Michigan in Literature


Book Description

Michigan in Literature is a guide to more than one thousand literary and dramatic works set in Michigan from its pre-territorial days to the present. Imaginative, narrative, dramatic, and lyrical creations that have Michigan settings, characters, subjects, and themes are organized into sixteen chapters on topics such as Indians in Michigan, settlers who came to Michigan, diversity in the state, the timber industry, the Great Lakes, crime in Michigan literature, Detroit, and Michigan poetry. In this most complete work to date, Clarence Andrews has assembled the literary reputation of a state. He illustrates, with a wide variety of literary works, that Michigan is more than just a builder of automobiles, a producer of apples and cherries, a supplier of copper and lumber, and the home of great athletes. It is also a state that has played—and continues to play—an important role in the production of American literature. To qualify for inclusion, a work or a significant part of it has to be set in Michigan. Andrews shows how novelists, dramatists, poets, and short story writers have created their particular images of Michigan by using and interpreting the history of the state—its land and waters, people, events, ideas, philosophies, and policies—sometimes factually, sometimes modified or distorted, and sometimes fancied or imagined. Biographical information is featured about authors, editors, and compilers, who range in fame from Ernest Hemingway and Elmore Leonard to persons long forgotten. The published opinions and judgments of reputable critics and scholars are also presented.










American Folk Songs [2 volumes]


Book Description

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.




Work Songs


Book Description

DIVThe place of music in different forms of work from the earliest hunting and planting to the contemporary office./div




Michigan


Book Description

This standard textbook on Michigan history covers the entire scope of the Wolverine State's historical record -- from when humankind first arrived in the area around 9,000 B.C. up to 1995. This third revised edition of Michigan also examines events since 1980 and draws on new studies to expand and improve its coverage of various ethnic groups, recent political developments, labor and business, and many other topics. Includes photographs, maps, and charts.




Ballads and Songs of Southern Michigan


Book Description

This book presents old-time Michigan, its songs and their tunes, collected and edited by Emelyn E. Gardner, a folklorist of wide experience, the author of Folklore from the Schoharie Hills, with the aid of Geraldine Jencks Chickering. Michigan's early settlers, coming from the older eastern states, both north and south, with many from England, Scotland, and the British North American possessions, brought with them their songs, which they sang happily at work and play, handing them down from generation to generation, and often adapting centuries-old ballads to their new environment. Many worked for a time in the woods and picked up the mournful, or jolly, ballads that were circulated through the camps by lumberjacks drifting in from the Maine and Canadian forests. There are old folks still alive who treasure these ancient songs, and young people who have learned them from their parents and grandparents—or even from the radio. Ballads and Songs of Southern Michigan collects and preserves these cherished possessions of the old frontier. With scholarly accuracy their history is recounted; the names of those who sang them are reported. The tunes of many are reproduced; there are ample indices and bibliography. Wilfred B. Shaw's ink drawings add much to the charm of the book. It is a worthy addition both to the literature of folklore and balladry, and to that of pioneer American history.




The Ballad Collectors of North America


Book Description

Much has been written about the songs gathered in North America in the first half of the 20th century. However, there is scant information on those individuals responsible for gathering these songs. The Ballad Collectors of North America: How Gathering Folksongs Transformed Academic Thought and American Identity fills this gap, documenting the efforts of those who transcribed and recorded North American folk songs. Both biographical and topical, this book chronicles not only the most influential of these "song catchers" but also examines the main schools of thought on the collection process, the leading proponents of those schools, and the projects that they shaped. Contributors also consider the role of technology--especially the phonograph--in the collection efforts. Chapters organized by region cover such areas as Appalachia, the West, and Canada, while others devoted to specialized topics from the cowboy tune and occupational song to the commercialization of folk music through song collections and anthologies. Ballad Collectors investigates the larger role of the ballad in the development of American identity, from the national appreciation of cowboy songs in popular culture to the use of Appalachian song forms in radio broadcasts to the role of dustbowl ballads in the urban folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. Finally, this collection assesses the changing role of songs and song texts in the academic fields of folklore, anthropology, musicology, and ethnomusicology. Scholars and students of American cultural and social history, as well as fans of North American folk and popular music, will find The Ballad Collectors of North America a fascinating story of how the American folk tradition gained greater visibility, fueling the revolutions that would follow in the writing and performance of American music.




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