Excerpt from This Discursive Biographical Sketch of Colonel Richard Lathers, 1841-1902 This volume may be regarded as the index of a forthcoming historical compilation of the lives, letters and speeches of several hundred of our distinguished Divines, Jurists, Statesmen, Soldiers and Merchants, illustrative of that period of our history. This biographical sketch of perhaps the oldest citizen of our city of New Rochelle is chiefly confined to that portion of his life embraced by his continuous residence on his estate of Winyah Park, on the west side of our city, for a period of over a half-century, during which his seven children were born, reared, and educated. In this period, memorable for its unexampled activity in business and political life, as well as for its precarious years of a civil war which threatened the unity of the nation, New Rochelle grew from a small village of but six hundred inhabitants to a flourishing city of eighteen thousand active and cultivated people. The compiler of these pages avails himself of the valuable and reliable information and editorial comments which a contemporary public press affords; for he has learned by many years' connection therewith that the atmosphere of individual life is largely composed of the public opinion as honestly expressed by the press in this age of independent journalism, and that the markings of the local journals, with some exceptions, furnish a fair barometer of individual character. It will be found that a ten years' residence under journalistic eyes never fails to establish the reputation of every citizen whose prominence challenges public attention. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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Composed over several decades, the essays here are remarkably fresh and relevant. They offer instruction for the student just beginning the study of folklore as well as repeated value for the many established scholars who continue to wrestle with issues that Wilson has addressed. As his work has long offered insight on critical matters—nationalism, genre, belief, the relationship of folklore to other disciplines in the humanities and arts, the currency of legend, the significance of humor as a cultural expression, and so forth—so his recent writing, in its reflexive approach to narrative and storytelling, illuminates today’s paradigms. Its notable autobiographical dimension, long an element of Wilson’s work, employs family and local lore to draw conclusions of more universal significance. Another way to think of it is that newer folklorists are catching up with Wilson and what he has been about for some time. As a body, Wilson’s essays develop related topics and connected themes. This collection organizes them in three coherent parts. The first examines the importance of folklore—what it is and its value in various contexts. Part two, drawing especially on the experience of Finland, considers the role of folklore in national identity, including both how it helps define and sustain identity and the less savory ways it may be used for the sake of nationalistic ideology. Part three, based in large part on Wilson’s extensive work in Mormon folklore, which is the most important in that area since that of Austin and Alta Fife, looks at religious cultural expressions and outsider perceptions of them and, again, at how identity is shaped, by religious belief, experience, and participation; by the stories about them; and by the many other expressive parts of life encountered daily in a culture. Each essay is introduced by a well-known folklorist who discusses the influence of Wilson’s scholarship. These include Richard Bauman, Margaret Brady, Simon Bronner, Elliott Oring, Henry Glassie, David Hufford, Michael Owen Jones, and Beverly Stoeltje.