Dr. Edward D. Ives Papers

Edward D. “Sandy” Ives (September 24, 1925–August 1, 2009), was an internationally renowned pioneer in the field of American Folklore and Oral History. He was the Founder and Director of the Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History (NAFOH), later the Maine Folklife Center. His prolific and groundbreaking work focused on documenting the folk songs of Maine and the Maritimes. Since 1980, his monograph The Tape Recorded Interview: A Manual for Field Workers in Folklore and Oral History has served as an essential resource for folklorists and oral historians. Sandy followed that work in 1987 with the instructional video, An Oral Historian's Work. Both works set the standard for conducting American oral history fieldwork.

Drafted in 1943, Sandy was one of 125,000 participants in the United States Marine Corps V-12 Navy College Training Program during World War II. After the war, Sandy completed his undergraduate education at Hamilton College in New York, receiving a bachelor's degree in English and history. He subsequently received his Master’s in Medieval Literature at Columbia and briefly taught English at Illinois College and the City College of New York, before joining the faculty of the University of Maine. While teaching at UMaine, Sandy undertook a Ph.D. program in Folklore at Indiana University, completing his doctoral degree in 1962. Two years later, he became the first Professor of Folklore in the UMaine Department of Anthropology.

After arriving at UMaine in 1955, Sandy began supplementing his income by working as a folk singer. As he performed across the state, Sandy soon learned his audience longed to hear the old woods songs created and sung by lumbermen working in the north woods during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This discovery set the course for much of his future career.

In 1958, while studying for his doctorate, Sandy founded the Northeast Folklore Society and began publishing the journal, Northeast Folklore. To find informants about woods songs and the way of life in woods camps and on river drives, he wrote letters to the editors of newspapers throughout Maine and the Maritimes soliciting volunteers to come forward with stories and songs. Sandy’s efforts were so successful that it was soon obvious a repository was necessary to house the materials collected by his students and himself, and NAFOH was established, eventually becoming “perhaps the finest regional archive of its kind,” according to the Council of Library and Information Resources in Alexandria, Virginia. As retirement approached, Sandy combined the Northeast Folklore Society and NAFOH to create the Maine Folklife Center in 1991.

During his 44-year career at UMaine, Sandy published in a variety of scholarly journals and upon his retirement, donated his research notes, field notes, recordings, and personal papers to the University. This series is intended to provide access to his published works. To access recorded interviews, research notes, and other materials, please visit MF027 Edward D. Ives Papers, MF167.1 Edward D. “Sandy” Ives Collection: Research Record Group 1, and Edward D. “Sandy Ives Collection: Research Record Group 2, in ArchivesSpace, as well as the Maine Folk Life collection here in Digital Commons at UMaine.