Synopses & Reviews
The Society had its beginnings at the AandM-Texas football game in 1909. John Avery Lomax, a forty-two-year-old AandM English teacher from Harvard and Leonidas Warren Payne, a thirty-six year old UT English professor and linguist, met to discuss establishing a folklore society, as had been suggested by George Lyman Kittredge of Harvard. The announced purpose of the society was to collect and make known to the public songs and ballads, superstitions, signs and omens, cures and peculiar customs, legends, dialects, games, plays, and dances, and riddles and proverbs.
About the Author
Francis Edward Abernethy is Regents Professor Emeritus of English at Stephen F. Austin State University, the former executive secretary and editor of the Texas Folklore Society, the curator of exhibits for the East Texas Historical Association, and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters. In addition to having edited numerous Texas Folklore Society publications, he has written Singinand#8217; Texas, Legends of Texasand#8217; Heroic Age, and all three volumes of the Texas Folklore Society history, published by the University of North Texas Press.