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My Secret Autobiography: The Letters of Francis James Child to William Ellery Sedgwick

1,188 views · Published 28 November 2018 · 59:29 · Indexed 30 September 2026

Channel: Library of Congress · 2018 · Education

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Folklorist Michael Bell discussed ballad scholar Francis James Child. Beginning in 1846, soon after his graduation from Harvard College, Child -- a Harvard professor, eventual first president of the American Folklore Society and the greatest ballad scholar of the 19th century -- began what would become a 20-year correspondence with his closest college friend and future brother-in-law, William Ellery Sedgwick. Based on this cache of letters contained among the Sedgwick family papers deposited at the Massachusetts Historical Society, Bell's presentation examined this "secret autobiography" for what it reveals about Child the man; his hopes, dreams and frustrations and his growing involvement in the intellectual and social cultures of late antebellum Cambridge. 

Speaker Biography: Michael Bell is a folklorist who has been a professor at Wayne State University and Grinnell College, and an administrator at Suffolk University and Merrimack College. He retired as vice president and dean of Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. He has been researching Francis James Child and his volumes of ballads for many years. 

For transcript and more information, visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=8536

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