North Carolina Folklore

North c~ 1~)::-:~ Stute Library p Raleigh, VOLUME XI DECEMBER 1963 NUMBER 2 NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE ARTHUR PALMER HUDSON ' • Editor . ~ FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY '~~ A HISTORY OF THE NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE SOCIEiY, t T, Barry Suermann ,._..... A Pub I icatian of THE NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE SOCIETY and THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE COUNCIL Chapel Hill NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE Every reader is invited to submit items or manuscripts for publication, preferably of the length of those in this issue. Subscriptions, other business communications, and contributions should be sent to Arthur Palmer Hudson Editor of North Carolina Folklore The University of North Carolina 710 Greenwood Road Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Annual subscription, $2 for adults, $1 for students (including membership in The North Carolina Folklore Society). Price of this number, $1. THE NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE SOCIETY Earl H. Hartsell, Chapel Hill, President John D. F. Phillips, Raleigh, l Vice President Ruth Jewell1 Raleigh, 2 Vice President A. P. Hudson, Chapel Hill, Secretary-Treasurer The North Carolina Folklore Society was organized in 1913, to encourage the collection, study, and publication of North Carolina Folklore. It is affiliated with the American Folklore Society. THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE COUNCIL Arthur Palmer Hudson, Chapel Hill, Chairman Isaac G. Greer, Chapel Hill, ~ Chairman Manly Wade Wellman1 Chapel Hill, Secretary The Folklore Council was organized in September, 1935, to promote the cooperation and coordination of all those interested in folk lore, and to encourage the collection and preserva tion1 the study and interpretation, and the active perpetuation and dissemination of all phases of folklore. A HISTORY OF THE NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE SOCIETY By T. Barry Buermann Ed itor 's Foreword Th e Golden Jubilee of the North Carolina Folklore Society might a ppropri ate ly ha ve been celebrated in 1962, on the fiftieth anniversary of a meeting, in Raleigh in the fall of 1912, of interested persons to consider plans to form a state folklore society. But the actual formation of the Society -- the adoption of a constitution and bylaws, the election of officers, and the fo rmulation of a program -- did not take place until March, 1913. (A second meeting was held on November 24, 1913.) Hence the decision to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary in 1963. The o ccasion is being celebrated in two main ways. (1) The public program of the fifty second meeting of the Society at 2 P.M., December 6, 1963, includes a paper by Professor Joseph D. Clark, "Fifty Yea rs of the North Ca rolina Folklore Society," and a talk by Dr. W. Amos Abrams, "I Knew Frank C. Brown." (2) A history of the Society is being offered in abbreviated form in the present issue of North Carolina Folklore. The writer of "A History of the North Carolina Folklore Society, " to follow, is Mr. T. Barry Bu t>rm ann, now at the University of Illinois. A native of St. Louis and a graduate of St. Lou is University, Mr. Buermann entered the Graduate School of the University of North Carolina as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in English in the fall of 1960. His primary interest came to be medieval English language and literature, and he did excellent work in all of his courses, including one in British and American ballads and folksongs taught by me. When he asked me to direct him in a folklore project, I suggested that he prepare an index to the journal North Carolina Folklore. Mr. Buermann did so, and I published "An Analytical Index to Nort'h° Carolina Folklore, Vols. 1-8" in North Carolina Folklore, IX, 3 (December 1961), 1-59. He then decided to prepare, also under my direction, a history of the Society, and set about that t ask. While he was engaged in this, a University of North Carolina specialist in the field of his major interest accepted an offer from the University of Illinois, and Mr. Buermann followed him to that institution. Mr. Buermann decided to complete the history project. He has done so. "A History of the North Carolina Folklore Society," which follows, as a whole consists of a narrative in four chapters , with full do cumentation and bibliography; an appendix A, comprising a consolidated I ist of members of the Society, 1913- 1963; and an appendix B, com posed of a bibliography of folkloristic writings by members of the Society. The "Analytical Index," referred to above, may be regarded as a sort of third appendix. I deeply regret that the financial condition of the Society makes it impractical to publish more than the narrative text of th is "History, " without comp Iete footnotes and bib I iography and without the appendices mentioned above. The omitted portions may be found in copies of "A History of the North Carolina Folklore Society," by T. Barry Buermann, deposited in the Library of the University of North Carolina. Newman I. White's "General Introduction" to The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, I (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1952), 12-28, may be consulted for further information. A. P. H. CHAPTER THE BEGINNINGS Fifty years ago, during the early months of 1913, the fol lowing nati ce arrived in the homes of many North Carolina citizens: The Committee an Organization of the NORTH CAROLINA FOLK-LORE SOCIETY urgently requests you to become a charter member by sending in your name before tv'iarch 20. Eighty-five interested persons responded to that cal I, and in the spring, on Easter M:mday, March 24, 1913, the first of many annual meetings was held in no less important a place than the Senate chamber of the North Carolina General Assembly at Raleigh. This meeting formally established the North Carolina Folklore Society, ond approximately sixty people were present to adopt the society's constitution. The seed for this society, which bloomed so enthusiastically on that spring tv'ianday, was actually planted in the previous fol I. Frank C. Brown, acting on the request of John A. Lomax, President of the American Folklore Society, undertook in North Carolina to organize a folklore group that was to be a branch of the American Folklore Society. He asked forty professors in the colleges of the state to attend a meeting in Raleigh on December 4, 1912, to consider possible plans with that aim. Practically all the colleges of the state were represented by members of their faculties, or by letters expressing the writers' desire to cooperate in the plan. Those attending this pre I im inary meeting were eager, and they planned the first annual meeting for the spring. They also appointed Professors Frank C. Brown, Tom Peete Cross, and James F. Royster as a committee to solicit members, to write the constitution and bylaws, and to plan a program for the first meeting. Supporting Frank C. Brown in his project were several folklorists from the American Folk lore Society, whose membership was almost not at all connected geographically with the Tar Hee l State. In the years 1911-1913, the only North Carolinian who was a member of the Am e rican Folkl ore Society was Mrs. J.B. Havre, from High Point, North Carolina. Surprisingly enough, however, Mrs. Havre did not become a member of the North Carolina branch when it formed. The American Folklore Society was at this time experiencing financial and membership needs similar to those with which the North Carolina Folklore Society has itself been ac quainted from time to time. In 1912 the editor of the national society, Franz Boas, advocated a stronger effort to increase membership in order to finance a larger journal. He also pointed out th e need to obtain material on Negro folklore. These two considerations probably prompted President Lomax to instigate an organization of folklorists in North Carolina. He himself, three years earlier, had recognized these same needs in his home state of Texes and had organ ized the Texas branch of the American Folklore Society, with a membership of sixty-six per sons. The interest of the America n Folklore Society in this North Carolina branch is evident also from the plans of its vice-pres ident, G eorge Lyman K'ittredge, one of the most distinguished scholars in America, to deliver an address on folklore at the first meeting of the North Carolina Folkl ore Soc iety . Unfortunate ly and unavoidably, he was not able to reach the meeting in time. With reciprocal interest, Art icle IX of the new constitution stated that one of the obli ga t ions of the Ca rol ina members was to see that the Journa l of American Folklore had "as wide c irculation in the State as poss ible ." Th ese c lose ties with a fo lkl ore sociel'y whose members were predominantly from the Boston and Cambridge areas of tv\assachus etts did not prevent the c itizens of North Carol ina from recognizing the worth a nd importance of their own state heritage. Notabl e people from a ll a reas of I ife im mediate ly perceived the benefi ts of preserv ing No rth Caro lina fo lklore with which many of them had grown up . Th ose v..ho became c harter mt'mbers naturall ~ inc lu ded mast af those fo rty college profes sors who 0rgani;:ed the fi1st meeting 0f the No,th Carolina Folklore Society . Among these e ducators and others\, ho also became charte r mem bers were many disting uished persons . Robert D. \\. Connor \,as an outstanding fi gure in North Carolina historiography and his torical activities .

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