Stith Thompson

• 1. A Kentucky Boyhood

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  Stith Thompson was born in Bloomfield, Nelson County, Kentucky on the 7th of March 1885. He grew up as the son of John Warden and Eliza McClaskey. His family moved to Indianapolis when he turned twelve years old. This shift placed him near a growing urban center while his roots remained rural. He attended Butler University from 1903 until 1905 before seeking further education elsewhere. Thompson earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1909. His undergraduate thesis focused on 'The Return from the Dead in Popular Tales and Ballads'. Two years after graduation he taught at Lincoln High School in Portland, Oregon. During this time he learned Norwegian directly from lumberjacks who worked nearby. He later obtained a master's degree in English literature from the University of California, Berkeley in 1912. That dissertation examined 'The Idea of the Soul in Teutonic Popular Tales and Ballads'.

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• 2. Indiana And The First Program

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  Thompson joined Indiana University Bloomington in 1921 as an associate professor within the English Department. He also oversaw the composition program for the university. Within one year he began offering courses specifically dedicated to folklore. These classes were among the very first of their kind taught anywhere in the United States. His dedication to academic research led to the creation of a PhD program in folklore at Indiana in 1949. It was the first doctoral program of its type established in America. Warren E. Roberts received the first doctorate awarded by this new program in 1953. Thompson organized an informal quadrennial summertime Institute of Folklore starting in 1942. This gathering continued even after his retirement from tenure in 1955. A permanent Institute of Folklore finally opened at Bloomington in 1962 with Richard Dorson leading it.

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• 3. Six Volumes Of Motifs

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  Thompson published his six-volume Motif-Index of Folk-Literature between 1932 and 1936. This massive work organized thousands of motifs drawn from folktales he had catalogued earlier. It became known as the international key to traditional material for scholars worldwide. He revised and republished the volumes again between 1955 and 1958 nearly twenty years after retiring. The project required decades of meticulous labor to classify granular elements found across cultures. Thompson collaborated on related projects like Jonah Balys' The Oral Tales of India during these later years. Even at age 83 he produced an anthology titled One Hundred Favorite Folktales. His work built upon a catalogue of folktale types that included stories from Europe and Asia. These texts formed the foundation for future research into narrative structures.

• 4. Adapting Antti Aarne's System

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  In the 1920s Thompson began collecting ballads, tales, proverbs, aphorisms, and riddles. European scholars were studying parallels and distributions of folktales in new ways at this time. Finnish scholar Antti Aarne developed a system for classifying these story types. Thompson traveled and researched extensively before publishing an expanded translation of Aarne's The Types of the Folktale in 1928. He created a catalogue that incorporated tales from both Europe and Asia into his own framework. This classification method appeared in his book Tales of the North American Indians published in 1929. Thompson used these techniques to introduce American folklorists to modern analytical methods. His approach marked a significant shift in how scholarship approached folklore throughout the twentieth century. The resulting system allowed researchers to compare narratives across vast geographical distances with precision.

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• 5. Building Institutional Structures

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  Thompson served as President of the American Folklore Society between 1937 and 1939. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1947. These roles reflected his standing within professional academic circles during the mid-century period. He received honorary degrees from several universities including the University of North Carolina in 1946. Indiana Central College awarded him another degree in 1953 while the University of Kentucky followed suit in 1958. Thompson organized informal gatherings that eventually became permanent institutions after his retirement. Richard Dorson took over administration of the Institute of Folklore when it opened permanently in 1962. The institute helped bring structure to the growing discipline through its journal publications and summer meetings. Thompson's influence extended beyond his own teaching into the very architecture of folklore studies.

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