We’re all in the same boat—Yu- resents a foreign land, and the city’s social the city. This, however, was a practical mat- goslav, Mayflower descendant, all mixed cacophony blurs lines of ethnicity and is ter, which did not alter Botkin’s conviction up on this bread and song thing... (quot- ed in Botkin 1939: 7). obscured by sentiments of neighborhood that folklore should broaden its focus to and labor. include the contemporary, the industrial, and For Botkin, research into urban experience Botkin later noted that for the WPA the urban worlds (Mangione 1983: 269–70).

36 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore His attention to the living lore and folk-say ‘the scent of open spaces caught up in the physical presence, and this personality be- of New York City, in the summer of 1938 towering metropolis’” (1958: 84). In writ- comes defined by the constant shifts in these and later, suggested a new way of concep- ing about the personality of New York City, elements. The urban place’s lore is thus char- tualizing folklore in the urban experience Still acknowledged the city as a unique place acterized by creative force and emergence and a new way of studying it. In his intro- that required a different sort of investiga- from a rapidly changing experience. duction to the 1954 collection, Sidewalks of tion. In his notes at the end of the 1953 down- America, Botkin wrote, “For years Ameri- His reading suggests that although the state issue of New York Folklore Quarterly, can Folklorists from the cities have been countryside, too, has landscapes, smells, and Botkin compares the character of urban going into the Kentucky mountains and oth- sounds that could suggest a personality, that folklore studies with their rural counterpart: er remote places to gather folk songs and personality is stable in the memories of its But the real difference between Down- stories, while all the time folklore was all inhabitants. The city, on the other hand, is state and Upstate folklore and folklor- around them on the sidewalks of America” different: memories of it are never stable, ists, as I see it, is the difference between (1954: vii). When Botkin’s main sounding buildings emerge overnight, and citizens the “sounds of our times” and those of other times, between complicated boards, the New York Folklore Quarterly and from entirely different lands arrive by boat- and confused ways of life and “ways the New York Folklore Society, were formed load every morning. The result is a New of life followed by those who live sim- ple, unnoticed lives”…An interest in in 1945, many of the founding members York City that for Still and Botkin was de- the “sounds of our times” implies not were teachers and professors who lived in fined by its constant change (1958: 90). Art a break with the past but a quest for New York City and had been introduced to critic Lucy Lippard would later observe this continuity and for what might be called a “usable present.” And that is not to the WPA’s new way of viewing urban cul- same sense of a dynamic urban space, not- negate what we can learn from the old- ture. ing how the city’s nervous state of excess timers, such as helping us to know our place in the long stream of cultural tra- Other folklorists publishing on the city exponentially increases the “social cacoph- dition (1953: 232). in New York Folklore Quarterly also focused ony” within it (1997: 200). The city is said on this characterization of the urban as to have a dizzying effect on its inhabitants, The nature of life in the city, with its com- possessing a personality. From Bayrd Still’s who are constantly presented with new and plicated interactions of many different cul- 1958 New York Folklore Quarterly essay, “The unrecognizable forms. tures and its constantly shifting possibilities Personality of New York City,” we learn that Raymond Williams, referring to industri- of experience, produced for Botkin a type part of the folklore in and of the city is a alized England, suggested that the urban of lore that is conspicuously a “sound of reflection of its distinctive personality. This citizen in such a context could do one of our times.” In this characterization, the personality is based on the city’s corporeal two things: “we can retreat, for security, into downstate folklorists approached folklore features—the towering profile of the New a deep subjectivity, or we can look around as the fantasies, games, and stories that York City skyline, the odors of car exhaust us for social pictures, social signs, social emerge from the unique character of city and roasted chestnuts filling Times Square messages, to which, characteristically, we try life. in the winter. Another element is the stamp to relate as individuals but so as to discov- One of New York Folklore Quarterly’s most on the landscape made by its inhabitants, er, in some form, community” (1973: 295). compelling analyses of the urban experience their daily lives, and their personal histories. Central to Botkin’s study of New York City comes from Botkin’s essay in the 1965 New As Keith Basso writes of a sense of place, folklore was recognition that these two strat- York City issue. In this piece he introduces it is a product of becoming aware of one’s egies for life in the urban environment pro- Fanya Del Bourgo’s essay, “Love in the City,” attachment to “features of the physical duced a different form of folklore, which a transcription from an interview conduct- world” (Basso 1996: 55). Still explained, required a different frame for investigation ed by Botkin. During the interview, Botkin “few will deny that cities, like people, have by folklorists. Interest in urban culture was exploring the upstate-downstate dichot- distinguishing features—personalities if you sparked a conversation on the differences omy; he asked, “How did love in the city will—which make one urban community between the rural folklife of upstate New differ from love in the country?” Although different from another” (1958: 83). Life in York and the cosmopolitan and ethnic folk- she had no experience of the country, Del the city and the city itself are intertwined in life of downstate. Bourgo, a dance instructor in Croton-on- the popular imagination such that the iden- According to Botkin, any separation be- Hudson, laid out an autobiographical ac- tities of its citizens come to publicly repre- tween the two comes from the antiquarian count that linked her coming of age to the sent the metropolis, as do its corporeal fea- nature of the rural experience versus the city’s many places. “She told how and where tures and sensual characteristics. Still once lived and emergent character of the urban young people got together,” Botkin wrote noted in an interview, “the city has a ‘unique experience. The city has a unique personal- in his introduction, “in the East Side, in and heady essence,’ blended…of ‘the dry, ity, created by the lives and lore of its peo- Brooklyn, in Coney Island, on a Bear Moun- astringent odor of ozone and gasoline’ and ple and the shape, smell, and sounds of its tain boat, in a Catskill summer camp, in

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 37 Greenwich Village in the Jazz era. And what New York City as it affects the formation Botkin, B.A. 1935. We Talk about Regionalism: their romantic customs and diversions, at- of a personal identity. In this essay Botkin North, East, South, and West. The Frontier: A Magazine of the Northwest. 13(May): 286–96. tractions and interests, freedoms and re- echoes a statement he made about the na- _____. 1939. WPA and Folklore Research: strictions were at various stages of grow- ture of the city in his collection Sidewalks of “Bread and Song.” Southern Folklore Quarterly ing up, from the time she first learned about America. “The hero of this book—the city— 3(1): 7–14. sex on the East Side docks to her ‘intellec- has many faces and many voices,” he wrote _____. 1946. Living Lore of the New York City tual life’ in the Village where ‘It was all very (1954: vii). In nominating the city to hero Writers’ Project. New York Folklore Quarterly. 2(3): 252–63. poetic’” (Botkin 1965: 165). Although he status, Botkin suggests that the folklore of _____. 1954. Sidewalks of America: Folklore, Leg- intended to discuss with her the differenc- the city is shaped by the relationship between ends, Sagas, Traditions, Customs, Songs, Stories, and es between rural and urban experience, its citizens and their environment. The city Sayings of City Folk. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Mer- Botkin noted that she couched her current has many faces and many voices, each con- rill Co. suburban identity in her urban experiences structing narratives—whether about a se- _____. 1956. New York City Folklore: Legends, Tall Tales, Anecdotes, Stories, Sagas, Heroes and Char- and that much of that urban life history cluded spot for an assignation on Riverside acters, Customs, Traditions and Sayings. New York: must be couched in her immigrant child- Drive or a spiel to would-be customers in Random House. hood. Times Square. The city is indeed the hero _____. 1958. We Called It “Living Lore.” New Here Botkin makes an effort—rarely of Botkin’s book, as it is the force respond- York Folklore Quarterly 14(3): 189–201. made before in essays concerning New ed to in the folklore of New Yorkers. _____. 1965. Postscript to “Love in the City.” New York Folklore Quarterly 21(3): 231–33. York City—to place a storyteller within the de Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Every- context of her social and cultural history Works Cited day Life. Translated by Steven Rendall. Berke- (1965: 321–32). In this analysis, the city is Basso, Keith. 1996. Wisdom Sits in Places: Notes ley: University of California Press (original: at once—as Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett on a Western Apache Landscape. In Senses of Place, Arts de Faire). eds. Steven Feld and Keith Basso. pp. 53–89. (1983) would later call it—the locus and del Bourgo, Fanya. 1965. Love in the City. New Santa Fe: School of American Research Press. York Folklore Quarterly 21(3): 165–78. the focus; it is the place where Del Bourgo Botkin, B.A., and William G. Tyrrell. 1953. Up- Dorson, Richard M., Linda Degh, and Leonard lives, making her story a New York City state, Downstate: Folklore News and Notes. W. Moss. 1970. Is There a Folk in the City? experience, but it is also a history of life in New York Folklore Quarterly 9(3): 231–38. Journal of American Folklore 83: 185–228. Hirsch, Jerrold. 1996. My Harvard Accent and “Indifference”: Notes Toward a Biography of B.A. Botkin. Journal of American Folklore Photographing New York’s Neighborhoods 109(433): 308–19. When Congress passed new immigration laws in 1965, admitting many nationalities Jackson, Bruce. 1986. Ben Botkin. New York Folk- lore. 12(3–4): 23–32. that had been excluded, freelance photographer Katrina Thomas, whose photographs Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. 1983. The Fu- accompany this article, sensing that the United States was not truly a “melting pot,” ture of Folklore Studies in America: the Ur- decided to document the traditions that immigrant groups were celebrating in their ban Frontier. Folklore Forum 16(2): 175–233. new country. Lippard, Lucy R. 1997. The Lure of the Local: Senses Her photographs capture the full range of New York City’s rich diversity, from of Place in a Multicentered Society. New York: Chinese New Year and nationality days and parades in the five boroughs to Italian, New Press. Mangione, Jerre. 1983. The Dream and the Deal: Greek Orthodox, Russian, and Ukrainian feast days. Less well known are celebrations The Federal Writer’s Project, 1935‘“1943. Phila- of Buddha’s birthday, the Eid (Muslim), Diwali (Hindu), and Baisahki (Sikh). delphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Secular festivals Thomas has photographed include the parade of Caribbean Still, Bayrd. 1958. The Personality of New York cultures on Brooklyn’s Eastern Parkway in September, in which West Indians wearing City. New York Folklore Quarterly 14(2): 83–92. elaborate costumes proceed on roller skates to the accompaniment of steel bands; Williams, Raymond. 1973. The Country and the City. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Irish hurling in Gaelic Park in Manhattan; and Puerto Rican teams playing softball and baseball in Central Park. Her project coincided with a surge of interest in ethnic identity. No longer ashamed of speaking imperfect English, newcomers were demonstrating pride in their culture. Michael L. Murray is a doctoral By 1976, the melting pot had given way to a “cultural mosaic.” On the Fourth of candidate in the July of the Bicentennial, New York City, like many cities across the country, celebrated graduate program its ethnic heritage by building platforms and stages for performers and folk dance in Folklore and Folklife, University groups. Public festivals were soon being held in parks and plazas around the year. of Pennsylvania, Katrina Thomas has contributed her collection of images to City Lore, 72 East Philadelphia. Photo: Peggy Yocom First Street, New York City 10003, 212 529-1955.

38 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore heavy a pail full of pig slop is for a little girl trying to dump it in the pig trough? But that Ruby Marcotte was certainly no excuse for not doing it. The pigs gotta eat, right? We had a cow, too, from which I learned a very valuable lesson. I never liked to wear shoes. The worst thing about having to go Remembers somewhere was having to dress my feet. My Dad had told me not to go into the cow barn without my shoes on. I must have “forgot” that one day. Dad came running when he heard me scream for help. I was ho would have ever imagined how Where I lived, on the top of West milking and the cow stepped right on my W getting up at six-thirty, eating Mountain, out of Corinth, there was a little bare foot. Well, as Dad knew, cows won’t dinner at eleven-thirty in the morning and community consisting of my parents’ home pick up their feet, and he had to scrape the supper at four-thirty, and having “lunch” on one side, my grandmother’s house right cow’s hoof off the top of my foot, hide before bed would shape my entire life! across the road through the field, and down and all. I think I wore my shoes in the cow As I was growing up, I was taught that over the bank was my Uncle Henry La Pier barn from then on. work never hurt anybody—thus the reason and Aunt Jimmy. I made a well-used path We always had chickens and lots of eggs. for getting up early every morning. When between these three homesteads. We also When the day came to kill the chickens, it my father worked, everybody worked. My had some great neighbors who held box was a family affair that everyone worked at. dad, Rube La Pier, used to say, “You can’t parties—square dances in their kitchens— Most things around my house everybody get nothin’ done laying in bed all day.” I tried and kept a pretty close eye on what I was worked at together. Grandma always said, that approach with my own children but it doing, just in case they thought it necessary “Many hands make light work.” My family just didn’t seem to have the same meaning. to call Mom and let her know what I was saw to it that I learned the whole job, not I attended a small school, where early on up to. just one part of it. If it became necessary, I I was thought a little “different.” I was the We were very self-sufficient when I was a would still be able to cut the head off a only girl who wore flannel-lined pants under child. My father was a farmer at heart even chicken, scald it in buckets of hot water, her skirt, and the other kids didn’t know that though he had a full-time job at the singe the pin feathers off, clean it, and cut it was my chore, before school, to go to the International Paper company. We raised and it up. We could do about twenty-five hens hen house and gather the eggs. Those hens butchered pigs. I still hate that sound of a in a day. But please don’t close the would lay even when it was freezing cold squealing pig. Have you ever wondered how supermarkets. outside. My grandmother was Mrs. Viola White La Pier. We were, as she would say, “tight as bark to a tree.” I loved every minute of every day that I was with her. Grandma would cut wool triangles and I would string them into long strings. Later on she taught me how to put them all together in a quilt. She taught me that berrying is serious business. You put the berry pail on your belt—that way, you have two hands free to pick with. Now make sure the dew has dried before going out. Grandma wore pants on this occasion—right up over the dress, apron and all. The running berries were just as important as the high-bushed ones to pick: that’s why God made you so close to the ground. Grandma was under five feet Ruby Marcotte teaches her granddaughter Jennifer about quilting by showing her the tall; I beat her by two inches. details in a quilt made by Ruby’s grandmother. Photo: Laura Chessin

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 39 I used to spend a lot of time with Aunt he said—she took a course and went on to Roette. She has a good head on her Jimmy and Uncle Henry, who owned their make a beautiful dry sink, a china cabinet, shoulders and is raising a family of girls and own sawmill. Grandma and I spent a lot of and jelly cupboard, and hundreds of other isn’t afraid to think for herself and take risks time in the lumber camp. I remember when wooden items. It was inspiring to see her as need be. I have already taught my oldest she was “helping” into camp and a stick venture out into what was considered a granddaughter how to quilt on my treadle came right up and hit her in the forehead, man’s world. During World War II both my machine. And I have four more to pass along requiring several stitches. She was over mother and my grandmother worked in the knowledge to. The best that I could ever seventy. My uncle never could figure out paper mill. The men had gone off to war hope for is that they love me as much as I how she got such a clean gash from a gnarly so the mill needed women. Suddenly it loved and cherished my grandmother. stick when it resembled the bit of an axe so wasn’t important that it was “man’s work.”
much. Alongside my aunt I could use a I am proud that photographs of A slightly different version of this peavey, take tailings from the saw, and once Grandma appear on the Adirondack reminiscence was published in Adirondack in a while have the fun of riding out into Women poster and booklet. You can see a Women Then and Now, October 24, 1998, by the lumberyard on the trolley. My Aunt picture of my mom, Frances, riding the Black Crow Network.

Jimmy had a cleft palate, and sometimes I mowing machine and makin’ a load of hay Ruby LaPier just had to listen a little harder. She taught on a horse-drawn wagon. The picture of Marcotte is historian me the meaning of humor. I could always my Aunt Jimmy is her shoveling off the ice for the Town of Day and assistant count on her to have wrapped, someplace before my Dad and Uncle Hank cut it for director of the Black in my presents, tubes that jumped out at me. delivery to the nearby lumber camps. Crow Network, which supports I always got the same crystal glass that I have been truly blessed by the women regional folk culture leaked. I played along: no sense in hurting in my family, and I have tried to pass along in the Mohawk- Champlain corridor her feelings and spoiling her fun. some of their teachings to my daughter and eastern Adirondacks. I think all of us La Pier women have had our turn on the mowing machine and the hay rake. Dad always said I was good at making the load. I think it was just because he started me so little that I couldn’t reach the top of the wagon with my pitchfork. We are still using the same mowing machine and hay rake today. The only difference is we now use Dad’s ’47 Willys instead of horses. I think gas is cheaper than feeding a OOLDLD SONGSONGSS horse, and it’s a whole lot less work. While Dad was teaching me life skills (you FESTIVFESTIVALAL never know when you might need to change an engine in a ’47 Willys), my Mom was showing me about independence. Mom June 27, 28 & 29 • Altamont Fairgrounds worked hard on the farm, doing chores, and Altamont, NY - 10 miles west of Albany she also worked at the school cafeteria for ACOUSTIC MUSIC • PARTICIPATORY DANCING & SINGING twenty-five years. I watched her go from CAMPING • FAMILY ACTIVITIES • CRAFTS • FOOD being a bread-and-butter girl to cafeteria 2003 PERFORMERS manager. She liked her job and it showed. FAIRPORT CONVENTION • JOHN McCUTCHEON • MAGPIE • ARROGANT WORMS She raised her family, took care of the house, LE VENT DU NORD • SCOTT AINSLIE • MIKE SEEGER • OLD NEW ENGLAND but also managed to be independent. She FOOTWORKS • CATHY BARTON & DAVE PARA • LITTLE JOHNNY ENGLAND MUSIC FROM CHINA • THE AMIDONS • CHRIS SHAW & BRIDGET BALL • MAGNOLIA loved to travel and didn’t think twice about GEORGE WILSON • BRIAN McNAMARA • TALES & SCALES • STEVE TILSTON chaperoning a group of high schoolers to FOURTOLD • ROGER THE JESTER • GROOVEMAMA • & many more! England, flying to Germany to see a new CALL/WRITE FOR FREE BROCHURE: granddaughter, or traveling snowy roads to Old Songs, Inc. PO Box 399, Guilderland, NY 12084 attend the cafeteria meeting fifty miles away. (518)765-2815 Email: [email protected] At retirement age, much to my father’s VISIT OUR WEB SITE: dismay—“Women don’t do woodworking,” www.oldsongs.org

40 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore ARCHIVAL QUESTIONS I’ve Got a Scanner—Now What? BY NANCY JOHNSON It seems like just about everyone has a Quality. Test the scanner to find out that must be held only temporarily and scanner these days, and those who don’t, whether it is adequate for your project. Is throw away the originals, thus reclaiming want one. Scanners are wonderful tools, pro- the glass large enough to accommodate the valuable storage space. But in most instanc- ducing digitized images of just about any- items you want to scan? Can your materials es, the cost involved in scanning and the thing with relative ease. When there is a be placed directly on the glass, or must they technology needed for managing and re- scanner in an archives, there is a real temp- be scanned from above because they are trieving images make this an idea that is just tation—even a compulsion—to use it. But fragile or bound? Does the scanner provide not worth it. If storage facilities are tight, for what? adequate resolution for your project? off-site storage would probably make more When an image is scanned, it is convert- Copyright. Digitizing is a form of copy- sense. ed into an array of dots, or pixels. Each dot ing, and issues of copyright need to be ad- For creating a completely digital collection. For can be black, white, a shade of gray, or a dressed. Especially if images are to be “pub- most applications, there is no need to digi- color. The resolution of the image is mea- lished” on the Internet, care must be taken tize everything. A careful selection of im- sured by the number of dots used to recre- to ensure that you have written permission ages can enhance a website and lead inter- ate it, which is commonly measured as DPI to use anything not in the public domain ested people to the repository itself. (dots per inch) or PPI (pixels per inch). and that credits are correct. Generally speaking, the lower the resolution, The Big Picture the smaller the image file, the lower the DPI, Why Scan? Before starting any digitizing project, es- and especially for photographs, the less ac- For Web access. Making images available on pecially one that will involve many images, curately the original is reproduced. a website is the most obvious—and one of plan carefully how the project will proceed, Remember that a page of scanned text the best—uses for scanned images. how it will be funded, who will do the work, functions like an image. Unless it is pro- For high-demand images. Most archives have and what kind of expertise is necessary to cessed further with an OCR (optical char- collections that are in high demand, and achieve success. acter recognition) program, scanned words those that are requested most frequently are The Northeast Document Center offers cannot be searched or altered. good candidates for digitization. A collec- a good three-day course, “School for Scan- When you’re thinking about the uses of tion of popular photographs could be ning,” that focuses on the essential issues scanning, and particularly when planning scanned onto a compact disk and made involved in planning and managing a digiti- large digitizing projects, it is important to available to researchers on site, or copied zation project. For more information, visit really think the project through. and mailed to researchers who are not able the center’s website (www.nedcc.org) or to visit a repository in person. write or telephone the center at 100 Brick- Issues to Consider For fragile photo albums and scrapbooks. There stone Square, Andover, MA 01810-1494, Technology. Once a digital copy has been is no need to scan an album of photographs (978) 470-1010. The Northeast Document created, it can be accessed only via a com- when it is just as easy to take the album from Center also has a very useful Handbook for puter. This involves a certain technical ex- the shelf and turn the pages. However, if Digital Projects: A Management Tool for Preser- pertise on the part of the user and, most these photographs are fragile, scanning the vation and Access, available on line through importantly, requires that the technology album pages could be a great idea. When their website, and for purchase in hardcov- (software and hardware) be kept current. albums must be dismantled for preserva- er. Thus the costs of digitizing continue even tion purposes (because of acidic pages, for after the scanning work is done. example), the original arrangement of the Nancy Johnson is Managing the images. Scanning is the easy album pages can be preserved digitally. a freelance part; finding and organizing what you have archivist and a scanned is more difficult. Each scanned Why Not to Scan member of the New York Folklore image becomes a separate computer file. For permanence. For valuable, permanent Society Board of Metadata —information about the imag- records there is still nothing like paper. It Directors. She has es—must be created separately and linked takes no training to open a folder and read worked with the society on its to the image files so that they can be identi- the minutes of a meeting or browse through archives project, fied, interrelated, and found by those who a box of photographs. There is no technol- as well as with the need them. ogy that must be upgraded. There is no Center for Traditional Music and Dance, City Lore, Expense. Scanners are no longer prohibitive- worry about system crashes. Keep the pa- the Calandra Italian American Institute, ly expensive. The biggest expenses are the in- per. There’s nothing like the real thing. and the Association for Cultural Equity/ tensive labor involved in the scanning itself For short-term storage. At first glance, it Alan Lomax Archives. and in creating the metadata for the images. might seem like a good idea to scan records

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 41 Remembering Sean Killeen To continue to BY JOHN SUTER receive Voices Sean Killeen, founder of the Lead Belly mersed in research and writing about Lead Society and a friend of the New York Folk- Belly, corresponding with people all over and enjoy the lore Society, died on the morning of Feb- the world, and in subsequent years he is- full range of ruary 8 in a Nashville hotel; he was to ad- sued previously unreleased recordings of dress the Folk Alliance annual conference Lead Belly’s music. New York Folklore in Nashville later that day. When he was in Sean lead a rich and committed life. A OBITUARIES college, Sean (pronounced Shane) had seen stint in the Peace Corps in Turkey in the Society programs, Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter in concert, 1960s launched his engagement with inter- become a member! and from that beginning his interest in Lead national relations, which included a decade Belly’s music and his life grew to become a as director of Cornell University’s Einaudi passionate commitment. Center for International Studies. He spent See inside back cover for A long-time resident of Ithaca, Sean much of the past six years serving as a vol- more information began publishing the quarterly Lead Belly unteer election supervisor and monitor for Letter around 1990, about the time I be- the United Nations in the Balkans and the came director of the New York Folklore former republics of the Soviet Union. He Society. He would drop by the NYFS of- was also active in many community organi- fice from time to time to talk about Lead zations and served for seven years on the Belly, the society, or local and internation- Ithaca Common Council. But whenever we al politics. We helped him get the word out met, whatever the initial topic, Sean always about his newsletter and distributed it at brought the conversation around to Lead NYFS events. He was continually im- Belly.

Ora Kirkland: African American Quilter

modern styles, among them “The MusAfri- Ora Kirkland learned to quilt from her ca Quilt,” which profiles several African mother Julia and her grandmother Harri- American musicians. “The Impeachment,” ett. Her grandmother worked with big rect- which reflects her high regard for President angles and irregular pieces from whatever Clinton and her anger at the 1999 impeach- was available, often men’s pants or fabric ment proceedings, and “Akilah’s Quilt” in- samples. Door-to-door clothing salesmen of corporate traditional patterns. the time—Ora was born in Orlando in Ora’s quilts have been exhibited in Long 1918—would give Harriett remnants of dis- Island museums, libraries, churches, and continued fabrics, and consequently, her quilt competitions. She was active in the quilts seldom had much color. Ora and her Long Island Quilters Society and the Long mother, a domestic worker, also got fabric Island Embroiderers Guild of America. She from stores and flea markets and would mix was also an adviser to the Long Island Black it with scraps from the clothes they made. Crafters Guild. After earning a bachelor’s degree in so- Ora Kirkland in 1993. Photo: Nancy Ora passed away on March 24, 2003. cial work, Ora moved to New York City, Solomon where she worked until her retirement in 1981. She moved to Hempstead, Long Is- retired, she took up quilting again. In a break land, in 1976. During her adult years work- with the tradition she had learned from her place demands and the needs of her family mother and grandmother, she used a sew- took precedence over quilting, but after she ing machine and created some quilts in

42 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore ANNOUNCEMENTS Announcements

Day of Freedom in Saratoga Springs. For information, contact 8949, [email protected]; www.iroquois * July 19, 11 A.M.–3 P.M., Urban Heritage Renee Moore, director of Solomon Northup museum.org. Park Visitor Center, Corner of Congress Day, [email protected], 518 587-8978. and Broadway, Saratoga Springs: Solomon Old-Time Oneonta Northup Day—A Celebration of Freedom. Heritage in Hartford * June 17, 5–7 P.M.: The Upper Catskill Presentations, storytelling for children, art * July 10 through September 12: The Community Council of the Arts will present exhibits, poetry, and music —classical gui- Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program Tales of the Sixth Ward: Stories of Family tar, gospel, and jazz—will mark this year’s at the Institute for Community Research in and Community Life, by Oneonta residents celebration of Solomon Northup. Born a Hartford will host the exhibit ¡Que Bonita who grew up in the city’s most distinctive free man in Minerva in July 1808, Northup Bandera!: The Puerto Rican Flag in Folk Art. neighborhood. Folklorist Dale Johnson will worked on the Champlain Canal as a car- Developed by City Lore, the exhibit shows facilitate, and Italian honey cakes will be penter. He was also an inventor and violin- the love Puerto Ricans hold for their flag as served. ist, and while in Saratoga Springs, he was depicted in images, objects, and music. * June 28, 1–3 P.M.: The Upper Catskill kidnapped. After being held in a slave pen * September 27: The Institute for Com- Community Council of the Arts will present in Washington, he was sold into slavery in munity Research and the música jibara group Folk Arts of the Headwaters, a celebration Louisiana. Citizens of Saratoga and sur- Amor y Cultura present a Concurso de Tro- of the traditional arts in the Upper Susque- rounding areas arranged for Northrup’s re- vadores and concert at St. Anne’s Church, hanna region, with music from an old-time lease and return to Saratoga. In 1853, he Park Street, Hartford. Singers from New family band, Ceili dancing, stone carving, fly published his autobiography, Twelve Years a England, New York, and New Jersey are tying, hands-on-quilting demonstration, Slave, about his ordeal. Although Northup invited to compete in the contest to com- stringed instrument making, hand-clap sought to bring his captors to trial, they were pose an extemporaneus décima. Judges will be games, and a jump-rope demonstration. Vis- never prosecuted, and he himself mysteri- well-known trovadores from Puerto Rico. The itors can also view a visual arts exhibition on ously disappeared. No burial site has been contest will be followed by a concert by the the Susquehanna in the Kubiak Gallery. identified, and it is not known whether he judges and the winners. Both events will take place at the Wilber was recaptured or killed or died of natural For information, call Lynne Williamson Mansion, 11 Ford Ave., Oneonta; 607 432- causes. at 860 278-2044, extension 251. 2070. In 2003, the city council approved Solomon Northup Day to take place on the third Satur- North Country Events Emerging Traditions day in July. The annual event in his honor is * June 7 through summer: Paintings by A series of programs at the Schwein- the first celebration of an African American Keeseville artist Emmett Pine will be on furth Memorial Art Center in Auburn is display this summer at Traditional Arts in highlighting traditional artists from refu- Upstate New York (TAUNY), 2 West Main gee groups living in central New York. The St., Canton. Pine has been called a North programs are free and are funded by the Country historian with paint and brush. New York State Council on the Arts and * Sunday, September 21: TAUNY pre- the New York Council for the Humani- sents its Eleventh Salute to North Country ties. For directions to the Schweinfurth, call Legends at the Best Western in Canton, 315 255-1553. starting at 2 P.M. * August 17: A performance by the For information, contact Jill Breit, Sudanese DiDinga and Dinka male youth [email protected]. will be presented along with a talk by their elders on. Iroquois Festival * October 19: Folk musicians from Bos- * August 30–September 1: Iroquois art- nia and Kosovo will perform, and Vesna Sin ists, singers, dancers, and storytellers attract will demonstrate traditional lace-making. Victoria Northrup Linzy Dunham, thousands to this annual event, at the Iro- This program is part of the 2003 State Northrup family matriarch, with historical quois Indian Museum at 324 Caverns Rd., Humanities Month, a celebration sponsored marker, which stands at Broadway and Congress Street in Saratoga Springs. Howes Cave. For information, contact each October by the New York Council for Photo: Renee Moore Erynne Ansel, museum director, 518 296- the Humanities.

Spring Summer 2003, Volume 29: 1–2 43 Metro-Area Merengue Long Island Traditions is presenting a se- Submission Guidelines for ries of concerts and workshops on Domini- Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore can perico ripiao (traditional accordion-based Style merengue music) with the support of the New Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore is a membership magazine of the New York The journal follows The Chicago Manual of Style. Con- sult Webster’s Third International Dictionary for York State Council on the Arts and the co- Folklore Society (www.nyfolklore.org). questions of spelling, meaning, and usage, and avoid The New York Folklore Society is a nonprofit, operation of the Brooklyn Arts Council and gender-specific terminology. statewide organization dedicated to furthering cul- Footnotes. Endnotes and footnotes should be the Queens Council on the Arts. Each work- tural equity and cross-cultural understanding avoided; incorporate such information into the text. through programs that nurture folk cultural expres- shop will allow for discussion with two mu- Ancillary information may be submitted as a sidebar. sions within communities where they originate, share sicians, and each concert will feature two Bibliographic citations. For citations of text these traditions across cultural boundaries, and en- from outside sources, use the author-date style de- groups, at least one local to the area. hance the understanding and appreciation of folk scribed in The Chicago Manual of Style. culture. Through Voices the society communicates * Friday, May 30, 5 P.M., Queens Central Language. All material must be submitted in with professional folklorists and members of re- English. Foreign-language terms (transliterated, Library, 144 89-11 Merrick Boulevard, Ja- lated fields, traditional artists, and a general public where appropriate, into the Roman alphabet) should interested in folklore. maica, Queens: Workshop with Berto Reyes be italicized and followed by a concise parenthetical Voices is dedicated to publishing the content of English gloss; the author bears responsibility for the (accordion player and builder), Pinto Güira folklore in the words and images of its creators and correct spelling and orth-ographics of non-English practitioners. The journal publishes research-based (güira player and maker), and Domingo words. British spellings should be Americanized. articles, written in an accessible style, on topics re- “Flaco” Peña (tambora player). lated to traditional art and life. It also features stories, Publication Process * Saturday, May 31, 7 P.M., Langston interviews, reminiscences, essays, folk poetry and music, photographs, and artwork drawn from people The New York Folklore Society holds copyright to Hughes Center, 100-01 Northern Boule- in all parts of New York State. Columns on sub- all material published in Voices: The Journal of New vard, Corona, Queens: Concert featuring jects such as photography, sound and video York Folklore. With the submission of material to recording, legal and ethical issues, and the nature the editor, the author acknowledges that he or she Berto Reyes y su Conjunto Típico and Lid- of traditional art and life appear in each issue. gives Voices sole rights to its publication, and that ia de la Rosa. permission to publish it elsewhere must be secured Editorial Policy in writing from the editor. Although the editor wel- * Wednesday, June 4, 7 P.M., Freeport Feature articles. Articles published in Voices rep- comes inquiries via electronic mail, please use regular Memorial Library, 144 W. Merrick Road, resent original contributions to folklore studies. mail to submit manuscripts. For the initial submission, send three paper cop- Freeport, Long Island: Workshop with Luis Although Voices emphasizes the folklore of New York State, the editor welcomes articles based on ies and a PC-formatted disk (preferably prepared in Cordero and Rafaelito Polanco. the folklore of any area of the world. Articles on Microsoft Word and saved as Rich Text Format). the theory, methodology, and geography of folk- Copy must be typed double spaced, on one side * Sunday, June 8, 2 P.M., Freeport Recre- lore are also welcome, as are purely descriptive of a sheet only, with all pages numbered consecu- ation Center, 130 E. Merrick Road, Free- articles in the ethnography of folklore. In addition, tively. To facilitate anonymous review of feature articles, the author’s name and biography should port, Long Island: Concert featuring Luis Voices provides a home for “orphan” tales, narra- tives, and songs, whose contributors are urged to appear only on a separate title page. Cordero y Sus Amigos del Amargue and provide contextual information. Tables, charts, maps, illustrations, photographs, cap- tions, and credits should follow the main text and be Rafaelito Polanco. Authors are encouraged to include short personal reminiscences, anecdotes, isolated tales, narratives, numbered consecutively. All illustrations should be * Thursday, July 10, 4 P.M., Brooklyn Cen- songs, and other material that relates to and en- clean, sharp, and camera-ready. Photographs should be prints or duplicate slides (not originals). Written tral Library, Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn: hances their main article. Total length, including citations, should not ex- permission to publish each image must be obtained Workshop with Lidia de la Rosa (accordi- ceed 4,000 words. by authors from the copyright holders prior to sub- onist) and Ray “Chino” Diaz (tambora and Reviews and review essays. Books, recordings, mission of manuscripts, and the written permissions films, videos, exhibitions, concerts, and the like are must accompany the manuscript (authors should keep güira player). selected for review in Voices for their relevance to copies). * Saturday, July 12, noon, Brooklyn Cen- folklore studies or the folklore of New York State Materials are acknowledged upon receipt. The and their potential interest to a wide audience. Per- editor and two anonymous readers review manu- tral Library, Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn: sons wishing to review recently published material scripts submitted as articles. The review process Concert featuring La Sorpresa Típica and should contact the editor. Unsolicited reviews and takes several months. proposals for reviews will be evaluated by the edi- Deadlines permitting, authors read and correct Lidia de la Rosa. tor and by outside referees where appropriate. galley proofs for typographical errors. Authors re- All events are free. For updated informa- Follow the bibliographic style in a current issue of ceive two complimentary copies of the issue in Voices. which their contribution appears and may purchase tion, visit www.longislandtraditions.org or Reviews should not exceed 750 words. additional copies at a discount. Authors of feature call 516 767-8803. Correspondence and commentary. Short but articles may purchase offprints; price information substantive reactions to or elaborations upon ma- is available upon publication. terial appearing in Voices within the previous year Irish Traditions are welcomed. The editor may invite the author of Submission Deadlines A recent issue of Treoir Magazine (2003: the materials being addressed to respond; both Spring–Summer December 31 pieces may be published together. Any subject may Fall–Winter issue June 30 1), published by Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eire- be addressed or rebutted once by any correspon- ann for worldwide distribution, contains a dent. The principal criteria for publication are Manuscripts should be sent by regular mail (not e- whether, in the opinion of the editor or the edito- mail) to Voices at the following address: five-page article on traditional Irish music rial board, the comment constitutes a substantive archives by Ted McGraw, Rochester, who contribution to folklore studies, and whether it will New York Folklore Society Publications interest our general readers. 133 Jay Street chairs the Comhaltas North American Ar- Letters should not exceed 500 words. Schenectady, NY 12301. chive Committee.

44 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Join the New York Folklore Society today and become a subscriber to Voices

Join NYFS and become part of a community A Public Voice that will deepen your involvement with The NYFS raises awareness of folklore among † folklore, folklife, the traditional arts, and the general public through three important Yes, I want to join the New York contemporary culture. As a member, you’ll channels... Folklore Society. have early notice of key events... Print. Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore, Name______Fall Conference. People travel from all over published twice a year, brings you folklore in the to meet in a different part of the state each words and images of its creators and practitioners. Organization ______year for the NYFS Fall Conference and The journal’s new look distinguishes it from other Address ______Annual Meeting. Professionals in folklore and publications in the field. 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If organizations in the allied fields of archives, you’re a traditional artist, you know the history, and libraries. importance of business, management, and 2002 2003 Membership dues $______$______marketing skills to your success in the So Join! marketplace. NYFS can help you with Become part of a community that explores and Tax-deductible workshops, mentoring, and publications. nurtures the traditional cultures of New York donation $______$______Folk Archives Project. What could be more State and beyond. Membership in the New York critical than finding a repository for an Folklore Society entitles you to the following Total enclosed $______$______important collection? The NYFS is a leader benefits: in the preservation of our cultural heritage. • A subscription to Voices: The Journal of New The amount of memberships greater than $20 and all donations are Attend our workshops and order copies of York Folklore. tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. NYFS books at a discount. • Invitations to conferences, workshops, and meetings. Make your check payable to New York Folklore Consulting and referral. The NYFS offers • Updates on technical assistance programs. Society and send it with this form to: informal counseling and referral services to • Opportunities to meet others who share your New York Folklore Society the members in the field. Contact us by interests. P.O. Box 764 , Schenectady, NY 12301 telephone, e-mail, or letter. • Discounts on NYFS books. Publications. Members receive discounts Plus the satisfaction of knowing that you support on all NYFS publications. Visit the only organization devoted to folklore across www.nyfolklore.org for current titles. New York State. ANNOUNCING The Annual Conference of the New York Folklore Society October 24-26, 2003 Sacket's Harbor, New York

“Common Places, Uncommon Stories: Cultural Landmarking and Cultural Conservation in Upstate New York Communities”

A joint collaboration with the New York Folklore Society and Traditional Arts of Upstate New York

Official conference hotel is Ontario Place Hotel, Sacket's Harbor

For further information, visit the New York Folklore Society's website www.nyfolklore.org or call the society at (518) 346-7008

Nonprofit Org. US Postage PAID

P.O. Box 764, Schenectady, NY 12301 Schenectady, NY 518 346-7008 • www.nyfolklore.org Permit No.62