OUR HISTORY
The observation of folklore in Utah has occurred long before written records, which date back only to 1891. Early explorers of the West observed closely the cultural behaviors of Native American groups, and national and international visitors (including Mark Twain) took an early interest in the communities and settlements founded by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the mid-nineteenth century. Most early reports were compiled by residents and visitors, rather than by university professors or members of any folklore organization. These were simply people who were interested in the traditions and cultures they observed or, often, in which they were participants. By the 1930s, the nationwide wave of interest in rural and working-class life that coincided with the Great Depression also reached Utah. This trend led to an expansion of studies of regional folklore in the Great Basin and throughout the West.
Utah folklore studies were spurred on in the late 1950s and early '60s, as in other states, by the folksong revival, a wave of national interest in folk music that owed much to the popularity of such urban-based performers as the Weavers, Harry Belafonte, Burl Ives, and the Kingston Trio. All across the country, folksingers, university students, labor organizers, and musicians banded together in folk music and folk dance clubs, founded coffee houses, organized concerts, and started small record companies to market their own musical talents and those of the venerable musicians of Appalachia and the Deep South whom they
so admired. Folk festivals modeled after the largest and best-publicized, the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, sprang up, as did local, state, and regional folklore societies. Utah was very much part of this trend, with local performers like Rosalie and Jim Sorrels and Bruce "U. Utah" Phillips leading the revival. The Folklore Society of Utah, however, sprang not from the folksong revival but from the efforts of university-based academics. Wayland Hand, a Salt Lake City native teaching at UCLA, returned to Utah in 1957 to teach in the summer school at the University of Utah. His appointment had been arranged by Dean Harold Bentley of the Extension Division, who had long been interested in Utah folklore. On July 22, a "Folklore Evening" was held in the Student Union. Hand, whose enthusiasm for folklore matters was very contagious, spoke on "Folklore in America" and advocated organizing a folklore society on the model of other state-based groups.
With a group of converts in place, the Folklore Society of Utah launched its inaugural event on 30 June 1958, with one hundred people in attendance. In 1972, for the first time in the society's history, students were actively encouraged to present at the annual meeting. Today, the Folklore Society of Utah’s annual meeting includes a wonderful mix of presentations by undergraduate and graduate students, academic folklorists, and public-sector folklorists.
CURRENT OFFICERS AND
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
GENERAL BOARD
MEMBERS
Co-President: Christine Elyse Blythe
Co-President: Christopher James Blythe
Vice President: Lori J. Lee
Secretary: Deanna Allred
Treasurer: Terri Jordan
Student Representative: Claire Gillett
David Stanley
Nan McEntire
Camille Sleight
Julie Swallow
CHRISTINE ELYSE BLYTHE
CO-PRESIDENT
is the archivist of the William A. Wilson Folklore Archives at Brigham Young University and the Editor of the Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies at Utah State University. Her research interests include personal narrative, legend, and vernacular religion. She currently holds a BA in Religious Studies from Utah State University and a MA in Folklore from Memorial University of Newfoundland.
CHRISTOPHER JAMES BLYTHE
CO-PRESIDENT
is an assistant professor of English at Brigham Young University. He holds degrees from Texas A&M University, Utah State University, and Florida State University. His book Terrible Revolution: Latter-day Saints and the American Apocalypse was published by Oxford University Press in 2020. Blythe also serves as co-editor of the Journal of Mormon History.
LORI J. LEE
VICE PRESIDENT
Lori is a graduate of the Utah State University master's program in American Studies and Folklore with a research emphasis in personal narrative. A resident of Bountiful, Utah she engages in the craft of hand-made card design for fun. Lori is the author of six books: Wild Weekends in Utah; The Best Hiking Trails Near Salt Lake City, 1st and 2nd edition; Best Snowshoe Trails of the Wasatch; Yurts of Utah and L.I.F.E - Living Intentional and Fearless Everyday. She is the host and producer of the Love Your Story podcast, a podcast dedicated to real life stories and our power to create our own story on purpose. Lori has over 110 publications in national, regional and local magazines and has won several awards for her research and writing. She can be contacted via email at lorijlee@msn.com.
DEANNA ALLRED
SECRETARY
is a lecturer in the English department at Utah State University. She graduated from USU with a BA in Literature and an MA in American Studies with a Folklore Emphasis. Her research interests include narrative, quilting communities, and craftivism. However, teaching is her passion.
TERRI JORDAN
TREASURER
is the Fife Folklore Archives Curator at Utah State University. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Oklahoma, and both an M.A. in Folklore and an M.L.S. from Indiana University Bloomington. She is also a Society of American Archivists-certified Digital Archives Specialist. She works frequently with the American Folklore Society, and served as the Convener of the AFS Archives and Libraries Section for nine years. Her professional interests include digital folklore, digital preservation, and personal and community archiving.
CLAIRE GILLETT
STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE
is a graduate student in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University Bloomington. Before moving to Indiana, she earned a BA in English from BYU. She currently works as a graduate assistant for Traditional Arts Indiana, where she facilitates a statewide apprenticeship program. Her research interests include material culture, textile art, public folklore, and museum studies.
DAVID STANLEY
GENERAL BOARD MEMBER
taught literature and folklore at Westminster College in Salt Lake City for nearly twenty years before he retired. His doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin incorporated folklore theory into his study of American autobiographical fiction. Since then, he has worked for the Utah Arts Council as a folklorist and has done fieldwork in Texas, Georgia, Montana, Utah, Japan, Hungary, and Ireland. He is the editor of the collection of essays, "Folklore in Utah" (Utah State University Press) and has published extensively on cowboy poetry, Hungarian rural culture, and American national parks.
NAN McENTIRE
GENERAL BOARD MEMBER
is an associate professor emerita of English, Indiana State University, where she taught folklore for many years. Her doctorate in folklore and ethnomusicology is from Indiana University Bloomington. She served as the executive director of the Hoosier Folklore Society from 1998-2010.
She edited The Folklore Historian from 1998-2009. Publications include The Lotus Dickey Songbook (Indiana University Press, 1995; 2005) and Orkney: Land, Sea, Community (University of Edinburgh, Scotland, 2004). She was a Fulbright Scholar at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in Limerick, Ireland, in 2010.
Dr. McEntire is the president of the Utah Chapter of the Fulbright Association. In this capacity, she and her board members host visiting Fulbright teachers and scholars from around the world. In 2019 she rode a bicycle across the USA to raise money for Fulbright.
CAMILLE SLEIGHT
GENERAL BOARD MEMBER
(she/they) holds a Masters Degree in Folklore and American Studies, as well as a Graduate Certificate in Archiving and Public Programming from Utah State University. Prior to dedicating their professional work to folklore and folklife, they spent eight years as a grant writer and non-profit administrator for organizations throughout Montana and Utah. Sleight now serves as the Heritage Program Manager of the Bear River Heritage Area. In this role, they seek to document culture and preserve traditions throughout the Cache, Box Elder, and Rich Counties in Utah, as well as the Caribou, Bear Lake, Franklin, and Oneida Counties in southern Idaho. They are also an independent researcher with USU's Digital Folklore Project, and are passionate about the ways in which internet culture catapults dialogue on politics and social issues into mainstream media spaces.
JULIE SWALLOW
GENERAL BOARD MEMBER
holds an MA in English with an emphasis in Folklore. Her research interests include foodways and personal narratives. She currently works at the Center for Teaching and Learning at Brigham Young University.