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Richard M. Dorson

Born: 03/12/1916   New York City
Died: 09/11/1981
Parents: Louis J. and Gertrude Dorson
Children: Ronald, Roland, Jeffrey, Linda

Writings

Image Title Genre Audience Publisher Date
Folklore and Fakelore: Essays toward a Discipline of Folk Studies Non Fiction Adult Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1976
We Americans
- Contributor 		Non Fiction Adult , Teen Washington : National Geographic Society 1975
America in Legend: Folklore From the Colonial Period to the Present
- Book-of-the-Month Club selection 		Folklore Adult New York, Pantheon Books 1973
Folklore of the World Series
- Editor, 38 Vols. 		Folklore Adult Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1963 -1980
Negro Tales From Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and Calvin, Michigan Folklore Adult Bloomington, Indiana University Press 1958
Negro Folktales in Michigan
- Editor Republished,1974, by Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press 		Folklore , Michigan Adult Cambridge, Harvard University Press 1956
Bloodstoppers and Bearwalkers: Folk Traditions of the Upper Peninsula
- (Publication Years: 1952, 1972) 		Folklore , Michigan Adult Cambridge, Harvard University Press 1952
Jonathan Draws the Long Bow: New England Popular Tales and Legends Folklore Adult Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press 1946
Jonathan Draws the Long Bow: New England Popular Tales and Legends
- Republished, 1970 by New York, Russell & Russell 		Folklore Adult Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press 1946
Other writings:
- Contributor to American Scholar, New Republic, Atlantic, others

May inquiries be sent to you about doing workshops, readings: No

Donated books to the Authors & Illustrators database project: No

Skills:
Author

Education:

Degree Institution Location Date
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) (cum laude) Western Michigan University Kalamazoo , MI 1954 -1956

Career:

Position Organization Location Date
Member Smithsonian Institution Folklife Council 1977 -1981
Distinguished Professor Indiana University Bloomington 1971 -1981
Director Folklore Institute Indiana University, Bloomington 1963 -1981
Founder, Editor Journal of Folklore Institute Indiana University, Bloomington 1963 -1981
Vice-President International Society for Folk Narrative Research 1959 -1964
Professor Indiana University Bloomington 1957 -1971
Assistant professor, Associate professor, Professor Michigan State University East Lansing , MI 1944 -1957
Instructor Harvard University Cambirdge 1943 -1944
- Book review editor of others

Other Resources:

MeLCat Links:
http://elibrary.mel.org/search~S15?/aDorson%2C+Richard+M./adorson+richard+m/-3,-1,0,B/browse

http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/lilly/mss/index.php?p=dorson

Other Comments:

Richard Mercer Dorson is known as the "father of folklore studies in the United States." The foundations of his career were in Michigan, where Dorson worked as a tireless researcher and professor at Michigan State College (University) where he taught from 1944-1957. Dorson traveled throughout Michigan documenting the folklore and folklife of the state's citizenry for thirteen years. Dorson contributed two terms to the study of folklore that have common usage. The first is "urban legend"; meaning a modern "story which never happened told for true", and the word "fakelore" - "a synthetic product claiming to be authentic oral tradition but actually tailored for mass edification", which "misled and gulled the public". Dr. Dorson's papers are held at the Lilly Manuscript Collection at Indiana State University and at Michigan State University.

Last Modified On: 3/26/2017 12:00:00 AM