American Folkways series

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The American Folkways is a 28-volume series of books, initiated and principally edited by Erskine Caldwell, and published by Duell, Sloan and Pearce from 1941 to 1955.[1] Each book focused on a different region, or "folkway", of the United States, including documentary essays and folklore from that region.[2] The books were written by local experts, describing "their" region.[3] Many of the individual volumes have become regarded as classics in folklore, local history, and American writing, and a number of them have been issued in multiple editions or are still in print.

File:Blue Ridge Country - Jean Thomas - book cover.jpg
Cover of Blue Ridge Country

Caldwell initiated the series after returning to the United States from reporting on the German invasion of Russia.[4] He had conceived of the series while in Europe, imagining an Americana regional series in which regionalists would "describe and interpret the indigenous quality of life".[5] His proposal was rejected by editors Marshall Best and Harold Guinzburg at Viking, but accepted by Charles Duell and Samuel Sloan as a foundational series of their new press, and as an opportunity for their press to acquire Caldwell's future works.[6]

In 1939 he began traversing the country, soliciting authors for the series, and by the end of the year had elicited commitments from five writers.[7] Caldwell ultimately edited 25 volumes of the series (three additional volumes were published), and twenty separate regions were covered by the series.[8] The volumes were intended to focus on cultural regions, not political boundaries.[8] He rejected the term "folklore", choosing instead to use the term "folkways" to reflect "the study of contemporary life in terms of its social and economic implications."[9] Caldwell was a detailed and focused editor, urging writers to hew to his vision – documenting and commenting on particular cultural regions, not sanitizing their subject, but reflective of the author's distinctive voice and regionalist character.[9]

Works in the series

Notes

  1. ↑ Firsts Magazine, v.8, n.5 (May 1998).
  2. ↑ Sylvia J. Cook, "Modernism from the Bottom Up", pp.56- 76, in Reading Erskine Caldwell: New Essays ed. by Robert L. McDonald (2006).
  3. ↑ William Stott, Documentary Expression and Thirties America (University of Chicago Press, 1973), p.232.
  4. ↑ James Korges, Erskine Caldwell (University of Minnesota Press, 1969), pp.8-9.
  5. ↑ Caldwell, quoted in Harvey L. Klevar, Erskine Caldwell: A Biography, p.219.
  6. ↑ Klevar, pp.219-220; Mixon, p.121.
  7. ↑ Mixon, pp.121-122.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Mixon, p.122.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Mixon, pp.122-123.

References

  • "American Folkways Series", Firsts Magazine, v.8, n.5 (May 1998)
  • Harvey L. Klevar, Erskine Caldwell: A Biography (University of Tennessee Press, 1993)
  • Wayne Mixon, The People's Writer: Erskine Caldwell and the South (University of Virginia Press, 1995)
  • "American Folkways Series", American Regional Folklore: A Sourcebook and Resource Guide ed. by Terry Ann Mood, pp. 19–20.


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