Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / Through case studies of three Boston-area neighborhoods, East Boston, South Boston, and North Quincy, this dissertation examines the vernacular memory practices of the residents of historically ethnic neighborhoods to show the ways in which everyday representations of the past allow individuals to strategically negotiate a meaningful sense of shared identity. Using field interviews, vernacular digital sources, previously recorded oral histories, amateure historical texts, memoirs, and other expressive memory works, this study examines locally produced representations of historical identity that range from the social imagining of translocal past to personal memories of neighborhood life that are deeply rooted in an understanding of local space as ethnic place. Chapters One through Three trace the scholarly literature on space and place, social memory, and folklore studies in order to demonstrate the way in which, through a process of selection and emphasis, local folk histories have often been used to strategically reaffirm the connection between contested spaces and a certain ethnic identity. They further show how individuals use their own personal narrative repertoire to situate themselves within these traditionalized or naturalized understandings of neighborhood space. Chapters Four and Five explore a variety of contests and conflicts over the traditionalized sense of space and place examined in the initial chapters. Developing the notion that cultural symbols, such as the shamrock or the flag of the People's Republic of China, and practices, such as the celebrations surrounding Columbus Day or the Autumn Moon Festival, can bring together or "index" a variety of identity constructs, these chapters demonstrate the ways that these symbols can be strategically deployed in order to build or disrupt traditionalized understandings of the connections between neighborhoods and ethnic identity. Finally, Chapter Six suggests that, as a result of the emerging vernacular use of geospatial media technologies, the cultural symbols, narratives, and practices that are integral to the construction of local conceptual maps can now be accessed virtually. This makes available the possibility that meaningful local identities can be formed by actors who are interacting with these traditional understandings of local place virtually but who are not physically present in local spaces. / 2031-01-01

The purpose of this study is to trace the history of the study of folklore from its origins in Europe through its development in the United States. Particular emphasis is laid on the part organized education has played in this development, the attitudes organized education has showed in relation to the study, those persons in American education who have furthered the study, and how folklore has been and is being used in the curriculum of the secondary school and college.

Selected forms of three Isle Royale fishermen’s folklife expressions – material folk culture, social folk custom and narrative folklore – were documented and analyzed. The informants are representative of the group of Scandinavian fishermen who operated commercial fisheries on Isle Royale from the 1880s to date. Documentary and analytical emphasis centered on occupational aspects of their folklife expressions and the fishermen’s perception of the island archipelago. Accordingly, special interest was focused on the fishermen’s interplay with the Lake Superior and Isle Royale environs. Selected folklife expressions were analyzed to uncover fishermen’s cognitive and affective responses to their insular environment. Analysis of their folklife expressions revealed the depth of fishermen’s knowledge, interest and acceptance of “the island” environment. Complicating the documentary and analytical goals of this study were two major influences that have disrupted the fishermen’s livelihood: namely, Isle Royale became a national park and the depletion of lake trout numbers in Lake Superior. The continued existence of commercial fishing on Isle Royale is threatened, as is the fishermen’s folklife expressions. Consequently, the change brought about by outside influences has changed fishermen’s perception of Isle Royale.

This thesis provides an in-depth study of a traditional Irish flute player, Jack Coen. Jack, raised in the village of Woodford in County Galway, immigrated to America in 1949 at the age of twenty-four. With his large repertoire of Irish traditional dance tunes, Jack has played music at parties, dances, with the New York Ceilidhe Band, and at festivals such as the 1976 Festival of American Folklife in Washington, D.C. Jack teaches the flute and the tin whistle and is recognized both as a teacher and as a player. By examining Jack Coen’s music we learn about the style, technique, and repertoire of a traditional Irish flute player. And by focusing on the performer, we observe the relationship between the stylistic features of Jacks’ music and his sense of musical aesthetics; that is, his perception of how the traditional Irish flute should sound and the way in which he aims to achieve a musical quality on the flute. From the performer we also understand more about the traditional process of transmission by discovering how the music has been learned, the different situations of performance, and the manner in which the music is taught. This understanding provides us with the knowledge of how the music has been carried on from generation to generation and by whom. In the case of Jack Coen, and the many Irish immigrant musicians who came to America before him, we see how an Irish musical tradition has functioned when transplanted to another culture.

Applying the standards for delineating folkcraft developed by Japanese scholar Soetsu Yanagi to the work of two Maryland decoy makers, Lem and Steve Ward, revealed that the Wards’ work followed a progression from folk to non-folk. A Hearst newspaper chain article on the two carvers plus winning first place at the New York Decoy Show brought publicity far beyond that usually encountered by the average folk craftsman. These events also exposed the two brothers to a range of wealthy collectors. When the Wards began to experiment with ornately carved birds, they had a waiting, and financially capable market. The extremely high prices of these later birds made their owners afraid to use them through fear of damage or loss. Thus, these recent carvings became non-functional and non-folk since functionality is a prime requisite for folkcraft according to the Yanagi standards. Therefore, price affects folk nature via function.

This study attempts to complement earlier studies of Still’s literary art such as that of Dean Cadle and Katherine Craf by pointing out the integral use of folk elements in his fiction. The methodology combined field studies with investigation of the works of folklorists and historians and novelists whose writings center around the same general region as do those of Still For the purposes of this study “folk elements” will denote the orally transmitted traditions of the common people of a particular region. In this case, the “folk” are a rural people who have remained relatively stable for several generations and thereby have preserved traditions likely to disappear or modify in an urban society. These traditions include material culture with its associated arts and skills, customs, folklore and speech.

Singing school teachers, who teach rural church congregations to sing from shape-note gospel songbooks, are still working in southcentral Kentucky, but the demand for them is smaller than it was in the first half of the twentieth century. The interdependence network in which singing school teachers, songbook publishers, and community singing events were key parts began to weaken in the 1940s as a result of the growth in popularity of professional gospel quartet concerts and gospel record albums. Many gospel music enthusiasts who once looked to songbooks as a major source for new material and for developing singing skills turned to albums and concerts in the 1940s. Singing school teachers began to be called on less frequently. The first three chapters of this thesis contain an overview of the gospel singing events, the songbook publishers, and the singing schools. The nature of the relationship between these three gospel music institutions is established. In the fourth chapter, I profile three singing school teachers of southcentral Kentucky. In the conclusion, the development of popular religious music since the early 1800s is summarized and the importance of researching Southern white gospel music as a step toward a greater understanding of Southern music traditions as a whole is examined.