| Date Span: | 1929-1941 |
| Creator: | Piper, Edwin Ford |
| Extent: | 2.00 linear feet. |
| Collection Number: | MSC0040 |
| Repository: | University of Iowa Special Collections |
| Summary: | Piper's notes on Western ballads, with music for some; other folk materials including rimes, riddles, games, folk sayings, quadrille calls, slang, superstitions, and folk remedies. |
Edwin Ford Piper was born on February 8, 1871 in Auburn, Nebraska, a few miles west of the Missouri River, to Joseph Benson and Lucinda Adeline Ford Piper. As farmers moved in and rangeland disappeared, his family moved farther west in Nebraska. While he was growing up, he listened to the songs, rhymes, square dancing calls, and prayer meeting calls of the hired hands, hobos, itinerant fiddlers -- anyone who created music. He also learned songs from his mother and his siste, Ella. These folk expressions had a great effect upon Piper. In 1893, he entered the University of Nebraska, where he earned an A. B. in 1897 and an A.M. in 1900. In 1905 he joined the University of Iowa faculty, where he remained until his death on May 17, 1939, just days before he was to be the guest speaker at the University's Commencement Supper.
At the University he taught Chaucer and writing. A poet in his own right, he published five books of verse: Barbed Wire (1917); The Land of the Aiouwas (1922), Barbed Wire and Wayfarers (1924), Paintrock Road (1927); and Canterbury Pilgrims (1935). He was in great demand as a reader of poetry and his habit of breaking into song when the poem demanded it earned him the nickname "the singing professor." He served as advisor on The Midland and American Prefaces, and was the chief sponsor of Kinnikinnick.
In 1897, Piper began transcribing ballads and songs remembered from his childhood. In 1909 he became more systematic about this endeavor, gathering songs printed in newspapers and magazines, collecting them from older singers, exchanging them with other scholars. Eventually, indexes were made for the songs he had collected. These materials now comprise the Piper Collection.
See also two articles by Harry Oster, "Edwin Ford Piper Collection of Folksongs" and "English and Irish Broadsides in the Edwin Ford Piper Collection".
Alternate Extent Statement: Photographs in Box 3; Disc in Box 4; Ephemera in scrapbook.
Access: This collection is open for research.
Use: Copyright restrictions may apply; please consult Special Collections staff for further information.
Acquisition: This collection is made up of combined gifts from Piper's widow, Mrs. Janet Pressley Piper, Ernest Horn, and Paul Benjamin, during the years between 1947 and 1974.
Preferred Citation: Edwin Ford Piper Collection, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
| Repository: | University of Iowa Special Collections |
| Address: | Special Collections Department University of Iowa Libraries Iowa City, IA 52242 |
| Phone: | 319-335-5921 |
| Curator: | Greg Prickman |
| Email: | lib-spec@uiowa.edu |
| Website: | http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/ |
Browse by Series:
Series 1: GENERAL
Series 2: INDEX CARD FILES
Series 3: SCRAPBOOK
This collection is indexed under the following subject terms.
