Fannie Hardy Eckstorm and Her Quest for Local Knowledge, 18651946

(Paperback)

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Eckstorm was the daughter of a fur trader living in Maine who published six books and many articles on natural history, woods culture, and Indian language and lore. A writer from Maine with a national readership, Eckstorm drew on her unique relationship with both Maine woodsmen and Maine's Native Americans that grew out of the time she spent in the woods with her father. She developed a complex system of work largely based on oral tradition, recording and interpreting local knowledge about animal behavior and hunting practices, boat handling, ballad singing, Native American languages, crafts, and storytelling. Her work has formed the foundation for much scholarship in New England folklore and history and clearly illustrates the importance of indigenous and folk knowledge to scholarship. Fannie Hardy Eckstorm and Her Quest for Local Knowledge, 18651946 reveals an important story which speaks directly to contemporary issues as historians of science, social science and humanities begin to re-evaluate the nature, content, and role of indigenous and folk knowledge systems. Eckstorm's life and work illustrate the constant tension between local lay knowledge and the more privileged scientific production of academics that increasingly dominated the field from the early twentieth century. At the time Eckstorm was writing, the growth in professionalism and eclipse of the amateur led to a reorganization of knowledge. As increasing specialization defined the academy, indigenous knowledge systems were dismissed as unscientific and born of ignorance. Eckstorm recognized and lauded the innate value of traditional knowledge that could, for example, fell trees in the interior of Maine and ship them internationally as finished lumber.

Reviews

MacDougall performs a valuable service in introducing readers to (or reminding readers about) a truly pioneering American folklorist. . . .This book will be of interest to readers who want to know more about the history of American folklore studies as enacted by the life of a woman whose career spanned the period in which the field began to coalesce into the form(s) that we recognize today. * Western Folklore *
MacDougall's riveting narrative reveals the remarkable writer, naturalist, and folklorist Fannie Hardy Eckstorm as a woman ahead of her time. With Eckstorm's story, MacDougall stirs us to think hard and long about attitudes then and now toward modernity and tradition, locality and nation, science and humanity. -- Simon J. Bronner, Pennsylvania State University
This eminently readable biography has introduced me to Eckstorm in all her complexity. Whether it is exploring the Maine woods, researching the lumbermen's world and the history of ballads, or negotiating a friendship with a Penobscot woman, MacDougall provides us with the context and the personal voice that make this fascinating, complex, Renaissance woman come to life. In the process MacDougall challenges us to rethink the history of middle class women at the turn of the last century. -- Mazie Hough, University of Maine
With consummate insight and clarity, MacDougall traces the multifaceted career of writer and folklorist Fannie Hardy Eckstorm of Brewer, Maine, who stood out as a key player in a small community of women pioneers in a mans world of early-twentieth-century ethnography and folklore studies. Although constrained by the ideals of late-Victorian womanhood, Eckstorm crossed the boundaries of gender, class, and race to pursue a fascinating array of interests in Maine woodsmen and river drivers, Native American culture, New England natural history, bird and game conservation, and the expression of working-class pride and masculinity in folk songs and stories. Alive to the beauty of Native American traditions, Eckstorm gained a national reputation for her studies of Indian language, culture, and place-names. The common thread in these varied preoccupations was a keen appreciation for rural life and nature, a solid grasp of techniques in folklore, ethnography, linguistics, anthropology, and natural history, and a passionate faith in the dignity of New England folk culture. MacDougalls biography is a glowing yet carefully balanced tribute to the life and works of Fannie Hardy Eckstorm and to her fascinating quest to establish the Maine woodsmen a true American type. -- Richard W. Judd, University of Maine

Author Bio

Pauleena M. MacDougall is director of the Maine Folklife Center and faculty associate in anthropology at the University of Maine.