A Treasury of American Folklore Author:B. A. Botkin Published in 1944. — Stories, Ballads, and Traditions of the People. — Part One: Heroes and Boasters — Part Two: Boosters and Knockers — Part Three: Jesters — Part Four: Liars — Part Five: Folk Tales and Legends — Part Six: Songs and Rhymes — B.A. Botkin pioneered a new approach to American folklore while working in the federal government during the lat... more »e '30s and early '40s. Born in East Boston, MA, to Lithuanian emigrants in 1901, his family moved frequently. He attended Harvard between 1916 and 1920 and worked on his master's degree in English at Colombia. He taught at the University of Oklahoma in the early '20s, traveled throughout the United States, and married Gertrude Fritz in 1925. He edited the annual Folk-Say from 1929 to 1932 and a "little magazine," Space, from 1934 to 1935. He became national folklore editor of the Federal Writer's Project in 1938, a post he held until 1941. While many researchers viewed folklore as a relic from the past, Botkin and other New Deal folklorists insisted that American folklore played a vibrant role in the present, drawing on shared experience and promoting a democratic culture. Botkin served as the head of the Archive of American Folk-Song of the Library of Congress (formally held by Alan Lomax) between 1942 and 1945. He became a board member of the People's Songs (a forerunner to Sing Out!) during the mid '40s and left his government post to devote full-time to writing. During the '40s and '50s he published a series of books on folklore, including A Treasury of American Folklore in 1944, A Treasury of New England Folklore in 1947, A Treasury of Mississippi River Folklore in 1955, and A Civil War Treasury of Tales, Legends and Folklore in 1960. During the '50s and '60s Richard Dorson attacked Botkin's work, which he considered unscholarly, calling it "fakelore." Botkin, who has been referred to as the "father of public folklore," ignored Dorson and disregarded his criteria. Folklore, he believed, was an art to be shared, not an exclusive artifact for scholars. Botkin died in 1975. ~ Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr., All Music Guide« less