Northeast Folklore Monographs

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  A General Interview Guide

  Edward D. Ives

  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 before you go out. Then, when you go back for further interviews, you can use this guide to help you work up good questions. And don't forget to probe, to follow up, to get fuller explanations ("Did that ever happen to you?" "Can you give me an example?" And, of course, "Who, what, where, when, why?")

  You will notice that this Guide has a clear orientation toward interviewing "older" people in a rural setting about how things used to be. That orientation is a function of my own lifelong historical interests. If you are more interested in present than remembered culture, you can adapt the questions to suit yourself.

  The compiling of a Guide like this is an on-going thing. Some of the questions will tum out to be absurd or even (God save the mark) counterproductive. And there are good questions that should be asked that aren't in here. The whole thing is also very uneven. Some aspects of experience are covered rather thoroughly while others are barely suggested. Let us know how we can improve this guide. Meantime, here is something for those many people who have asked, "What do I say then?"

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  The Civilian Conservation Corps at Acadia National Park

  James Moreira, Pamela Dean, Anu Dudley, and Kevin Champney

  Between 1933 and 1942, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a constant presence on Mount Desert Island (MDI), where it and several other New Deal agencies played a critical role in the early development of Acadia National Park. Three camps operated in the area during those years: two were located on MDI (one on and one off of park property) and were officially designated National Park Camps. The third camp was situated in Ellsworth, and though designated a State Park Camp, much of its work consisted of clean-up projects along the approach roads to the National Park.

  The report is based on three primary sources of information. First, the approximately forty-five hours of interviews conducted with twenty-six former enrollees at the Acadia camps, and with a handful of local residents who remember the camps and the CCC presence in their communities. Several informants who worked on special crews in the CCC proved to be valuable sources of information on some of the more detailed work undertaken by the CCC. As is inevitable with oral testimony at this late date, the details of time and place are not always recalled perfectly, but the informants nonetheless provided good insights into work technique, as well as vivid recollections of carp life.

  Second, researchers reviewed National Park Service records regarding the work of the CCC and other New Deal agencies, which are housed at the regional branch of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Waltham, MA (RG 79, 17 boxes).

  The third primary source consists of approximately 1,200 contemporary photographs. The great majority of them, contained in the NARA reports, were taken by project supervisors to give senior officials in Washington, D.C., an accurate indication of the outcomes of the CCC efforts. Nearly two hundred additional photographs were contributed by informants, along with other memorabilia from their days in the CCC.

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  The Maine Folklife Center Curriculum Guide

  Irene Jackson

  The Maine Folklife Center Curriculum Guide is a way to bring life into Maine Studies curricula by personalizing history and creating new connections between students and their communities. The guide is geared to help teachers fulfill the Maine Department of Education Learning Results (July, 1997), many of which call for primary research and the understanding of individual lives in an historical context. Specifically, the guide presents an introduction to using the Maine Folklife Center and four units: one on conducting oral histories, one on games, and two on the lumbering life. The games and lumbering units are based on selections from the Northeast Archives of the Maine Folklife Center, including transcripts of oral histories, photographs, songs, and excerpts from folklore collections gathered by students. Accompanying the guide is a short cassette tape of lumbering songs. Each unit provides guidelines and activities to prepare students for conducting primary research in their own communities using oral history and other hands-on methods.

  Each of the units may be used with any grade level from grade four up to grade twelve. The Games Unit is more appropriate for younger students. The Lumbering Units are designed with middle and high school students in mind, but younger students may do well with many of the activities in these units. It is not necessary to complete every activity in a unit. However, the activities are sequentially organized and, if followed in order, should lead to a deepening of understanding of the topic. The aim of these units is to help students to become successful researchers, critical thinkers, and articulate communicators. The units may be part of a Maine Studies or history curriculum, part of a research and thinking skills curriculum, or part of an English curriculum. The units themselves are interdisciplinary and are designed to promote the integration of disciplines.

  NOTE: The audio tape accompanying Lumbering Unit II Activity #8: Entertainment (p. 129), is currently unavailable in digital format.

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  Northeast Folklore volume 5: Twenty-One Folksongs From Prince Edward Island

  Edward D. Ives

  From the introduction by Edward D. "Sandy" Ives: "The twenty-one songs printed in this little volume are a representative sample of the songs I collected on Prince Edward Island during the summers of 1957, 1958, and 1963. ... As a matter of fact, I wasn't even "collecting songs" in the usual sense of that term; I was very specifically looking for songs by Larry Gorman and for biographical. Information about him, and when L wasn't asking about Larry Gorman I was asking about Joe Scott. Thus the present collection is neither the result of my general acquaintance with the traditions of the whole Island nor of intensive research in a limited area. It is made up mostly of the songs people sang me while I was looking for something else."

  Table of Contents:

  Edmund Doucette, Miminegash

  • John Ladner
  • Johnny Doyle
  • The Old Beggar Man (Hind Horn)
  • Dan Curry
  • Pretty Susan, the Pride of Kildare
  • The Ghostly Fishermen
  • Mantle So Green
  • The Shepherd

  Joseph Doucette, Miminegash

  • The Miramichi Fire
  • The Lost Babes of Halifax

  Mary Cousins, Campbellton

  • The Millman and Tuplin Song
  • Uncle Dan

  Charles Gorman, Burton

  • Drive Dull Care Away
  • The Banks of the Little Eau Pleine

  Angus Enman, Spring Hill

  • Benjamin Deane
  • When the Battle It Was Won

  Wesley Smith, Victoria West

  • Guy Reed
  • The Lumberman in Town
  • The Maid of the Mountain Brow
  • The Silvery Tide
  • There Was an Old Woman in Our Town

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  Northeast Folklore volume 4: Eight Folktales From Miramichi

  Edward D. Ives, Wilmot MacDonald, and Louise Manny

  Volume 4 of Northeast Archives marked a change in the publication. No longer was it published in four editions throughout the year with a variety of small articles, but now it was a single monograph published generally once a year. The focus of the first monograph is Wilmot MacDonald, a singer and storyteller from Miramichi, New Brunswick. Helen Creighton and Edward D. Ives had both collected from MacDonald and this publication came from their collaboration on that material.

  Eight Folktales from Miramichi: as Told by Wilmot MacDonald

  Table of Contents:

  Wilmot MacDonald by Louise Manny

  Introduction

  1) The Bull Story

  2) The Christmas Story

  3) Jack and the Beanstalk

  4) Three Gold Hairs from the Giant’s Back

  5) The Sword of Brightness

  6) Out-Riddling the Judge

  7) John the Cobbler

  8) The Haunted House and the Headless Ghost

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  Northeast Folklore volume 3 numbers 1-4

  Edward D. Ives

  The third issue of Northeast Folklore was published in the spring of 1959 under the editorship of Edward D. Ives (known as Sandy) and Bacil F. Kirtley through the Department of English at the University of Maine. The four editions that year were later bound into a single volume.

  Table of Contents:

  Number 1 (Spring):

  The Legend of Molly Ockett by Joseph A. Perham

  A Penobscot Indian Story of Colonial Maine by Nicholas N. Smith

  The Maid of Tide Head

  Notes and Queries

  Book Review
  Bluenose Ghosts (Creighton) by Horace P. Beck

  Number 2 (Summer):

  Bibliography of New England-Maritimes Folklore

  Marble-Playing in Lewiston Fifty Years Ago by J. W. Ashton

  Counting Out Rhymes from Shelburne County, Nova Scotia by Mrs. Donald Robertson

  Notes and Queries

  Number 3-4 (Fall/Winter):

  A Newfoundland Vocabulary by Bernard H. Porter

  A Sampling of Stories From the Area of Machias, Maine by George K. Smith, Jr.

  A Tremendous Pass in the North by Robert E. Pike

  Notes and Queries

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  Northeast Folklore volume 2 numbers 1-4

  Edward D. Ives, Bacil F. Kirtley, E. G. Huntington, James F. Flynn, Charles A. Huguenin, Frank A. Hoffmann, Evelyn K. Wells, Horace P. Beck, and Helen Creighton

  Description

  The second issue of Northeast Folklore was published in the spring of 1959 under the editorship of Edward D. Ives (known as Sandy) and Bacil F. Kirtley through the Department of English at the University of Maine. The four editions that year were later bound into a single volume.

  Table of Contents

  Number 1 (Spring):

  Two Songs from Martha's Vineyard by E.G. Huntington

  The Deer Isle Hoax by James J. Flynn and Charles A. Huguenin

  Folklore from Aroostook County, Maine, and Neighboring Canada edited by Bacil F. Kirtley

  Notes and Queries

  Number 2 (Summer):

  Bibliography of New England-Maritimes Folklore

  "Crooked Brook": A Song of the Maine Woods by Edward D. Ives

  Folklore from Aroostook County, Maine, and Neighboring Canada by Bacil F. Kirtley

  Record Reviews:
  Songs of a New York Lumberjack (Steckert) by Norman Cazden
  Timber-r-r! (Clayton) by Frank A. Hoffmann
  Folksongs of Martha's Vineyard (Huntington) by Evelyn K. Wells

  Number 3 (Fall):

  Folklore in Rhode Island by Horace P. Beck

  Larry Gorman and "Old Henry" by Edward D. Ives

  Folklore from Aroostook County, Maine, and Neighboring Canada edited by Bacil F. Kirtley

  Number 4 (Winter):

  A New England Folklore Weekend at Old Sturbridge Village

  More Notes on the Burning Ship of Northumberland Strait

  Folklore from Aroostook County, Maine, and Neighboring Canada edited by Bacil F. Kirtley

  The Lumberman in Town by Edward D. Ives

  Notes and Queries

  Book Reviews:
  The Abelard Folk Song Book (Cazden) by Helen Creighton.

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  Northeast Folklore volume 1 numbers 1-4

  Edward D. Ives, Richard M. Dorson, Miriam B. Webster, Bacil F. Kirtley, Alden A. Nowlan, Raymond Whitely, and Frank A. Hoffmann

  The first ever issue of Northeast Folklore was published in the spring of 1958 under the editorship of Edward D. Ives (known as Sandy) and Bacil F. Kirtley through the Department of English at the University of Maine. The four editions that year were later bound into a single volume.

  Table of Contents

  Number 1 (Spring):

  Mishaps of a Maine Lobsterman

  Maine Winter Menus: A Study in Ingenuity

  “Young Jimmy Foulger:” A Hitherto Unrecorded Ballad in the Northeast

  John Ellis – Hunter, Guide, Legend

  Number 2 (Summer):

  Bibliography of New England-Maritimes Folklore

  Selected Bibliography of New England-Maritimes Folklore Collections and Studies Prior to 1950

  Number 3 (Fall):

  Folklore from Aroostook County, Maine, and Neighboring Canada

  The Creation of Folk Songs

  Number 4 (Winter):

  Yankee Doodle: An Early Version

  Two Stories from the Maine Lumberwoods

  The First Miramichi Folksong Festival

  Folklore from Aroostook County, Maine, and Neighboring Canada