# Ellen Stekert

Ellen Stekert (b. 1935) is an American academic, folklorist and musician. Stekert is a Professor Emerita of English at the University of Minnesota and a former president of the American Folklore Society. She released four albums of folk music in the 1950s, including Songs Of A New York Lumberjack and (with Milton Okun) Traditional American Love Songs, and continued to perform occasionally during her academic career.

## Early life and education

Stekert was born in New York City in 1935 and grew up in Great Neck on Long Island. She survived polio as a child. Stekert began performing folk music in high school.
Stekert attended Cornell University, where she took classes taught by the folklorist Harold Thompson, whom she also assisted in teaching. As her interest in folklore grew, Stekert began doing fieldwork, collecting folksongs from traditional singers in upstate New York. The songs Stekert collected from Ezra "Fuzzy" Barhight, a retired lumberjack from Cohocton, New York, she recorded and released as Songs of a New York Lumberjack in 1958.
After graduating in philosophy at Cornell, Stekert began a Masters degree in folklore at Indiana University. There she continued her fieldwork, collecting folk songs in Kentucky and Southern Indiana. On completion of her M.A., Stekert began research for a Ph.D. in folklore at Indiana. She completed her doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia in 1965.

## Career

Stekert's first teaching position was at Wayne State University in Detroit. There, Stekert built upon the pioneering work of Thelma G. James in the collection of urban folklore traditions.
From there, she moved to the University of Minnesota where she was based for the rest of her academic career.

## Recognition

Stekert served as president of the American Folklore Society for the year 1977. She was also appointed Minnesota's state folklorist.

## Selected publications
### Books

* Américo Paredes and Ellen Jane Stekert (eds.) The Urban Experience and Folk Tradition. Published for the American Folklore Society by the University of Texas Press (1971)

### Articles

* Ellen Stekert, "Fairy Palace". Western Folklore (1959)
* Ellen Stekert, "The Hidden Informant." Midwest Folklore (1963)
* Ellen Stekert. “The Snake-Handling Sect of Harlan County, Kentucky: Its Influence on Folk Tradition.” Southern Folklore Quarterly (1963)
* Ellen Stekert, "Four Pennsylvania Songs Learned Before 1900, From the Repertoire of Ezra V. Barhight" in Two Penny Ballads and Four Dollar Whiskey: A Pennsylvania Folklore Miscellany, ed. Robert H. Byington and Kenneth S. Goldstein (1966)
* Ellen J. Stekert, "Foreword: The Urban Experience and Folk Tradition." Journal of American Folklore (1970)
* Ellen J. Stekert, "Focus for Conflict: Southern Mountain Medical Beliefs in Detroit". Journal of American Folklore (1970)
* Richard M. Dorson, Ronald L. Baker, Robert H. Byington, George Carey, Robert A. Georges, Thomas A. Green, Ellen J. Stekert, Robert T. Teske, "The Academic Future of Folklore". Journal of American Folklore (1972)
* Ellen J. Stekert, "The False Issue of Folklore vs. 'Fakelore': Was Paul Bunyan a Hoax?" Journal of Forest History (1986)
* Mary Jane Hennigar, Daniel Hoffman, and Ellen J. Stekert. “The First Paul Bunyan Story in Print [with Commentary].” Journal of Forest History (1986)
* Ellen J. Stekert, "Autobiography of a Woman Folklorist". Journal of American Folklore (1987)
* Ellen J. Stekert and Luz María Umpierre, "Deviance and Power: Malleable Realities in Manuel Puig‘s Use of Folklore and Cinematic Sources in Kiss of the Spider Woman." Cincinnati Romance Review (1992)
* Ellen Stekert, "Folk Song and Folk Music" in Encyclopedia of American Social History (Scribner, 1993)
* Ellen J. Stekert, "Cents and Nonsense in the Urban Folksong Movement: 1930–1966" in Transforming Tradition, ed. Neil V. Rosenberg (1993)

## Selected discography
### As primary artist

* Ellen Stekert, Ozark Mountain Folk Songs Volume One (Stinson Records, c. 1955)
* Ellen Stekert, Ballads Of Careless Love (Cornell Recording Society, 1956)
* Milton Okun and Ellen Stekert, Traditional American Love Songs (Riverside Records, 1957)
* Ellen Stekert, Songs Of A New York Lumberjack (Folkways Records, 1958)

### Compilations and other appearances

* Various Artists, Everybody Sing! American Folk Songs Specially Selected For Children, Volume 1: Songs For Cubs (Riverside Records, c. 1957): Milton Okun and Ellen Stekert, "Paper of Pins/Jenny Jenkins"
* Various Artists, Everybody Sing! American Folk Songs Specially Selected For Children, Volume 2: Songs For Juniors (Riverside Records, c. 1957): Milton Okun and Ellen Stekert, "River Brazos/Shule Aroon"
* Various Artists, Everybody Sing! American Folk Songs Specially Selected For Children, Volume 3: Songs For Seniors (Riverside Records, c. 1957): Milton Okun and Ellen Stekert, "Must I Go Bound; The Cambric Shirt"
* Various Artists, Our Singing Heritage Volume I (Elektra, 1958): "The House Carpenter" and "Froggie went A-Courting"
* Various Artists, Songs Of The Civil War (Folkways Records, 1963): "The Cumberland And The Merrimac" and "Pat Murphy Of The Irish Brigade"
* Sarah Ogan Gunning, Girl Of Constant Sorrow (Folk-Legacy Records, 1965)
* Various Artists, O Love Is Teasin' (Anglo-American Mountain Balladry) (Elektra, 1984): "Froggie went A-Courting"
* Various Artists, The Riverside Folklore Series Volume Three: Singing the New Traditions: Songs, Singers, and Instrumentalists of the Folk Revival (Riverside Records, 1996): Milt Okun and Ellen Stekert, "The Cambric Shirt (Child #2)", "Must I Go Bound", "The Brazos River", "Trouble"
* Various Artists, Constant Sorrow (Gems From The Elektra Vaults) (One Day Music, 2014): "Froggie went A-Courting"
* Various Artists, Classic English And Scottish Ballads From Smithsonian Folkways (Smithsonian Folkways, 2017): "The Two Sisters (Child No. 10)"