E. C. (Eber Carle) Perrow 1880-1968
[In my opinion E.C. Perrow was one of the first outstanding song collectors in the US. His "Songs and Rhymes from the South" with 270 texts was published in three parts in three different editions of the Journal of American Folk-Lore:
Vol. 25- 1912;
Vol. 26- 1913;
Vol. 28- 1916;
At the time Songs and Rhymes was published Dr. Perrow was a professor of English at The University of Louisville in Louisville, KY. Not much is known about EC Perrow. Born in Virginia, when he was young he moved with his parents to live near his uncle in the east Tennessee mountains where he developed a love for rural folk culture. E.C. received an BA from Trinity College (North Carolina) in 1903, an MA in 1905, and in 1908 received a PhD from Harvard University in English Philology. His thesis at Harvard was: The Last Will and Testament as a Form of Literature. He taught briefly at the University of Missouri, then was an Assistant Professor at the University of Mississippi before he became head of the English Department at the University of Louisville in 1911. Perrow was married to Bertha Perrow. He retired from teaching and moved to Pickens, Georgia where he worked as a surveyor from 1924 until at least the mid-1930s. His short 17 page book, "Unto the Hills," was privately published in 1955. Another short 8 page book "Background" was published in 1956. He died in Georgia in 1968.
Apparently his interest in collecting began around 1905 (the earliest date of the songs he published in Songs and Rhymes) when he graduated from Trinity. The 1905 songs were collected from his home base in East Tennessee. About that time he enrolled at Harvard to study for his doctorate. Although he was involved with collectors and did some collecting in Louisville after the last segment of Songs and Rhymes was published in the JOAFL, I have found no other published articles or materials by him- yet- haha.
Fortunately the Houghton Library of Harvard College has prepared digital copies of some of his early collection which I will add to this collection at some point. See info below: Eber Carle Perrow collection of Southern ballads. Appropriately mistitled- haha- since Perrow collected songs and ballads.]
---------------------
At a relatively early date some scholarly research into Appalachian folk speech was undertaken. In 1912 Dr. Eber C. Perrow, then head of the English Department at the University of Louisville, paid some attention to language in his long serial article "Songs and Rhymes from the South." [JOAFL article]
---------------------------------
The early College of Liberal Arts had no more interesting faculty member than Eber C. Perrow in English. A Tennessee mountaineer who had earned his doctorate from Harvard, Perrow came to Louisville shortly after the liberal arts college opened. Peculiar in habit and appeareance he lived in a home with a dirt floor, wore a long red beard, and farmed on the outskirts of town. On his way to class farmer Perrow would step out of a streetcar in the business district, remove his work boots and don his street shoes. Suffering from overwork Perrow resigned and moved to northern Georgia. In retirement Perrow taught morning Sunday school at the Baptist church, afternoon Sunday School at the Methodist church and demonstrated that his family could subsist on little cash, provided they had no rent to pay and owned "ten acres of land, twenty chickens and a cow." [The University of Louisville By Dwayne Cox, William James Morison]
-----------------------
Perrow, Eber Carle, 1880-1968. Eber Carle Perrow collection of Southern ballads: Guide. Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
View online: http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~hou02050
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 USA
© 2009 The President and Fellows of Harvard College
Descriptive Summary
Repository: Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University
Location: b
Call No.: MS Am 1576
Creator: Perrow, Eber Carle, 1880-1968.
Title: Eber Carle Perrow collection of Southern ballads,
Date(s): 1908-1909.
Quantity: 1 box (.25 linear ft.)
Language of materials: Collection materials are in English.
Abstract: Southern ballads (folk songs), chiefly African-American, gathered by American scholar Eber Carle Perrow and others, as well as course papers written for Perrow by students taking Harvard College's English A in 1909.
Processing Information:
Processed by: Bonnie B. Salt
Acquisition Information:
*57M-247. Gift of Eber Carle Perrow, Talking Rock, Georgia; received: 1958.
Access Restrictions:
There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.
Use Restrictions:
Images linked to this finding aid are intended for public access and educational use. This material is owned and/or held by the Houghton Library, and is provided solely for the purpose of teaching or individual research. Any other use, including commercial reuse, mounting on other systems, or other forms of redistribution requires the permission of the curator.
Preferred Citation for Publication:
Eber Carle Perrow Collection of Southern Ballads (MS Am 1576). Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Historical Note
Eber Carle Perrow (1880-1968) received an BA from Trinity College (North Carolina) in 1903, an MA in 1905, and in 1908 received a PhD from Harvard University in English Philology. His thesis at Harvard was: The last will and testament as a form of literature. Perrow was married to Bertha Perrow, was for a time an Assistant Professor at the University of Mississippi, and became a University of Louisville English professor. He was a lover of folk songs, and died in 1968 in Pickens, Georgia.
Arrangement
Arranged alphabetically by author or title.
Scope and Content
Collection consists primarily of texts of lyrics of Southern African-American ballad folk songs, collected by Perrow, some pages apparently signed and in the hand of the local persons who related the text, but most in hand of Harvard students who wrote compositions for English A in 1909. Manuscripts are often only fragments, written in multiple hands, some are typed transcripts of lyrics, and there is one sheet of manuscript music of a ballad. There is also a 1908 letter from an unidentified person at Louisiana State University written to Perrow concerning text of Southern ballads.
Container List
(1) English A compositions : many variant manuscript hands, 1909.2 folders.
Student compositions written for English A, a course at Harvard College, probably taught by Perrow, and are composed of ballad text. Some papers include autograph manuscript comments by Perrow along with assigned grades. See also fragments listed below which might include additional portions of students' work.
Includes the papers of the following Harvard and Radcliffe students:
T. H. Ball
Luther A. Harrison
T. H. Holliman
Maud A. Kent
W. G. Pitts
J. E. Rankin
G. Turner
Littleton Upjohn
Click for color digital images.
(2) I rode to Laden to Laden fair Laden... : manuscript music , undated. 1 folder.
Includes lyrics.
Click for color digital images.
(3) S.?, Wm.? O.? Letter to Eber Carle Perrow,1908. 1 folder.
Sends "Negro" ballad lyrics to Perrow, while Perrow was studying at Harvard. He mentions that the songs are from Georgia, North Carolina, and Alabama.
Correspondent is from Louisiana State University.
Click for color digital images.
(4) Southern ballad manuscript text (in ink) : many variant manuscript hands, undated.1 folder.
Includes fragments: Ballad of the drunkard ; text from: Virginia, South Carolina, and from Hickman Mills, Missouri (from Frederick A. Braun ) on Jesse James.
Click for color digital images.
(5) Southern ballad manuscript text (in pencil) : many variant manuscript hands, undated.1 folder.
Includes fragments: from R. L. Russell (Jesse James), B. F. Moak,M. J. Aldrich,W. P. Cassidy,M. D. Leverett,J. R. Slay, and A. B. Pitts, Jr., Some of these fragments might actually be part of English A papers listed above, but they are not so marked.
Click for color digital images.
(6) Southern ballad manuscript text (in ink, on blue paper) : many variant manuscript hands, undated.1 folder.
Includes fragments: Arkansas , and others.
Click for color digital images.
(7) Southern ballad typed text : typescripts, undated.1 folder.
Fragments of text, some with manuscript annotations.
Click for color digital images.
(8) Southern ballad typed text : typescript (carbons), undated.3 folders.
Fragments of text, some with manuscript annotations.
Click for color digital images.
---------------------------------
Berea College (From Wilgus)
Series XII E.C. Perrow Folklore Collection Box 9-10
This series consists of correspondence, song texts, and folklore narrative material collected from students by folklore scholar E.C. Perrow while he was teaching at the University of Louisville during the early teens of the 1900s. Narrative subject areas include anecdotes, games, riddles, rhymes, and superstitions.
Box 9
3.E.C. Perrow Collection - Perrow Correspondence
4.E.C. Perrow Collection - Miscellaneous Working Notes
5.E.C. Perrow Collection - Miscellaneous Working Notes
6.E.C. Perrow Collection - Anecdotes
7.E.C. Perrow Collection - Games
8.E.C. Perrow Collection - Games & Songs & Rhymes
9.E.C. Perrow Collection - Riddles
10.E.C. Perrow Collection - “Negro” Ballads & Songs
11.E.C. Perrow Collection - Religious Ballads & Songs
12.E.C. Perrow Collection - Song Texts
13.E.C. Perrow Collection - Song Texts
Box 10
1.E.C. Perrow Collection - Student Collections
2.E.C. Perrow Collection - Folk Speech
3.E.C. Perrow Collection - Superstitions
The Girl in the Dilger Case [This apparently is from the Berea collection]
Once I was young and sweet as the roses;
Out on the street so gaudy and gay.
I went first to the dance hall, from there to the whore house,
And now from the whore house I go to my grave.
Send for my mother to sit by my bedside,
Send for the preacher to pray over me,
Send for the doctor that heals me so easy,
Send for the young man that I like to see.
The Ninth Street* girls will carry my coffin,
The Eighth Street walkers will sing a sweet song;
Give them each a bunch of red roses
To keep me from smelling as they carry me along.
*Ninth Street - Dr. Wilgus believes this should read Green Street.
(Sung by D.K. Wilgus)
This Kentucky variant of The Bad Girl's Lament appears to have been adapted to fit the circumstances of a local incident. The exact relationship of the young prostitute of the ballad to the Dilger referred to in its title is unclear. Wilgus supplied the following information with the text-: "Dilger had been a policeman and a private bouncer in a low class variety theatre. He was a husky, virile, rather good-looking chap of about 35. He was surprised in a bawdyhouse by two policemen. He killed them both and was subsequently executed for the crime."
The text sung here was collected by E.C. Perrow from Jack Sykes of Louisville, Kentucky, in 1915, and is presently part of the Western Kentucky Folklore Archive. Dr. Wilgus has set the text to a conventional tune for ballads in the 'Rake' cycle.
----------------------------------
Pickens County, Georgia: Pickens County Appointed Officers 1854-1935
Surveyor
E C Perrow Dec 20, 1924
E C Perrow Dec 20, 1928
E C Perrow Dec 15, 1932
--------------------------------------
Books and publications:
The Last Will and Testament as a Form of Literature
1908; reprinted
"Songs and Rhymes from the South" with 270 texts was published in three parts in three different editions of the Journal of American Folk-Lore:
Vol. 25- 1912;
Vol. 26- 1913;
Vol. 28- 1916
"Unto the hills"
Publisher: Privately printed, 1955
Length 17 pages
"Background"
Publisher: Privately printed 1956
8 pages