After the war, he pursued songs only occasionally.īy the time of his death in 1939, he bad preserved 828 folksongs as well as hundreds of riddles, rhymes, play-party games, folk sayings, and quadrille calls. His most active period of collecting ended with World War I. He wrote down the songs he himself remembered from his boyhood, transcribed texts from the lips of ballad singers, wrote to the contributors of songs to newspapers and assembled songs from them, swapped songs with friends from other communities, collected from the scrapbooks and memory books of old people. Around 1909, Piper became more systematic and comprehensive in his collecting. He also gathered the song texts printed in farm journals and newspapers. In 1897, however, he began to copy down old songs which were then primarily in oral circulation. Like many collectors, Piper started out casually, memorizing the tunes and texts he enjoyed singing to entertain his friends. He also learned songs from more genteel sources: Lucinda, his mother Ella, his sister and the various performers, accompanying themselves on fiddle, banjo, or accordion, who entertained at meetings of the country literary society. Among the significant and fascinating manuscripts in our library is the folksong collection of Edwin Ford Piper (1871-1939), a Nebraskan who taught in the Department of English at the University of Iowa from 1905 until his death.Īs a boy in Auburn, Nebraska, Piper turned an eager ear toward the folksongs of hired men, cowboys, tramps slurping their mulligan stews from tin cans simmering over camp-fires, wandering musicians plunking their way with more gusto than profit through country fairs, horse races, and other local festivities.
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