Folk Nation: Folklore in the Creation of American Tradition, and: Literary Legacies, Folklore Foundations: Selfhood and Cultural Tradition in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century American Literature (review)

Simon Bronner's Folk Nation: Folklore in the Creation of an American Tradition incorporates seventeen essays that span over a century—from the Gilded Age to the present—by authors whose works engendered key debates on the role of the folk in creating nation-hood. The book begins with a lengthy introduction titled "In Search of the American Tradition," that provides crucial context to situate the articles he has chosen to illustrate or contest the dominant theme. Bronner's exceptional introduction comprises twenty-five per cent of the book and provides an appropriate framework that positions folklore studies and debates within a historical context and surveys the treatment of the subject by folk-and American-studies scholars. His essay is followed by a very useful section suggesting further reading on the role of folklore in the creation of an American tradition. This short chapter is divided into several categories that include a list of major American journals that feature the intellectual history of American folklore studies, pertinent encyclopaedias and dictionaries, sources that provide a general introduction to the subject, and intellectual and cultural histories of the topic.

Bronner juxtaposes pairs of essays from the same period that reflect differing perspectives on how "folklore" should be defined, studied, and interpreted in explicating the formation of an American tradition. Each essay opens with his commentary situating the author's work within a broader context. Far from reflecting a benign traditional past shared by rural communities, folklore—its concepts and purpose—has engendered heated discussion. The essays chosen by Bronner engage in debates on a number of issues, including the query: does America have any ballads (Lomax 1915)? In light of definitions drawn from English and Scottish contexts, the answer is "no." Yet, by describing the "authors" and locales of folksongs, the book expands the formal definitions drawn from European contexts to include songs sung by miners, lumberjacks, sailors and soldiers, field hands, cowboys, and factory workers that illustrate the rich diversity of American lore.

Much of the research on folklore during the Gilded Age was a form of salvage ethnology. William Wells Newell (1889) organized the American Folklore Society in 1888 for the purpose of gathering the "fast-vanishing remains of folk-lore in America." The organization sponsored local chapters in ten American cities and in Montre´al, Quebec.

Not surprisingly, one of the first groups to garner attention was made up of "American Negroes." Alice Mabel Bacon (1893–4), daughter of a white abolitionist, spearheaded the campaign at Hampton Institute to organize folklore study groups. She edited Southern Workman and encouraged African Americans to interpret their own past and future. However, Bacon perceived the collection of their lore as a means to measure their advancement from an undeveloped to a civilized state. Thus Bacon's essay and several others reveal contemporary attitudes, especially in relation to Natives and African Americans as living primitives reflecting lower stages of humanity long surpassed by European Americans.

Two essays focus on women and folklore. Fanny Bergen, in an essay on quilts as "emblems of women's tradition"(1894), suggests that uniquely American quilts are equivalent to European tapestries. Like her contemporaries, who were apologists for the comparative recentness of American works, Bergen repositioned quilts within an art historical framework that typically expunged the local context of creation. During the Renaissance, tapestries were the only textiles that were referred to as "art" because they were designed by artists. All other textiles were perceived as "crafts."

Bergen was trying to elevate the status of quilts. However, in so doing she ignored important differences from tapestries. Quilts are far more intimate expressive forms because they link makers and their families to their local environments and histories...