The Negro and His Folklore in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals

Published by University of Texas Press 1967

The Negro and His Folklore in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals

Edited by: Bruce Jackson

In the series American Folklore Society Bibliographical and Special Series

https://doi.org/10.7560/755109

Overview
Contents

About this book

In the eyes of many white Americans, North and South, the Negro did not have a culture until the Emancipation Proclamation. With few exceptions, serious collecting of Negro folklore by whites did not begin until the Civil War—and it was to be another four decades before black Americans would begin to appreciate their own cultural heritage. Few of the earlier writers realized that they had observed and recorded not simply a manifestation of a particular way of life but also a product peculiarly American and specifically Negro, a synthesis of African and American styles and traditions.

The folksongs, speech, beliefs, customs, and tales of the American Negro are discussed in this anthology, originally published in 1967, of thirty-five articles, letters, and reviews from nineteenth-century periodicals. Published between 1838 and 1900 and written by authors who range from ardent abolitionist to dedicated slaveholder, these articles reflect the authors’ knowledge of, and attitudes toward, the Negro and his folklore. From the vast body of material that appeared on this subject during the nineteenth century, editor Bruce Jackson has culled fresh articles that are basic folklore and represent a wide range of material and attitudes. In addition to his introduction to the volume, Jackson has prefaced each article with a commentary. He has also supplied a supplemental bibliography on Negro folklore.

If serious collecting of Negro folklore had begun by the middle of the nineteenth century, so had exploitation of its various aspects, particularly Negro songs. By 1850 minstrelsy was a big business. Although Jackson has considered minstrelsy outside the scope of this collection, he has included several discussions of it to suggest some aspects of its peculiar relation to the traditional. The articles in the anthology—some by such well-known figures as Joel Chandler Harris, George Washington Cable, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, John Mason Brown, and Antonin Dvorak—make fascinating reading for an observer of the American scene. This additional insight into the habits of thought and behavior of a culture in transition—folklore recorded in its own context—cannot but afford the thinking reader further understanding of the turbulent race problems of later times and today.

Author / Editor information

Bruce Jackson is SUNY Distinguished Professor of English and James Agee Professor of American Culture at the University at Buffalo.

Reviews

The thirty-five articles, notes, and reviews reprinted from various journals in this substantial volume provide the materials for an intellectual history of white American attitudes toward Negro folklore.

— Journal of American Folklore

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Introduction Publicly Available Download PDF	xv
1838 The Persimmon Tree and the Beer Dance (Farmers' Register) William B. Smith Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1839 Uncle Sam's Peculiarities. American Niggers.—Hudson River Steam-Boat Dialogues (Bentley's Miscellany) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	10
1845 Who Are Our National Poets? (Knickerbocker Magazine) J. Kinnard Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
1855 Negro Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern (Putnams Monthly) Y. S. Nathanson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	36
1856 Songs of the Blacks (Dwighfs Journal of Music) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
1861 Contraband Singing, by C. W. D. (Dwighfs Journal of Music) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	55
1862 Negro Songs (Dwighfs Journal of Music) James Miller McKim Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
1862 Songs of the Port Royal Contrabands (Dwighfs Journal of Music) Lucy McKim Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	61
1863 Under the Palmetto (excerpt) (Continental Monthly) H. G. Spaulding Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	64
1865 The Negro Dialect (Nation) Marcel W. F. Allen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	74
1867 Negro Spirituals (Atlantic Monthly) Thomas Wentworth Higginson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	82
1868 Literature of the Day: Slave Songs of the United States (review) (Lippincotfs Magazine) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103
1868 Songs of the Slave (Lippincotfs Magazine) John Mason Brown Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
1870 Sketches in Color: IV (Putrmms Monthly) Elizabeth Kilham Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	120
1870 Negro Superstitions (Lippincotfs Magazine) Thaddeus Norris Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	134
1877 Folklore of the Southern Negroes (Lippincotfs Magazine) William Owens Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	144
1881 Plantation Folk-Lore (review) (Popular Science Monthly) T. F. Crane Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	157
1882 A Georgia Corn-Shucking (Century Magazine) David C. Barrow Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	168
1883 Plantation Music (Critic) Joel Chandler Harris Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
1884 Banjo and Bones (Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181
1886 The Dance in Place Congo (Century Magazine). George Washington Cable Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	189
1886 Creole Slave Songs (Century Magazine) George Washington Cable Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
1886 An Accidental Author (Lippirvcott's Magazine) Joel Chandler Harris Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	243
1888 Superstitions of the Negro (Cosmopolitan) Eli Shepard Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
1891 Word Shadows (Atlantic Monthly) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	254
1891 Certain Beliefs and Superstitions of the Negro (Atlantic Monthly) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	257
1895 Music in America (Harpers New Monthly Magazine) Antonin Dvorak Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263
1895 Folk-Lore and Ethnology (Southern Workman) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	274
1895 Folk-Lore and Ethnology: Conjuring and Conjure Doctors (Southern Workman) A. M. Bacon Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	284
1898 A Weddin' and a Buryin' in the Black Belt (New England Magazine) Susan Showers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	293
1899 Recent Negro Melodies (New England Magazine) William E. Barton Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	302
1899 The Survival of African Music in America (Popular Science Monthly) Jeanette Robinson Murphy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	327
Appendix I: A Slaveholder's Primer (De Bow's Review, 1851) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	341
Appendix II: Further Reading Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	353
Index of Authors, Titles of Articles, and Periodicals Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	369
Index of Songs and Verses Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	371

Language: English
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Copyright year: 1967
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 398

eBook

Published: July 29, 2014
ISBN: 9780292736627