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John Harrington Cox, Collector, Papers regarding West Virginia Folklore

 Collection
Collection Number: A&M 0883

Scope and Contents

Papers of John Harrington Cox, collector of West Virginia folklore material. Includes manuscripts, typescripts, printed material, sheet music, and newspaper clippings regarding folk songs and folk tales collected by John Harrington Cox and the West Virginia Folklore Society. Some of this material was used by Cox in his Harvard University dissertation of 1923, titled The Ballads and Songs of West Virginia, as well as in his book Folk-Songs of the South, published in 1925 by Harvard University Press. There are also book draft typescripts, dissertation typescripts, and correspondence pertaining to the collection of folklore material by Cox and the West Virginia Folklore Society.


Series include:


Series 1. Folklore Research Papers (ca. 1915-1930), boxes 1-13
Series 2. Dissertation Draft (ca. 1923), boxes 14-18
Series 3. Correspondence (ca. 1915-1930), boxes 19-21
Series 4. Oversize (1916-1936 and undated), box 22

Dates

  • Creation: 1915-1936

Language of Materials

English

Conditions Governing Access

No special access restriction applies.

Conditions Governing Use

Permission to publish or reproduce is required from the copyright holder. For more information, please see the Permissions and Copyright page on the West Virginia and Regional History Center website.

Biographical / Historical

"John Harrington Cox (May 27, 1863 - November 21, 1945) was one of the pioneers in the field of American folk song scholarship. Cox was born in Madison County, Illinois. Educated at Brown and Harvard (Ph.D. 1923) universities, he received an appointment on the English Department faculty at West Virginia University in 1903. His early efforts at the university were devoted to the study of Old and Middle English, and Medieval literature, in which fields he achieved distinction as an educator, author, and editor.

Cox collected his first folk song in 1913. Two years later, on July 15, 1915, he presided over the founding of the West Virginia Folklore Society, serving as its first president, archivist, and editor. Though the society met formally only twice, it established a network of field collectors across the state that continued to function loosely under Cox's direction for many years.

During the early 1920s, Cox organized and edited an extensive body of the folk songs collected under the Society's auspices as the basis of his Ph.D. dissertation. Produced under the direction of the noted Harvard scholar, George Lyman Kittredge, the dissertation was published as Folk-Songs of the South by the Harvard University Press in 1925. The first major collection of American folk songs by an American editor to appear in print, the volume became a model in both its scholarship and format for many subsequent American folk song publications. Despite the title it consisted almost entirely of West Virginia songs.

In the years that followed, Cox prepared an extensive body of additional folk songs for publication. These materials remained in manuscript until they were published in 1939 by the National Service Bureau in two mimeographed volumes: Traditional Ballads Mainly From West Virginia, and Folk-Songs Mainly From West Virginia. Cox died in Morgantown."

From Cuthbert, John A. "John Harrington Cox." e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. 20 April 2015. Web. 17 March 2017 (see link in External Documents)

Extent

8.7 Linear Feet (8 ft. 8 in. (20 document cases, 5 in. each); (1 document case, 2 1/2 in.); (1 flat storage box, 1 1/2 in.))

Overview

Papers of John Harrington Cox, collector of West Virginia folklore material. Includes manuscripts, typescripts, printed material, sheet music, and newspaper clippings regarding folk songs and folk tales collected by John Harrington Cox and the West Virginia Folklore Society. Some of this material was used by Cox in his Harvard University dissertation of 1923, titled The Ballads and Songs of West Virginia, as well as in his book Folk-Songs of the South, published in 1925 by Harvard University Press. There are also book draft typescripts, dissertation typescripts, and correspondence pertaining to the collection of folklore material by Cox and the West Virginia Folklore Society. For more detail, see the Scope and Content note. For more information on John Harrington Cox and his work with the West Virginia Folklore Society, see the Historical note.

Physical Location

West Virginia and Regional History Center / West Virginia University / 1549 University Avenue / P.O. Box 6069 / Morgantown, WV 26506-6069 / Phone: 304-293-3536 / Fax: 304-293-3981 / URL: https://wvrhc.lib.wvu.edu/

Title
John Harrington Cox, Collector, Papers regarding West Virginia Folklore
Author
Staff of the West Virginia & Regional History Center
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Code for undetermined script
Language of description note
English

Repository Details

Part of the West Virginia and Regional History Center Repository

Contact:
1549 University Ave.
P.O. Box 6069
Morgantown WV 26506-6069 US
304-293-3536