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Edward Dawson (Sandy) Ives (September 4, 1925 – August 1, 2009) was an American folklorist. His work concentrated on the oral traditions of Maine and the Maritime Provinces of Canada, particularly, as he said, "on local songs and their makers but also on cycles of tales about local heroes." He founded the Maine Folklore Center in 1992 and was its director until his retirement in 1998.

Biography

He grew up in White Plains, New York, served in the Marines, studied literature in college and, beginning in 1955, taught English at the University of Maine. In 1962, he obtained a Ph.D. in folklore from Indiana University and in 1964, he became a professor of folklore at the University of Maine. Ives taught in the English and Anthropology Departments of the University of Maine for over forty years.

One of Ives's most famous students was Stephen King. Ives was one of the dedicatees of King's novel Hearts in Suspension.

He performed as a folk singer to supplement his income as a lecturer. This introduced him to the lumber camp singing tradition of Maine, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island and he soon found his calling. In 1957, he organized the Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History at the University of Maine. The next year, he founded the Northeast Folklore Society and began editing the monograph series Northeast Folklore. His Folkways Records album, Folk Songs of Maine, was released in 1959.

For more than forty years, Ives continued to explore the northeastern oral tradition, publishing his findings with some regularity. Several of his books focus on individual subjects, whose names found their way into the titles of his books. This personalized approach permitted him to offer a deep exploration of the material, the subject, and himself. A reviewer has commented: "His books on Gorman, Scott, and Doyle... are personal accounts of discovery, as much as studies of regional and occupational singing traditions. Ives’s focus on the singers who gave him texts and on his own adventures in the field have made his studies models of contextual and reflexive scholarship."

In his work in New Brunswick, he was closely associated with Louise Manny.

Bibliography

• Larry Gorman: The Man Who Made the Songs. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964. Reprinted New York: Arno Press, 1977. Reprinted Fredericton, N.B.: Goose Lane Editions, 1993.
• Folksongs and Their Makers. (co-editor) Bowling Green, Ohio, 1970
• Lawrence Doyle: The Farmer-Poet of Prince Edward Island. Orono: University of Maine Press, 1971 (Maine Studies No. 92).
• Joe Scott: The Woodsman Songmaker. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1978.
• The Tape-Recorded Interview: A Manual for Field Workers in Folklore and Oral History. 1980, updated 1995
• George Magoon and the Down East Game War. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1988. Reprinted (paperback) 1993.
• Folksongs of New Brunswick. Fredericton: Goose Lane Edition, 1989
• The Bonny Earl of Murray: The Man, The Murder, The Ballad. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997
• Drive Dull Care Away: Folksongs from Prince Edward Island. Charlottetown: Institute of Island Studies, 1999.
• MacDougall, Pauleena and David Taylor. Northeast Folklore: Essays in Honor of Edward D. Ives. Orono, Maine: University of Maine Press and the Maine Folklife Center 2000.

Honors

• Honorary LL.D., University of Prince Edward Island (1986)
• Kenneth Goldstein Lifetime Achievement Award in Academic Leadership, American Folklore Society (1992)
• Elected into Fellows of the American Folklore Society (honorary organization) (1980)
• Harvey A. Kantor Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement in Oral History in (1979)
• Marius Barbeau Medal from the Canadian Folklore Studies Association for outstanding lifetime contributions to the field of folklore (1991).
• Award of Honour, Prince Edward Island Museum and Heritage Foundation (1998)
• Guggenheim fellowship
• In 2007, six of his interviews from 1958 were named to the National Recording Registry.

References

1. Jennifer Bloch, "Folklife expert, UMaine professor Ives dies", Bangor Daily News, August 3, 2009
2. "Remembering the life of Edward Ives 1925 - 2009". obituaries.bangordailynews.com. Retrieved 2022-06-02.
3. Sandy Ives Archived 2007-02-16 at the Wayback Machine
4. ^ "Maine Folklife Center". 2007-02-17. Archived from the original on 17 February 2007. Retrieved 2022-06-02.
5. ^ "Our Family History - Maine Folklife Center - University of Maine". Maine Folklife Center. Retrieved 2022-06-02.
6. ^ MacDougal, Pauleena (2011-01-01). "Obituaries: Edward D. Sandy Ives (1925-2009)". Journal of American Folklore. 124 (491): 90–94. doi:10.5406/jamerfolk.124.491.0090. ISSN 0021-8715. S2CID 161578967.
7. "Stephen King to speak about latest book". The Ellsworth American. 2016-10-31. Retrieved 2022-06-02.
8. Ives, Edward D. "Sandy" (1925). ""Sandy Ives"". Maine Song and Story Sampler Collectors. 25.
9. The University of Maine - UMaine Today - July / August 2003 - Lasting Impression
10. "Folk Songs of Maine". folkways.si.edu. Retrieved 2022-06-02.
11. ^ *Alicia Anstead, "Preservationists at the Library of Congress recognize the contributions of 'Sandy' Ives" Archived 2007-05-28 at archive.today, March 19, 2007, Bangor Daily News
12. Project MUSE

External links

• Maine Folklife Center
• L'Hommedieu, Andrea, "Ives, Edward D. "Sandy" oral history interview" (2000).Edmund S. Muskie Oral History Collection. 178.
• Folk Songs of Maine Album Details (Folkways, 1959)
• An Oral Historian’s Work (video)

• American folklorists
• Canadian folklorists
• 1925 births
• University of Maine faculty
• 2009 deaths
• Historians of Maine
• People from White Plains, New York
• Maine-related lists