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Grace Partridge Smith

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Grace Partridge Smith
A white woman with greying hair loosely dressed back to the nape; she is wearing a dress with print or embroidered embellishments and a wide collar
Grace Partridge Smith, from the 1924 yearbook of the University of Iowa
Born
Grace Otis Partridge

April 24, 1869
Templeton, Massachusetts
DiedMay 3, 1959 (age 90)
Anna, Illinois
OccupationFolklorist
RelativesAlexander Haggerty Krappe (son-in-law)

Grace Otis Partridge Smith (April 24, 1869 – May 3, 1959) was an American folklorist and educator. She studied American regional folk cultures, especially that of "Egypt", a local nickname of Southern Illinois.

Early life and education

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Partridge was born in Templeton, Massachusetts, the daughter of James Otis Partridge and Arvilla Pauline Kimball Partridge. She graduated from the University of Iowa in 1891, and earned a master's degree in German and Greek in 1921, with a thesis titled "The Characteristics of the Dorfnovelle".[1] She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.[2] She also studied piano at the conservatory in Leipzig.[3][4]

Career

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Smith taught Greek at the University of Iowa,[5] and held various other positions, while her husband was a mathematics professor there.[3] She was editor of The Iowa Alumnus magazine in the 1920s.[2] She retired from the University of Iowa in 1938,[6] and in her later years studied the American regional stories, language, and songs, especially the distinct folklore of southern Illinois,[7] known as "Egypt" locally and in many of her publications.[8][9] In 1946, she was a founder and the first president of the Illinois Folklore Society.[3][6]

Publications

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Smith's folklore studies were published in scholarly journals including Folklore,[10][11] The Journal of American Folklore,[12][13] American Speech,[14][15] Midwest Folklore,[16][17] Wisconsin Magazine of History,[18] Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society,[19] Southern Folklore Quarterly,[20][21] and Names.[22] She also contributed dozens of entries to Funk & Wagnalls' Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend (1949–1950).[6]

  • "Movies Now a Vital Force in University Education" (1922)[23]
  • "An Anecdote from Hampshire" (1938)[10]
  • "A Vermont Variant of 'The Frog's Courting'" (1939)[12]
  • "Folklore from 'Egypt'" (1941)[13]
  • "Speech Currents in 'Egypt'" (1942)[14]
  • "A Glimpse of Early Merrimack" (1945)[18]
  • "Wayland Female Institute (Alton, 1853-1856)" (1945)[19]
  • "Four Irish Ballads from 'Egypt'" (1946)[24]
  • "Jack-Stones Again" (1949)[25]
  • "Egyptian 'Lies'" (1951)[16]
  • "Heard in the Illinois Ozarks" (1951)[15]
  • "Negro Lore in Southern Illinois" (1952)[17]
  • "If All The World Were …" (1954)[11]
  • "They Call it Egypt" (1954)[22]
  • "More Lincoln Lore" (1954)[26]

Personal life

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Partridge married mathematics professor Arthur George Smith in 1896.[4] The Smiths had three daughters; daughter Edna died as a young child in 1906. Her husband died from pernicious anemia in 1916.[27][28] Her daughter Edith married folklorist and translator Alexander Haggerty Krappe. Smith died in 1959, at the age of 90, in Anna, Illinois.[3]

References

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  1. ^ College, University of Iowa Graduate (1919). Graduate Theses: Including Schedule of Dissertations of Approved Candidates for Advanced Degrees with Major and Minor Subjects ... The University.
  2. ^ a b Smith, Grace Partridge (1921). "The Quarter Centennial of the Alpha Chapter of Iowa". The Phi Beta Kappa Key. 4 (7): 398–409. ISSN 2373-0331. JSTOR 42913896.
  3. ^ a b c d Leach, MacEdward (1960). "Grace Partridge Smith, 1869-1959". The Journal of American Folklore. 73 (288): 154. ISSN 0021-8715. JSTOR 537894.
  4. ^ a b "Smith-Partridge". The Buffalo News. 1896-08-19. p. 42. Retrieved 2023-03-21 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ Winkler, Martin M. (2020-01-30). Ovid on Screen: A Montage of Attractions. Cambridge University Press. p. 113. ISBN 978-1-108-48540-1.
  6. ^ a b c Brunvand, Jan Harold (2006-05-24). American Folklore: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-57877-0.
  7. ^ Gelman, Ben (2001-08-09). "Southern Illinois' own superstitions and folklore". Southern Illinoisan. p. 12. Retrieved 2023-03-21 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ Halpert, Herbert (1954). ""Egypt": A Wandering Place-Name Legend". Midwest Folklore. 4 (3): 165–168. ISSN 0544-0750. JSTOR 4317467.
  9. ^ Kleen, Michael (2017). Witchcraft in Illinois: A Cultural History. Arcadia Publishing. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-62585-876-4.
  10. ^ a b Smith, Grace Partridge (1938-06-01). "An Anecdote from Hampshire". Folklore. 49 (2): 161–165. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1938.9718745. ISSN 0015-587X.
  11. ^ a b Smith, Grace Partridge (1954-04-01). ""If All The World Were …"". Folklore. 65 (1): 44–46. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1954.9717412. ISSN 0015-587X.
  12. ^ a b Smith, Grace Partridge (1939). "A Vermont Variant of "The Frog's Courting"". The Journal of American Folklore. 52 (203): 125–127. doi:10.2307/536022. ISSN 0021-8715. JSTOR 536022.
  13. ^ a b Smith, Grace Partridge (1941). "Folklore from "Egypt"". The Journal of American Folklore. 54 (211/212): 48–59. doi:10.2307/535801. ISSN 0021-8715. JSTOR 535801.
  14. ^ a b Smith, Grace Partridge (1942). "Speech Currents in 'Egypt'". American Speech. 17 (3): 169–173. doi:10.2307/486790. ISSN 0003-1283. JSTOR 486790.
  15. ^ a b Smith, Grace Partridge. "Heard in the Illinois Ozarks." American Speech 26, no. 1 (1951): 74-75.
  16. ^ a b Smith, Grace Partridge (1951). "Egyptian 'Lies'". Midwest Folklore. 1 (2): 93–97. ISSN 0544-0750. JSTOR 4317267.
  17. ^ a b Smith, Grace Partridge (1952). "Negro Lore in Southern Illinois". Midwest Folklore. 2 (3): 159–162. ISSN 0544-0750. JSTOR 4317338.
  18. ^ a b Smith, Grace Partridge; Partridge, Maynard; Partridge, J. O. (1945). "A Glimpse of Early Merrimac". The Wisconsin Magazine of History. 29 (1): 85–88. ISSN 0043-6534. JSTOR 4631728.
  19. ^ a b Smith, Grace Partridge (1945). "Wayland Female Institute (Alton, 1853-1856)". Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. 38 (1): 58–70. ISSN 0019-2287. JSTOR 40188130.
  20. ^ Smith, Grace Partridge. "The Plight of the Folktale in the Comics." Southern Folklore Quarterly 16 (1952): 124-127.
  21. ^ Smith, Grace Partridge. "The European Origin of an Illinois Tale." Southern Folklore Quarterly 6 (1942): 89-94.
  22. ^ a b Smith, Grace Partridge (1954-03-01). "They Call It Egypt". Names. 2 (1): 51–54. doi:10.1179/nam.1954.2.1.51. ISSN 1756-2279.
  23. ^ Smith, Grace Partridge (February–March 1922). "Movies Now a Vital Force in University Education". Educational Film Magazine. 7 (2–3): 7, 10.
  24. ^ Smith, Grace Partridge (1946). "Four Irish Ballads from "Egypt"". Hoosier Folklore. 5 (3): 115–119. ISSN 0731-213X. JSTOR 27649840.
  25. ^ Smith, Grace Partridge (1949-12-01). "Jack-Stones Again". Folklore. 60 (4): 395–398. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1949.9717960. ISSN 0015-587X.
  26. ^ Smith, Grace Partridge. "More Lincoln Lore." Journal of Folklore Research 4, no. 3 (1954): 169.
  27. ^ "Arthur George Smith". The Annals of Iowa. 13 (2): 155. 1921-10-01. doi:10.17077/0003-4827.4308. ISSN 2473-9006.
  28. ^ "Iowa Educator Dies". Evening Times-Republican. 1916-11-04. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-03-21 – via Newspapers.com.