Vance Randolph
| Vance Randolph | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
February 23, 1892 Pittsburg, Kansas |
| Died | November 1, 1980 (aged 88) |
| Resting place | Fayetteville National Cemetery |
| Occupation | Writer, folklorist |
| Nationality | American |
| Period | 1927–80 |
| Genre | folklore |
Vance Randolph (February 23, 1892 – November 1, 1980) was a folklorist who studied the folklore of the Ozarks in particular. He wrote a number of books on topics including the Ozarks, Little Blue Books, and juvenile fiction.
Randolph was born in Pittsburg, Kansas in 1892, the son of a lawyer and a teacher. Despite being born in a privileged home, Randolph dropped out of high school to work on left-leaning publications. This did not stop him from attending college and he graduated from what is now Pittsburg State University in 1914. He pursued graduate work at Clark University and received a Master of Arts degree in psychology. He later dedicated his book Ozark Superstitions (1947) to the memory of his Clark mentor G. Stanley Hall.
In 1927, Randolph had his first article published in the Journal of American Folklore, based on work on Ozark dialect and folk beliefs. The dialect work led to multiple publications throughout the 1920s and 1930s in American Speech and Dialect Notes.
He moved to Pineville, McDonald County, Missouri in 1919. He never moved away from the Ozarks and remained in the Ozark Mountains from 1920 until his death. He made a living by writing for sporting and outdoor publications. While writing, Randolph used pseudonyms, but never for his work on the Ozark culture.
Randolph also wrote about non-folklore aspects of Ozark society, such as music. His Ozark Mountain Folks (1932) describes the creation of a distinctive church choir singing style created by a corps of uncredentialled, itinerant choral instructors.
Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folktales (1976) was a national bestseller. He published over a dozen works on Ozark folklore. In 1949 he and the poet John Gould Fletcher founded the Ozark Folklore Society.
In 1951 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Arkansas. A longtime member of The Missouri Folklore Society, he was elected a Fellow of the American Folklore Society in 1978.
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