Stith Thompson
A University of Wisconsin undergraduate once wrote a thesis called "The Return from the Dead in Popular Tales and Ballads." The student was Stith Thompson, an American folklorist. Admirers later described him as "America's most important folklorist." Few undergraduates choose such a subject, and fewer still build a lifetime's work from it. This documentary asks how Thompson turned a fascination with old stories into reference books that scholars still rely on. It also asks how he helped give the study of folklore a firm footing inside American universities.
Bloomfield, in Nelson County, Kentucky, is where Thompson was born on the 7th of March 1885. His parents were John Warden and Eliza, whose maiden name was McClaskey.
At the age of twelve he moved with his family to Indianapolis. He attended Butler University from 1903 to 1905, then took his bachelor's degree at the University of Wisconsin in 1909.
Lincoln High School in Portland, Oregon, employed him as a teacher for the next two years. While he was there, he learned Norwegian from lumberjacks.
A master's degree in English literature came from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1912. His dissertation there was titled "The Idea of the Soul in Teutonic Popular Tales and Ballads."
Harvard University then drew him east, and he studied there from 1912 to 1914 under George Lyman Kittredge. His doctoral dissertation, "European Borrowings and Parallels in North American Indian Tales," grew out of an assignment from Kittredge. The assignment centered on a tale called "The Blue Band," which had been collected from the Chipewyan tribe in Saskatchewan. It might derive from contact with a similar Scandinavian tale. Thompson earned his Ph.D., and the revised thesis was published in 1919.
After Harvard, he spent the years from 1914 to 1918 as an English instructor at the University of Texas, Austin, teaching composition.
During the 1920s, Thompson began collecting and archiving traditional ballads, tales, proverbs, aphorisms, riddles and similar material. European scholars were then studying the parallels and worldwide spread of folktales in new ways. Antti Aarne in Finland was a leading figure among them.
Thompson picked up these techniques through travel and research. In 1928 he published an expanded translation of Aarne's The Types of the Folktale. The result was a catalogue of folktale types that took in tales from Europe and Asia.
Harvard University Press, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, published Thompson's Tales of the North American Indians in 1929. In it, he put the new classification to work on stories from another continent.
His name remains attached to this system today. The Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, which sorts folktales by type, carries Thompson as its middle name.
Six volumes of The Motif-Index of Folk-Literature appeared between 1932 and 1936. Admirers later called it a "landmark work."
A motif is a granular element of folklore, a small piece that can turn up inside many different stories. Thompson organised thousands of them, drawn from the folktale types he had already catalogued in The Types of the Folktale.
Folklorists treat the six-volume work as the international key to traditional material. Anyone tracing a single episode across many cultures can start from its entries.
By introducing these techniques to American folklorists, Thompson was credited with a "marked influence on the direction of American folklore scholarship in the 20th century."
In 1921, Indiana University Bloomington appointed Thompson associate professor in its English Department. The department also ran the university's composition program. Within a year he was offering folklore courses, among the first of their kind in the United States.
The year 1949 brought the PhD program in folklore at Indiana, the first of its kind in the country. Warren E. Roberts received the first doctorate in 1953.
Thompson's former students went on to establish folklore courses at other American universities. Together with the Indiana program, that work led one assessment to call him "largely responsible for establishing folklore on a firm academic footing in the United States."
Beginning in 1942, he organized an informal summertime "Institute of Folklore" that met every four years. It outlasted his retirement from tenure in 1955. The gatherings brought together scholars interested in the field and helped give the growing discipline some structure.
A permanent Institute of Folklore opened at Bloomington in 1962. Richard Dorson served as its administrator and as chief editor of its journal.
For nearly twenty years after he retired, Thompson kept working on the Motif-Index and The Types of the Folktale. He published revised editions of the Motif-Index volumes between 1955 and 1958.
Jonah Balys wrote The Oral Tales of India, and Thompson collaborated on it. He also worked with Warren Roberts on Types of Indic Folktales.
At the age of 83, he produced an anthology titled One Hundred Favorite Folktales.
Honors had come along the way. He served as President of the American Folklore Society from 1937 to 1939 and was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1947.
Universities also awarded him honorary degrees. The University of North Carolina gave one in 1946, Indiana Central College in 1953, and the University of Kentucky in 1958. That last one came from the state where he was born.
The Filson Club History Quarterly published Thompson's 1954 article "The Beauchamp Family." Genealogists continue to use it.
In the article, Thompson states that he descends from Costin Beauchamp, who was born in 1738 in Somerset County, Maryland. That line, he says, reaches back to John Beauchamp, one of the members of the Plymouth Company.
Thompson died of heart failure at his home in Columbus, Indiana, on the 10th of January 1976. His family research, like his folklore catalogues, is still being consulted.
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Common questions
Who was Stith Thompson?
Stith Thompson was an American folklorist, born on the 7th of March 1885 and died on the 10th of January 1976. He has been described as "America's most important folklorist."
What is the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index and what was Stith Thompson's role in it?
The Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index sorts folktales by type, and Stith Thompson is its "Thompson." In 1928 he published an expanded translation of Antti Aarne's The Types of the Folktale.
What is the Motif-Index of Folk-Literature by Stith Thompson?
The Motif-Index of Folk-Literature is a six-volume reference by Stith Thompson that indexes motifs, the small elements of folklore. It first appeared between 1932 and 1936, and revised editions were published between 1955 and 1958.
Where did Stith Thompson teach folklore?
Stith Thompson taught at Indiana University Bloomington, where he became associate professor in 1921. Within a year he was offering folklore courses, among the first in the United States.
When did Indiana University start its folklore PhD program under Stith Thompson?
Indiana University created its PhD program in folklore in 1949, the first of its kind in the United States. Warren E. Roberts was awarded the first doctorate in 1953.
What honors did Stith Thompson receive?
Stith Thompson served as President of the American Folklore Society from 1937 to 1939 and was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1947. He also received honorary degrees from the University of North Carolina in 1946, Indiana Central College in 1953 and the University of Kentucky in 1958.
All sources
16 references cited across the entry
- 2BookAmerican folklore an encyclopediaWarren E. Roberts — Garland — 1996
- 3JournalThe American concept of folkloreAlan Dundes — 1966
- 4The tale that Pliny Earle Goddard collected and published in Chipewyan Texts (1912) is "The Boy who became Strong". The tale Kittredge refers to is the parallel, Müllenhoff (1845)'s tale "XI. Der blau
- 5Thompson (1946) p. 114Thompson — 1946
- 6BookComposing a community: a history of writing across the curriculumJill Terry Rudy — Parlor Press — 2006
- 8Past AFS PresidentsT. J. Smith
- 9Genealogies of Kentucky Families, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc, pages 9-47, 1981.
- 10Genealogies of Kentucky Families, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc, page 10, 1981.
- 11BookThe FolktaleStith Thompson — Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. — 1946
- 12Studies in Folklore. In honor of distinguished Service Professor Stith ThompsonIndiana University Press — 1957
- 13JournalStith Thompson (1885-1976)Richard M. Dorson — American Folklore Society — January–March 1977
- 14JournalStith Thompson (1885-1976)Warren E. Roberts — 1976
- 15BookA Folklorist's Progress: Reflections of a Scholar's LifeStith Thompson — Indiana University Press — 1996
- 16JournalHarvard, 1912-1914; Entrenching at Indiana: 1921-1926; Distinguished Service: 1953-1955Stith Thompson — 1994