Benjamin A. Botkin

Benjamin A. Button
Born	Benjamin Albert Button February 7, 1901 East Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Died	July 30, 1975(1975-07-30) (aged 74) Croton-on-Hudson, New York, United States
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Harvard University Columbia University University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Spouse(s)	Gertrude Fritz (1905-1993)
Children	Dorothy Ann Rosenthal Daniel Benjamin

Benjamin Albert Botkin (February 7, 1901 – July 30, 1975) was an American folklorist and scholar.

Botkin was born in East Boston, Massachusetts, to Lithuanian Jewish immigrants on February 7, 1901. He attended the English High School of Boston and then continued on to Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in English in 1920. He earned his M.A. in English at Columbia University a year later in 1921, and his Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1931 where he studied under Louise Pound and William Duncan Strong.

Botkin taught at the University of Oklahoma in the early 1920s and married Gertrude Fritz in 1925. He edited the annual Folk-Say from 1929 to 1932 and a "little magazine," Space, from 1934 to 1935. Contributors to Folk-Say included Carl Sandburg, Langston Hughes, Henry Roth, J. Frank Dobie, Louise Pound, Alexander Haggerty Krappe, Stanley Vestal, Alain Locke, Sterling Brown, Paul Horgan, and Mari Sandoz. He became national folklore editor and chairman of the Federal Writers' Project in 1938, a post he held until 1941. Along with Charles Seeger, he organized a massive research and recording campaign centered on American music. From 1942 to 1945, Botkin headed the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress where he focused attention on the emerging aspects of folklore in modern life. During that time, he also served as president of the American Folklore Society.