History Commons^™

Folklore And Zooarchaeology: Nonhuman Animal's Representation In The Historical Narrative, Nicholas Miller

Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology

It has been argued before that archaeology and folklore go hand-in-hand, with a variety of scholarship and studies focusing on landscapes and monuments in reference to this pair; however, this research argues for a different approach. As the title suggests, this paper engages with folklore topics and zooarchaeological data to argue that faunal remains (along with landscapes and monuments) are intertwined and cannot be separated from the historical narrative. While faunal evidence helps provide scientific explanations of the natural interconnectedness of humans and nonhuman animals, folklore aids in creating and developing cultural understandings. By exploring the relationship between humans and …

Georgia Ghosts: History, Folklore, And The Roots Of The Southern Gothic, Katherine M. Mcdowell

Master's Projects

There is something quintessentially human about ghost stories, yet particular regions tend to be more powerfully associated with haunted folktales than others. One of the regions is the southeastern United States. In fact, these oral traditions appear to have influenced the area's best-known literary subgenre: the Southern Gothic.

Why is the South considered haunted? Are there particular qualities in historical events that make them more likely to engender ghost stories? What makes the South's folkloric spirits so powerful that they appear even in modern literature? Most of all, what connects the region's history and folklore with the Southern Gothic? By …

Witches On The Wind: Weather Magic In New England Folktales, Zephyros Quinn Craven

Thinking Matters Symposium

The English language folktales collected from coastal New England in the 19^th and 20^th centuries display a prominence of weather magic motifs compared with folktales from other regions of the United States. This paper aims to explain the success of the weather magic theme in New England folklore collections and to serve as a starting point for scholarly discourse on the subject, which has hitherto been sparse. This study utilizes climate research, both scholarly and popular collections of folktales, local travel guides, and colonial and labor histories. Through a combination of historical analysis, comparative study, and textual analysis, …

Regional Folk Beliefs, Edward D. Ives

Dr. Edward D. Ives Papers

This accession contains over 4,000 folk beliefs organized on individual, 4x6-inch index cards. A majority of the belief cards were collected by students participating during the 1960s as part of the American Folklore course taught by Dr. Edward D. “Sandy” Ives. Folk beliefs originate primarily from Maine and the Maritimes, but occasionally extend into other areas. Each download contains a copy of the 1965 syllabus for American Folklore, explaining the assignment given to students.

Please Note: A significant number of these cards are handwritten and are not currently available as typed transcriptions. The belief cards are organized into categories noted …

Down The Bay Oral History Project Newsletter - Winter 2024, Center For Archaeological Studies, Mccall Library

Down the Bay Oral History Project Newsletter

Public newsletter sharing information about progress and discoveries during the ongoing Down The Bay Project.

Mf163 Somalis In Lewiston, Maine Collection, Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University Of Maine

Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History Finding Aids

This collection includes interviews with five Somali women living in Lewiston, Maine in 2003. The interviews were conducted by Elizabeth Hoyt Hannibal and Dianne Schindler for a project for ANT 425 taught by Dr. James Moreira at the University of Maine. Included is a narrative of how Hannibal and Schindler set up the interviews with Fatuma Hussein, Azeb Hassan, Hawa Kahin, Kiih Issa, and Ayan Ismail. Interviews took place in Lewiston at Daryeelka, Inc., a resource for families that assists them in becoming economically independent and active participants in community life. Also included in the collection is a paper by …

Mf055 American Thread Company / Russell Carey, Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University Of Maine

Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History Finding Aids

A collection of fourteen series deposited by University of Maine graduate student, Russell Carey between March, 1992 and November, 1993. The collection features videotaped and or audio interviews with workers at the American Thread Company's wooden spool mill in Milo, Maine, and contributed to research for Carey's Master's thesis entitled, "3,750,000,000 Perfect Wooden Spools" (University of Maine, 1994). The collective oral history of the mill's workers documents conditions, issues, history, occupational lore, and people's feelings about the mill from the 1930s through the 1960s.

Mf 036 Maine Leaders Oral History Project, Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University Of Maine

Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History Finding Aids

Interviews with Senator Margaret Chase Smith (1990), James Russell Wiggins (1988) (Editor of the Ellsworth American). The interviews were supported with funds from the University of Maine President’s Office.

Mf089 Marshall Dodge Collection, Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University Of Maine

Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History Finding Aids

Rob Golding and Earl Bonness give humorous stories and anecdotes of Downeast about local people and events, and these anecdotes reflect the quintessential Downeast character and type of humor later made famous by Marshall Dodge in his stories of “Bert and I” and may suggest the origins of the types of characters and humor Dodge used in his “Bert and I” records.

Dancers Of The Book: Yemenite, Persian, And Kurdish Jewish Dance, Quinn Bicer

Anthós

Despite the cultural significance of dance in Jewish communities around the world, research into Middle Eastern Jewish dance outside of the modern nation-state of Israel is sorely under-researched. This article aims to help rectify this by focusing on Yemenite, Persian/Iranian, and Kurdish Jewish dance and explores how these dancers have functioned and been received within the societies they have been a part of. The methods that have gone into this article are a combination of analyzing primary source recorded dances and existing secondary source research into the dance of these communities. Through these methods, this article reveals how Yemenite, Iranian, …

Landscape Into Legend: Tracking Lost Tribes And Crypto-Jews Across New Mexican Terrain, Judith S. Neulander

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

The essay traces the “Lost Tribes of Israel” legend to the purported academic discovery of lost and hidden “crypto-Jews” in contemporary New Mexico. The essay explores perceptions and beliefs of Jewish diasporic survival and identity in folkloristic, religious, historical, and genomic contexts. Analysis exposes pseudo-ethnography and pseudoscience as the basis for New Mexican claims, influenced in part by habitual association of the regional landscape with lost, hidden, and/or “wandering” Jews.

The Rise Of Judaic Calligraphy In The Twentieth Century, Stephen Michael Cohen

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

Excluding religiously required safrut (e.g., handwritten Torah scrolls, mezuzot, tefillin, gittin), artistic aspects of Judaic calligraphy declined after moveable type was invented in the fifteenth century. Rediscovery of medieval calligraphic techniques in late nineteenth-century Britain, plus contemporaneous typographical studies in Germany, spurred revival of artistic calligraphy. The first Arts and Crafts movement, pre-World War I German research into aesthetic letterforms, and the Bezalel Academy sparked a rise of secularized Judaic calligraphy. Growth of folk arts and ethnic pride in the 1960s and accessible photocopiers in the 1970s allowed nonspecialists to become expert calligraphers.

Citing Seeds, Citing People: Bibliography And Indigenous Memory, Relations, And Living Knowledge-Keepers, Megan Peiser Choctaw Nation Of Oklahoma

Criticism

By turning the page or reading further, you are accepting a responsibility to this story, its storyteller, its ancestors, and its future ancestors. You are accepting a relationship of reciprocity where you treat this knowledge as sacred for how it nourished you, share it only as it has been instructed to share, and to ensure it remains unviolated for future generations.

This story is told by myself, Megan Peiser, Chahta Ohoyo. I share knowledge entrusted to me by Anishinaabe women I call friends and sisters, by seed-keepers of many peoples Indigenous to Turtle Island, and knowledge come to me from …

This Is The Way: Christian Asceticism Alive In The Star Wars Universe, David Allen Osb

Obsculta

This article is a creative reflection on how the Desert Fathers, especially St. Antony, could be compared in a pastoral way to the Jedi Masters found in the Star Wars Film and Television Canon.

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 26: Confessions Of A 'Wallace Enthusiast', Charles H. Smith

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

The author’s longstanding interest in the life and thought of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) is profiled in three ways, through: (1) a brief factual review of its history (2) a discussion of some problems with the way Wallace has been treated over the years, and (3) a consideration of the author’s personal experience with the paranormal, and how this has made him, if not always a full believer, more patient with divergent explanations of the type Wallace was famous for.

The Intermountain West Lgbtq+ Oral History Project: The Folklorization Of Queer Theory, John Priegnitz

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Following the passing of a friend who witnessed firsthand the transformation of Salt Lake City’s Queer community from the 1950s to 2020, I created the Intermountain West LGBTQ+ Oral History Project to document the queer experience within the Intermountain West. Since beginning the project in 2020, I have documented several diverse stories that intersect class, race, sexuality, gender, faith, and politics. By documenting the queer experience, a marginalized community will have their voices heard and preserved for the enlightenment of future generations. This presentation provides an overview of my project and its preliminary findings.

Hunting In Maine, Elizabeth Tibbetts

Honors College

Hunting remains a common practice for many people in the state of Maine. While the stories and traditions held by hunters differ from person to person and family to family. There are commonalities that aid in building the sense of community between hunters in the state of Maine. This hunting community is strengthened through the sharing of stories and the common traditions shared by many. These communities remain strong even as the Maine landscape and hunting legislation changes over time. Here a number of questions regarding hunting are explored through the lens of one family spanning multiple generations through oral …

Naming Venus: An Exploration Of Goddesses, Heroines, And Famous Women, Kavya Beheraj

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Humans have been observing and romanticizing Venus for more than 5,000 years. However, mapping its surface has nearly always been impossible, since the planet is shrouded in thick clouds. A breakthrough came just fifty years ago with the invention of radar imaging, leading to the discovery (and naming) of hundreds of new features in a relatively short length of time.

The rapid naming of Venus is a case study on the impact of planetary nomenclature — the process of naming features on other worlds. While the act of naming streamlines communication and humanizes alien landscapes, it is subject to bias, …

The Parish Choir Movement And Generational Festivals In Romania’S Socialist Period: New Community Festivities In Transylvania’S Gheorgheni (Gyergyó) Region, Eszter Kovács

Journal of Global Catholicism

Among the post-1945 East European socialist regimes, Romania and Poland were the only countries where the Catholic Church—despite government interventions, controls, and bans—managed to play a significant social and political role in community life. This case study provides an ethnographic description of the parish choir movement and graduating class reunions, called “generational festivals” in Hungarian, in the Gheorgheni (Hu: Gyergyó) region in the 1970s and 1980s. The gatherings will be analyzed in the context of everyday life, the socialist system’s distinctive shortage economy, and official limits on religious activity that characterized the era. I will first describe the world of …

Down The Bay Oral History Project Newsletter - Spring 2023, Center For Archaeological Studies, Mccall Library

Down the Bay Oral History Project Newsletter

Public newsletter sharing information about progress and discoveries during the ongoing Down The Bay Project.

Down The Bay Oral History Project Newsletter - Fall 2023, Center For Archaeological Studies, Mccall Library

Down the Bay Oral History Project Newsletter

Public newsletter sharing information about progress and discoveries during the ongoing Down The Bay Project.

A General Interview Guide, Edward D. Ives

Northeast Folklore Monographs

What follows is in no sense exhaustive or complete. I started from O'Sullivan's Handbook of Irish Folklore (that's where the basic structure comes from), and then I adapted it to the scene here in the Northeast by adding some questions and changing others. For any one of the aspects covered here, you can get more suggestions by looking al O'Sullivan's work.

I don't recommend trying to work straight through this guide with an informant. Nor do I particularly recommend interviewing with "guide in hand," and I'm dead against it for the first interview. Read the Guide through a few times …

Down The Bay Oral History Project Newsletter - Summer 2023, Center For Archaeological Studies, Mccall Library

Down the Bay Oral History Project Newsletter

Public newsletter sharing information about progress and discoveries during the ongoing Down The Bay Project.

Mf140 Victoria Society Portland Oral History Series, Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University Of Maine

Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History Finding Aids

A series of 36 interviews about the history of Portland, Maine with index and partial and full transcripts. The Victoria Society, fall 1992. Interviews concerning life in Portland during the 1930s to the 1940s, most interviewees are 75 years old or older.

Mf164 Maine Pack Basket Makers Collection, Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University Of Maine

Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History Finding Aids

Maine Pack Basket Makers Tradition consists of nine interviews conducted by Bill Mackowski between 2010-2012 with basket makers in several communities involving Maine basket making techniques.

Mf053 Ricker College Student Folklore Papers, Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University Of Maine

Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History Finding Aids

Papers written by students enrolled in a folklore class at Ricker College (Houlton, Maine) taught by Gifford Stevens. Topics include jokes, home remedies, proverbs, ghost stories, games, folktales, superstitions, graffiti, and children's folklore.

Mf038 Labor Relations In Maine, Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University Of Maine

Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History Finding Aids

A collection featuring two sets of interviews. The first was conducted from 1969-1973 under the auspices of the Maine State Federated Labor Council. Topics range widely over the spectrum of organized labor issues in Maine, but seem to deal primarily with unions, union organizing, and elections. Interviewees include top ranking union officials as well as lobstermen, longshoremen, bricklayers, quarry workers, textile and paper millworkers, sulfite workers, iron workers, shipbuilders, railroad workers, typesetters, building trade workers, electricians, garment workers, and shoe makers. Also represented are union organizers, labor historians, and publishers of labor periodicals such as "Labor News." The second set …

Mf067 "Wildfire Loose" Oral History Project / Joyce Butler, Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University Of Maine

Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History Finding Aids

The “Wildfire Loose” Collection consists of a series of 37 interviews conducted by Joyce Butler in preparation for her book of the same title about the fires in Maine in October 1947. The interviews cover geographic areas in York, Oxford, and Hancock Counties including the communities of Kennebunk, Cape Porpoise, Goose Rocks, Kennebunkport, Saco, Biddeford, East Waterboro, Brownfield, Somesville, and Bar Harbor. Donated in 1979. When possible, obituaries for informants were collected by Special Collections staff as additional documentation of informants.

Mf117 Frye Mountain Interviews / Jeffrey "Smokey" Mckeen, Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University Of Maine

Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History Finding Aids

Interviews done by Jeff "Smokey" McKeen concerning the farming community of Frye Mountain in Waldo County and its acquisition by the federal government in the 1930s. Interviews cover the problems like having to selling land to the government, bad roads for automobiles, and other issues.

Mf058 "Suthin" Project, 1976, Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University Of Maine

Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History Finding Aids

Ten interviews totaling 23 hours conducted for a course at University of Maine taught by Edward D. "Sandy" Ives in 1976 about a pulpwood operation at Little Musquash Lake run by Grover Morrison. This project included the publication of Northeast Folklore: "Suthin," XVIII. These interviews were the basis of "Suthin:" It's the Opposite of Nothin': An Oral History of Grover Morrison's Wood's Operation at Little Musquash Lake, 1945-1947 (Northeast Folklore XVIII: 1977 ). Collection includes the text of the poem, "Suthin'"; other poems; information about daily work in the woods and with the portable sawmill; life in the woods camp; …