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This state-by-state collection of folksongs describes the history, society, culture, and events characteristic of all fifty states. Unlike all other state folksong collections, this one does not focus on songs collected in the particular states, but rather on songs concerning the life and times of the people of that state. The topics range from the major historical events, such as the Boston Tea Party, the attack on Fort Sumter, and the California Gold Rush, to regionally important events such as disasters and murders, labor problems, occupational songs, ethnic conflicts. Some of the songs will be widely recognized, such as Casey Jones, Marching Through Georgia, or Sweet Betsy from Pike. Others, less familiar, have not been reprinted since their original publication, but deserve to be studied because of what they tell about the people of these United States, their loves, labors, and losses, and their responses to events. The collection is organized by regions, starting with New England and ending with the states bordering the Pacific Ocean, and by states within each region. For each state there are from four to fifteen songs presented, with an average of 10 songs per state. For each song, a full text is reprented, followed by discussion of the song in its historical context. References to available recordings and other versions are given. Folksongs, such as those discussed here, are an important tool for historians and cultural historians because they sample experiences of the past at a different level from that of contemporary newspaper accounts and academic histories. These songs, in a sense, are history writ small. Includes: Away Down East, The Old Granite State, Connecticut, The Virginian Maid's Lament, Carry Me Back to Old Virginny, I'm Going Back to North Carolina, Shut up in Cold Creek Mine, Ain't God Good to Iowa?, Dakota Land, Dear Prairie Home, Cheyenne Boys, I'm off for California, and others.
“[A] charming memoir of renowned western novelist Kelton’s early years in the saddle, at the desk and in the trench . . . a pleasure through and through.” —Kirkus Reviews Voted the “Best Western writer of all time” by his peers, Elmer Kelton wrote fifty novels that form a testament and tribute to the American West. But who is that Texas gentleman with the white Stetson and rimless eyeglasses whose friendly face appears on so many book jackets? Sandhills Boy is Kelton’s memoir, a funny and poignant story of “a freckle-faced country boy, green as a gourd, a sheep ready to be sheared,” growing up in the wild, dry, sandhills of West Texas. The son of a working cowboy and ranch foreman, Elmer was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps but learned at an early age that he had no talents in the cowboy’s trade. Buck Kelton said Elmer was “slow as the seven-year itch,” and reluctantly supported his son’s decision to become a student at the University of Texas, and, eventually, a journalist and writer. Kelton’s life in ranch and oil patch Texas during the Great Depression is told with warm nostalgic humor animated with stories of the cowboys and their wives and kids who gave the time and place its special flavor. He writes with great feeling of his service in WW2 in France, Germany, and Czechoslovakia, and the romantic circumstances in which his life changed in the village of Ebensee, Austria. “The most beloved western writer alive recounts his own story of growing up in Depression-era west Texas.” —Booklist
This is the completely illustrated and annotated edition including an extensive primer on the author's life and works and many splendid drawings by Harrsion Fisher. 'This Indian Edda, if I may so call it,' says the author, 'is founded on a tradition, prevalent among the North American Indians, of a personage of miraculous birth, who was sent among them to clear their rivers, forests, and fishing-grounds, and to teach them the arts of peace. He was known among different tribes by the several names of Michabou, Chiabo, Manabozho, Tarcuyawagon, and Hiawatha. ' We are further informed, that 'the scene of the poem is among the Ojibways on the southern shore of Lake Superior, in the region between the Pictured Rocks and the Grand Sable.' Here then, at last, is a genuine American poem, by a native of America; a poem redolent of pine-forests and the smoke of wigwams. ' In reading American poetry, we never get beyond the shores of Kent,' said a surly critic some years ago. It is obvious enough, that if this complaint was justifiable then, it is utterly without foundation now. Longfellow's poem created an immense and instant sensation, not only in this country, but in England. It was read, it was quoted, it was praised, it was ridiculed, it was dramatized, it was parodied, it was attacked as a plagiarism. It remains to this day the most parodied poem in the English language.