1830s Birch Falls, Vermont One by one Jerusha Kendall’s siblings fall victim to consumption, the scourge of the 19th century. Devastated by the loss of her children, Jerusha’s mother Mary is horrified over the outlandish folk remedy proposed by her dearest friend, Lavinia. Unable to divert the people of Birch Falls from carrying out Lavinia’s ghastly plan, Mary succeeds only in convincing them never to let Jerusha find out what they’ve done. But Jerusha knows a secret is being kept from her, and she is determined to uncover it.

The Folklorist in the Marketplace brings together voices from multiple disciplines to consider how economics shape—and are shaped by—folk groups and academic disciplines. The authors ask how folk and folklorists can productively comment on the economic structures they inhabit. As trade, technology, and geopolitics have led to a rapid increase in the global spread of cultural products like media, knowledge, objects, and folkways, there has been a concomitant rise in fear and anxiety about globalization’s dark other side—economic nativism, neocolonialism, cultural appropriation, and loss. Culture has become a resource and a currency in the global marketplace. This movement of people and forms necessitates a new textual consideration of how folklore and economics interweave. In The Folklorist in the Marketplace, contributors explore how the marketplace and folklore have always been integrally linked and what that means at this cultural and economic moment. Covering a variety of topics, from creel boats to the history of a commune that makes hammocks, The Folklorist in the Marketplace goes far beyond the well-trod examinations of material culture to look closely at the historical and contemporary intersections of these two disciplines and to provoke cross-disciplinary conversation and collaboration. Contributors: William A. Ashton, Halle M. Butvin, James I. Deutsch, Christofer Johnson, Michael Lange, John Laudun, Julie M-A LeBlanc, Cassie Patterson, Rahima Schwenkbeck, Amy Shuman, Irene Sotiropoulou, Zhao Yuanhao

The pioneer collector of the songs and stories of the coal miners, George Korson (1899-1967) was also a leader--many say the leader--in correcting the onetime rural and Anglo-American bias in U.S. folklore studies. Korson won the highest honors in the scholarly world, despite his humble origin as a poor Jewish immigrant boy from the Ukraine, his self-training as a folklorist while working as a newspaperman, and his quiet challenge to the folklore establishment. Among the first biographies of American folklorists, this book recounts a colorful life story, a heroic personal achievement, and a significant contribution to the recognition of industrial folklore. During forty-three years of full-time journalistic employment, Korson wrote five definitive books on coal mining folklore--as well as many articles; started the Library of Congress archive of miners' songs and ballads--with his wife, a musicologist; founded and directed the Pennsylvania Folk Festival; and helped launch the National Folk Festival. He was awarded a University of Pennsylvania Citation in 1949, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1957, a University of Chicago Folklore Prize in 1961, and an Israeli Service Ribbon in American Folklore Society in 1960. The story begins with Korson's three years as a reporter on the Wilkes-Barre Record after his graduation from high school in that city, his two years with the Jewish Legion in Palestine and Egypt during World War I, and his single year at Columbia University. Then come his studies of mining folklore --both in the eastern Pennsylvania anthracite fields and in the bituminous fields of the South and Midwest--while he worked as a reporter in Pottsville and Allentown, PA., in New Jersey, and as chief editor of Red Cross publications. Korson's intellectual outlook is shown as two-sided: on one hand, an understanding that folklore is best presented in the holistic context of a community's way of life; on the other, a conviction that reform is more congruent with American social ideals than revolution. Folklorist of the Coal Fields is a treasury of information for the folklorist and the Pennsylvania history fan, as well as a source of inspiration for younger readers. It is illustrated with forty photographs of George Korson's life and the coal fields environment, plus two maps.