Francis Child

Although Francis J. Child qualifies as the father of all song collectors, his name lacks the familiarity of a collector like Alan Lomax. Fans of traditional British and American folk music will nonetheless be familiar with his song collection, the Child ballads. For many, the 305 ballads that comprise the collection qualify as the mother lode of all folk song anthologies. Many of the ballads, including "Barbara Allen," "Mattie Groves," and "Gypsy Laddie," are among the best-known and loved folk songs. "His slice of folk song," wrote Benjamin Filene in Romancing the Folk, "came to be seen as the touchstone against which all folk songs were judged." Child was born on February 1, 1825 in Boston, Massachusetts. His father supported the family working as a sailmaker, but the family remained poor. Child attended public schools, first at Boston Grammar and then at English High School. He excelled at his studies at Boston Latin School, leading Epes Sargent Dixwell, the principal, to assist him in attending Harvard. There, he was chosen as class orator. After graduating at the top of his class in 1846, he was offered positions in mathematics, history, and economics. With money gathered from the publication of Four Old Plays and a loan from Jonathan I. Bowditch, Child took a leave of absence in 1849 to study in Germany where he developed a love for Romantic poetry. Following studies in English Drama and Germanic philology, he returned to the United States in 1851, assuming the position of Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory. He remained in the position for the next 25 years. Child happened upon his most famous endeavor due to his growing reputation as a literary scholar in the 1850s. In 1857 he participated in a series on British poets, leading to the publication of...