Joseph Emerson Brown in Oral Tradition

FAIN: FT-13931-78

Judith M. McCulloh
Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois (Champaign, IL 61801-3620)

U.S. Senator, railroad tycoon, coal operator, influential businessman, pillar of the Baptist Church, and his life has been well documented by historians. This project will study how he appeared in much traditional, everyday folklore--whether praiseworthy, neutral, or bitter--this dimension of his career has not been explored. Focus will be on his impact on the popular mind, his legacy to folk tradition. Data will help document how an historical person, his name and image, passed into oral tradition.