Francis James Child was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of English and Scottish ballads now known as the Child Ballads. Child was Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard University, where he produced influential editions of English poetry. In 1876 he was named Harvard's first Professor of English, a position which allowed him to focus on academic research. It was during this time that he began work on the Child Ballads.
Francis James Child
Child, a keen gardener and devotee of antique roses, photographed (probably by Charles Eliot Norton) in his rose garden. Verses about "the rose and the briar" occur in many ballads.
Folklore studies is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currency in the 1950s to distinguish the academic study of traditional culture from the folklore artifacts themselves. It became established as a field across both Europe and North America, coordinating with Volkskunde (German), folkeminner (Norwegian), and folkminnen (Swedish), among others.
Front cover of Folklore: "He loses his hat: Judith Philips riding a man", from: The Brideling, Sadling, and Ryding, of a rich Churle in Hampshire (1595)
Brothers Grimm (1916)
Federal Writers Project
2015 Smithsonian Folklife Festival