John Harrington Cox
John Harrington Cox (May 27, 1863 - November 21, 1945) was one of the pioneers in the field of American folk song scholarship. Cox was born in Madison County, Illinois. Educated at Brown and Harvard (Ph.D., 1923) universities, he received an appointment on the English Department faculty at West Virginia University in 1903. His early efforts at the university were devoted to the study of Old and Middle English, and Medieval literature, in which fields he achieved distinction as an educator, author, and editor.
Cox collected his first folk song in 1913. Two years later, on July 15, 1915, he presided over the founding of the West Virginia Folklore Society, serving as its first president, archivist, and editor. Though the society met formally only twice, it established a network of field collectors across the state that continued to function loosely under Cox's direction for many years.
During the early 1920s, Cox organized and edited an extensive body of the folk songs collected under the Society's auspices as the basis of his Ph.D. dissertation. Produced under the direction of the noted Harvard scholar, George Lyman Kittredge, the dissertation was published as Folk-Songs of the South by the Harvard University Press in 1925. The first major collection of American folk songs by an American editor to appear in print, the volume became a model in both its scholarship and format for many subsequent American folk song publications. Despite the title it consisted almost entirely of West Virginia songs.
In the years that followed, Cox prepared an extensive body of additional folk songs for publication. These materials remained in manuscript until they were published in 1939 by the National Service Bureau in two mimeographed volumes: Traditional Ballads Mainly From West Virginia, and Folk-Songs Mainly From West Virginia. Cox died in Morgantown and is buried in the East Oak Grove Cemetery on Dorsey Avenue.
-Authored by John Cuthbert
The West Virginia Folklore Society was founded in Morgantown, July 15, 1915, by John Harrington Cox and Robert Allen Armstrong of West Virginia University and Walter Barnes of Fairmont State Normal School (now Fairmont State University). The society, which was one of the earliest state folklore societies in America, remained active until 1917, mainly collecting traditional ballads and songs that were later published in Cox's book, Folk-Songs of the South (1925). Cox was the society's first president.
In 1950, Barnes, along with Patrick Gainer of WVU and Ruth Ann Musick of Fairmont State College, revived the society. As president in 1951, Barnes encouraged the establishment of West Virginia Folklore, the official publication of the society, which Musick edited until 1967. Gainer was president from 1959 to 1964 and directed the society's participation in the 1963 West Virginia Centennial, including publication of a song book, The West Virginia Centennial Song Book of 100 Songs.
The society operated intermittently in later years, with Gainer spearheading revivals during spring meetings at West Virginia University in 1970 and at Fairmont State in 1974. West Virginia Folklore continued to be published annually at Fairmont State until 1980. After 13 years of dormancy, in 1993, West Virginia Folklore was reissued under a new format and title, Traditions: A Journal of West Virginia Folk Culture and Educational Awareness, and is published annually at Fairmont State University. In 1998, the Folklore Society evolved into the Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center at Fairmont State University, which houses the archives of the society.
— Authored by Judy Prozzillo Byers
Of particular relevance to this Folk Music of the Southern West Virginia Coalfields project is Cox's work in Logan, WV. While Cox did not travel to Logan, he corresponded with local singer, Decker Toney, who supplied Cox with lyrics to a few songs. Perhaps more important than the lyrics he supplied was the connection to his aunt, Kathryn Belle ' Kate Moore Toney. When Louis Watson Chappell traveled to Logan in August of 1940, he sought out Kate and recorded her singing 79 songs--a literal treasure trove of material that is a pillar of Chappell's decades-long work across West Virginia.