In this Book

Songquest: The Journals of Great Lakes Folklorist Ivan H. Walton

Book
2018
summary
Ivan H. Walton was a pioneering folklorist who collected the songs and stories of aging sailors living along the shores of the Great Lakes in the 1930s. His collection is unique in the annals of Great Lakes folklore. It began as a search for songs but broadened into a collection of weather signs, shipboard beliefs, greenhorn tales, and stories of the intense rivalry between sailors and the steamboat men who replaced them. Edited by Joe Grimm, Songquest: The Journals of Great Lakes Folklorist Ivan H. Walton is a selection from the daily journals Walton wrote during his travels as a folklore collector. It is clear that Walton, a professor of English at the University of Michigan, both admired the sailors of the Great Lakes for what they had done during their working years and worried about them as they entered the twilight of their lives. Walton went beyond the songs he set out to find and captured the pitch and roll of the Great Lakes alive with white-winged schooners. His writings provide a clear picture of the colorful individuals he met and interviewed-captains, cabin boys, tugmen, chandlers, boardinghouse owners, dredgers, and light keepers. Walton also documented the methods he used and recorded his personal thoughts about his nomadic life and the events going on around him during the 1930s, including the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt's election, and the end of Prohibition.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

pp. i-iii

Copyright

Contents

Preface

pp. vi-xi

Introduction

pp. xii-8

Editor's Note: The Essence of It All

pp. 9-12

Chapter 1: 1932: Lake Michigan

pp. 13-99

Chapter 2: 1933: Southern Lake Huron, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario

pp. 101-174

Chapter 3: 1934: Southern Lake Huron

pp. 177-200

Chapter 4: 1938: Beaver Island, Milwaukee, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario

pp. 203-232

Glossary

pp. 233-235

Bibliography

pp. 236-238

Chronology of Ivan H. Walton's Writing

Index of Names

pp. 240-244

Subject Index

pp. 245-252

Index of Song Titles

pp. 253-255
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