folk nation: folklore in the creation of american traditionby simon j. bronner

3
Folk Nation: Folklore in the Creation of American Tradition by Simon J. Bronner Review by: J. V. Powell Folklore, Vol. 116, No. 1 (Apr., 2005), pp. 102-103 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30035246 . Accessed: 15/06/2014 22:03 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Folklore Enterprises, Ltd. and Taylor & Francis, Ltd. are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Folklore. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 91.229.248.111 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 22:03:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Upload: review-by-j-v-powell

Post on 20-Jan-2017

218 views

Category:

Documents


6 download

TRANSCRIPT

Folk Nation: Folklore in the Creation of American Tradition by Simon J. BronnerReview by: J. V. PowellFolklore, Vol. 116, No. 1 (Apr., 2005), pp. 102-103Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30035246 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 22:03

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Folklore Enterprises, Ltd. and Taylor & Francis, Ltd. are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve andextend access to Folklore.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.111 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 22:03:53 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

102 Book Reviews

Encyclopedia of Folk Medicine: Old World and New World Traditions. By Gabrielle Hatfield. Santa Barbara, Calif., Denver, Col. and Oxford: ABC-Clio, 2004. 392 pp. Illus. e56.95 (hbk). ISBN 1-57607-874-4

This very readable book analyses the traditions of British and North American folk medicine, considering how folk remedies cut across a number of disciplines from botany and anthropology to religious studies and pharmaceutical science. As the author says in her Introduction, folk medicine "should be regarded as the origin of all types of medical practice. It predates any form of official medicine and includes self-treatment as well as treatment by community healers."

Folk medicine, largely based on oral traditions, has always presented considerable complexity and, as the author says, rarely can a particular remedy be traced back to one healing tradition. "For every folk remedy that we have today on record, there are many that have been forgotten, as the chain of oral tradition has been snapped." There has always been the problem that folk medicine has been tarred with a strong element of misunderstanding and a taste for bizarre remedies. This book, however, brings a welcome note of sanity by focusing on the recorded folk remedies and the community approach to healing.

The book is somewhat let down by its illustrations, which are meagre in number and both grey and fuzzy. On the other hand, this is a thorough and well-researched work with easy access via the ailment to be treated and the agent used, plus numerous cross- references. All entries have bibliographies, often extensive.

This work will be a valuable addition for those interested in the origins of folk medicine and in the remedies used.

Susan Drury, The Folklore Society

Folk Nation: Folklore in the Creation of American Tradition. Edited by Simon J. Bronner. American Visions Series No. 6. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 2002. 283 pp. $19.95 (pbk). ISBN 0-8420-2892-7

Now this is useful! Here is a text with a seventy-page introductory essay on the origin of the American tradition and seventeen articles documenting how Americans used folklore to shape different aspects of their national identity. This is not just for folklorists. It is a socio-politico-psycho-economic history of how the American tradition developed during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Graphic but readable, the articles chronicle how American thinkers and leaders tactically defined America in terms of its legends, rituals and beliefs. They used Davy Crockett and Pecos Bill, and cowboys and immigrants, and, yes, even quilts as symbols. As Bronner describes it, "Disputes raged throughout the [period] over how traditions characterizing America were portrayed. Whether dubbed multicultural and transna- tional or conflicted and connected, the culture that arose in this country appeared to grow from the fertile soil of folklore."

There is probably nothing new that we can say about Simon Bronner. He has been Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Folklore at Pennsylvania State University since 1981 and has published over two hundred books and essays. He is passionate about "folk cultural inquiry" (his term) and has a talent for putting it all together and describing things readably. I suspect this book emerged from the readings that he put together for a seminar-a course I would like to have taken.

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.111 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 22:03:53 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Book Reviews 103

The articles in this collection start, appropriately enough, with William Newell's case for the organisation of the American Folklore Society in 1888. There are essays, quotes and excerpts from social critics such as Mary Austin, Constance Rourke, Benjamin Botkin, James Stevens and Richard Dorson. Although the titles of the articles have much in common, there is very little overlap in content. And, even though more than one-half of the articles were written over fifty years ago, they almost never read like old news. These are provocative arguments, made, for the most part, in lively prose. It is probably worthwhile simply to include a list of the contents, some of which are well known:

* Part I In Search of American Tradition (with suggestions for further reading), Simon J. Bronner

* Part II 1. The Field of American Folklore (1888-9), William Wells Newell 2. The Black Folklore Movement at Hampton Institute (1893-4), Alice Mabel Bacon 3. Quilts as Emblems of Women's Tradition (1894), Fanny D. Bergen 4. American Folk Song (1915), John A. Lomax 5. "American" Folklore (1930), Alexander Haggerty Krappe 6. American Folklore (1949), Benjamin A. Botkin 7. The Folk Idea in American Life (1930), Ruth Suckow 8. Folk Art: Its Place in the American Tradition (1932), Holger Cahill 9. Folk Arts: Immigrant Gifts to American Life (1932), Allen Eaton 10. American Folksongs of Protest (1953), John Greenway 11. Folklore and American Regionalism (1966), Macedward Leach 12. Border Identity: Culture Conflict and Convergence along the Lower Rio Grande

(1978), America Paredes 13. Life Styles and Legends (1971), Richard M. Dorson 14. Another America: Toward a Behavioral History Based on Folkloristics (1982),

Michael Owen Jones 15. American Folklife: A Commonwealth of Cultures (1991), Mary Hufford 16. Folklife in Contemporary Multicultural Society (1990), Richard Kurin 17. Children and Colors: Folk and Popular Cultures in America's Future (1994),

Jay Mechling

J.V. Powell, Emeritus Professor, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Folklore of the Welsh Border. By Jacqueline Simpson. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus, 2003. 224 pp. Map. Motif index. General index. e14.99 (pbk). ISBN 0-7542-2623-0

Folklore of the Welsh Border was originally published in 1976 by B. T. Batsford as part of The Folklore of the British Isles (1973-8), a series edited by Venetia J. Newall. Although most titles in the series covered one or two counties, such as Jacqueline Simpson's own The Folklore of Sussex (1973), individual volumes might discuss a region (Enid Porter's Folklore of East Anglia, 1974) or an entire nation (Sean O'Sullivan's Folklore of Ireland, 1974). The series covered its territory somewhat erratically. Many regions of the British Isles were not covered at all; Folklore of the Welsh Border is the only book in it pertaining to Wales. The Vale of Gloucester, on the other hand, is covered in both this book and Katherine Briggs's The Folklore of the Cotswolds (1974). The series is long out of print, although a few volumes have been reprinted.

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.111 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 22:03:53 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions