Overview

James Buchanan Elmore (1857–1942): Literary Ethnographer and Folk Poet details the life and work of Elmore as a “folk poet,” emphasizing the importance in the cultural understanding of the ethnographic insights he gave as a farmer in the midwestern region of the United States that experienced dramatic social change after the Civil War. In song and verse, folk poets write of community events and personalities associated with them and of manifestations of natural forces with effects upon society. Often about locations overlooked by national historians and anthropologists, these writings are valued for their interpretations as participants within the cultural expressions describing group feeling and thought. By many estimates, Elmore left the largest legacy of folk poetic material in the United States, but not until now has a folklorist analyzed this rich trove of documentation for understanding the shifting folklife of the Midwest amid cultural shifts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Baker illustrates that Elmore shows more similarities to folk poets such as South Carolina's Bard of the Congaree, journeyman printer J. Gordon Coogler (1865–1901), than with academic poets Wallace Stevens or even James Whitcomb Riley. Aptly nicknamed the Bard of Alamo, Elmore was his community's laureate—the voice of the-people—living in Indiana in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and a recorder of folklife from the 1830s on the frontier until after the Civil War when industrialization swept through the nation.

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9781666964790

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Hoosier author James Buchanan Elmore, lauded as ""the bard of Alamo,"" is well remembered for his local color writings, but until now there has been no comprehensive study of his homespun life as a farmer, sometime schoolteacher, or--more importantly--of his extensive contributions as a folk poet and regional ethnographer in the heartland. With this new volume, foremost authority on Indiana folklore Ronald Baker delivers the scholarly attention that Elmore's life and work deserve. Elmore's prose and poetry, Baker shows us, chronicle the substance of small town folklife in 19th- and early 20th-century Indiana, at a pivotal moment when agrarian communities grappled with the shifting social order that came along with industrialism and mass culture. Informative, insightful, and imminently readable, James Buchanan Elmore (1857-1942): Literary Ethnographer and Folk Poet will appeal to folklorists, historians, ethnologists, or anyone interested Midwestern literature and regionalism. In his study of James Buchanan Elmore, Ronald Baker has rescued from obscurity an authentic voice of the nineteenth-century Midwest. The prose and poetry of this once-popular farmer-poet celebrated rural and small-town Indiana in the tradition of other ""rustic"" writers and, as Baker's analysis shows, provides an insider's perspective of a wealth of traditional lore and activities: work bees, dumb suppers, courting traditions, and even the underground railroad. This is a significant contribution to the study of early Midwestern folklore and social history. This study challenges us to reconsider disciplinary configurations that have tended to exclude or devalue the contributions of figures like the self-described ""farmer-poet"" James Buchanan Elmore. Pairing careful archival research with a masterful survey of relevant scholarship, Ron Baker honors Elmore's legacy -- as a fellow literary ethnographer and local historian.

"Hoosier author James Buchanan Elmore, lauded as ""the bard of Alamo,"" is well remembered for his local color writings, but until now there has been no comprehensive study of his homespun life as a farmer, sometime schoolteacher, or--more importantly--of his extensive contributions as a folk poet and regional ethnographer in the heartland. With this new volume, foremost authority on Indiana folklore Ronald Baker delivers the scholarly attention that Elmore's life and work deserve. Elmore's prose and poetry, Baker shows us, chronicle the substance of small town folklife in 19th- and early 20th-century Indiana, at a pivotal moment when agrarian communities grappled with the shifting social order that came along with industrialism and mass culture. Informative, insightful, and imminently readable, James Buchanan Elmore (1857-1942): Literary Ethnographer and Folk Poet will appeal to folklorists, historians, ethnologists, or anyone interested Midwestern literature and regionalism. --Dr. Greg Kelley, author of Unruly Audience: Folk Interventions in Popular Media In his study of James Buchanan Elmore, Ronald Baker has rescued from obscurity an authentic voice of the nineteenth-century Midwest. The prose and poetry of this once-popular farmer-poet celebrated rural and small-town Indiana in the tradition of other ""rustic"" writers and, as Baker's analysis shows, provides an insider's perspective of a wealth of traditional lore and activities: work bees, dumb suppers, courting traditions, and even the underground railroad. This is a significant contribution to the study of early Midwestern folklore and social history. --Jon Kasparek, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee This study challenges us to reconsider disciplinary configurations that have tended to exclude or devalue the contributions of figures like the self-described ""farmer-poet"" James Buchanan Elmore. Pairing careful archival research with a masterful survey of relevant scholarship, Ron Baker honors Elmore's legacy -- as a fellow literary ethnographer and local historian. --Jennifer Schacker, University of Guelph"

"Hoosier author James Buchanan Elmore, lauded as ""the bard of Alamo,"" is well remembered for his local color writings, but until now there has been no comprehensive study of his homespun life as a farmer, sometime schoolteacher, or--more importantly--of his extensive contributions as a folk poet and regional ethnographer in the heartland. With this new volume, foremost authority on Indiana folklore Ronald Baker delivers the scholarly attention that Elmore's life and work deserve. Elmore's prose and poetry, Baker shows us, chronicle the substance of small town folklife in 19th- and early 20th-century Indiana, at a pivotal moment when agrarian communities grappled with the shifting social order that came along with industrialism and mass culture. Informative, insightful, and imminently readable, James Buchanan Elmore (1857-1942): Literary Ethnographer and Folk Poet will appeal to folklorists, historians, ethnologists, or anyone interested Midwestern literature and regionalism. In his study of James Buchanan Elmore, Ronald Baker has rescued from obscurity an authentic voice of the nineteenth-century Midwest. The prose and poetry of this once-popular farmer-poet celebrated rural and small-town Indiana in the tradition of other ""rustic"" writers and, as Baker's analysis shows, provides an insider's perspective of a wealth of traditional lore and activities: work bees, dumb suppers, courting traditions, and even the underground railroad. This is a significant contribution to the study of early Midwestern folklore and social history. This study challenges us to reconsider disciplinary configurations that have tended to exclude or devalue the contributions of figures like the self-described ""farmer-poet"" James Buchanan Elmore. Pairing careful archival research with a masterful survey of relevant scholarship, Ron Baker honors Elmore's legacy -- as a fellow literary ethnographer and local historian."

Author Information

Ronald L. Baker was professor emeritus of English at Indiana State University, where he taught English and folklore courses from 1966 to 2006.

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