Gladys-Marie Fry papers
Scope and Contents
The Gladys-Marie Fry papers contain correspondence, drafts, publications, photographs, slides, research proposals, posters, newsclippings, and other materials relating to her extensive research of African-American folklore, quilts, and other topics.
Dates
- Creation: 1888 - 2010
Creator
- Fry, Gladys-Marie, 1931-2015 (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open for research.
Conditions Governing Access
The material is stored off site. Please request 3 working days in advance if you wish to use it.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright is retained by the authors of the items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. For photocopy and duplication requests, please contact the Stephen O. Murray and Keelung Hong Special Collections, Michigan State University Libraries.
Biographical / Historical
The great-granddaughter of an enslaved seamstress and quilter, Gladys-Marie Fry (1931-2015) was a leading authority on African American textiles and Professor of Folklore and English at the University of Maryland. Fry earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in American history from Howard University and her Ph.D. in folklore from Indiana University in 1967. She previously taught at Sonoma State University, University of California Los Angeles, and the Indiana University South Bend. She is the recipient of multiple awards and grants, including Ford Fellowships (1961-1962, 1962-1963, 1963), National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships (1970, 1979, and 1984), a Danforth Fellowship in Black Studies (1971), a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship (1983), and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1982). Through these fellowships, she collected legends about men who allegedly sold their souls to the devil in exchange for magical powers and researched extensively testimonies of survivors of enslaved African Americans. Through her Fulbright Research Fellowship, she traveled to Trinidad to trace the roots of African iconography used in textiles and how they evolved and were retold in the New World. She conducted field work in the United States, the Caribbean, and Africa. She is the author of "Night Riders in Black Folk History" (1975) and "Stitched From the Soul: Slave Quilting in the Ante-Bellum South" (approximately 1990) as well as a number of articles and book chapters. She began work as a museum curator in the 1980s and curated museum exhibitions at the Smithsonian Instition's Renwick Gallery, Anacostia Museum, Fisk University, Ohio Historical Society, Sully Plantation, Mathery Gallery at Case Western Reserve University, the Museum of American Folk Art in New York, and others, and was a consultant for exhibits and television programs across the nation.
Extent
approximately 132 Linear Feet (132 boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Arrangement
This collection is heavily intellectually arranged into the following series: Series I: Biographical Series II: Correspondence Series III: Professional Activity Series IV: Teaching Materials Series V: Sound Recordings Series VI: Visual Materials Series VII: Research Materials Series VIII: Miscellaneous
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The collection was donated by Cora Fry in 2017 initially to MSU Museum. The collection was transferred to MSU Special Collections later in 2017.
Separated Materials
The following materials have been cataloged separately for enhanced discovery and access:
Aunt Sammy's Radio Recipes Revised, 1931
The Bead Forum, Newsletter of the Society of Bead Researchers, Nos. 1-31, 1982-1987
Best-loved Pennsylvania Dutch Recipes including Many of the Amish, 1970
Black Ethnic Collectibles, 1987-1989
The Hidden History of Washington, DC A Guide for Black Folks, The Reclamation Project, 1996
The New England Cook Book of Fine Old Recipes, 1936
Recipes and Reminiscences of New Orleans, 1971
Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin, 1960, 1963, 1966, 1970
Washington Gas Light Company "Festive Foods," 1968
Description and Content Warning
Descriptions and content within this collection may use historic terminology that is now considered offensive and describe extremely disturbing acts of racial terror and oppression.
Processing Information
Lydia Tang, Matthew Brazier, Taylor Peterson, Zoe Russell, and Sharon Herring processed this collection in 2019.
Dr. Fry's quilts were donated by the Fry family to the Smithsonian while her archival collection came to Michigan State University.
Sources consulted in creating this finding aid include:
Barnes, Bart. "Gladys-Marie Fry, folklorist of black history, dies at 84." The Washington Post. January 5, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/gladys-marie-fry-folklorist-of-black-history-dies-at-84/2016/01/05/fcc60144-b325-11e5-a76a-0b5145e8679a_story.html
White, Marilyn M., "Gladys-Marie Fry (1931-2015), Journal of American Folklore, vol. 130, no. 518, Fall 2017, p. 473-474. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/675179/pdf
Promotion and tenure information on colleagues at the University of Maryland Department of English from 1981 was deaccessioned for confidentiality.
The following photocopied research material was deaccessioned due to poor preservation condition:
Abrahams, Roger D. "Storytelling Events: Wake Amusements and the Structure of Nonsense on St. Vincent." Journal of American Folklore 95, no. 378 (October-December 1982): 389-414.
Abrahams, Roger D. "Trickster, the Outrageous Hero." In Our Living Traditions: An Introduction to American Folklore, ed. Tristam Potter Coffin. New York: Basic Books, Inc. 1968.
Abrahams, Roger D. and Alan Dundes. "on Elephantasy and Elephanticide." The Psychology Review 56 (1969): 225-241.
Ainsworth, Catherine Harris. "Polish-American Church Legends." New York Folklore Quarterly 30, no. 4: 286-294.
Alho Olli. "The Religion of the Slaves." Folklore Fellows Communications, no. 217, (1980).
Allen, Barbara. "Personal Experience Narratives: Use and Meaning in Interaction." Folklore and Mythology Studies 2 (Spring 1978): 5-7.
Andrews, William Page. Goethe's Key to Faust: A Scientific Basis for Religion and Morality and for a Solution of the Enigma of Evil. Port Washington: Kennikat Press Inc., 1925.
Arciniegas, Germán. "Appointment with Necromancy." In Latin America: A Cultural History. New York: Knopf, 1966.
Avary, Myrta Lockett. "Back to Voodooism." In Dixie After the War. New York: Douledat, Page and Company, 1906.
Bauman, Richard. "The La Have Island General Store: Sociability and Verbal Art in a Nova Scotia Community." Journal of American Folklore 85, (1972): 330-343.
Bauman, Richard. "Verbal Art as Performance." American Anthropologist 77 (1975): 290-311.
Bauman, Richard and Joel Sherzer, eds. Exploration in the Ethnography of Speaking. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974.
Barnes, Daniel R. "Some Functional Horror Stories on the Kansas University Campus." Southern Folklore Quarterly 30, no. 4 (December 1966): 305-312.
Basgoz, Ilhan. "The Tale-Singer and His Audience." In Folklore Performance and Communication, edited by Dan Ben-Amos and Kenneth S. Goldstein, 143-203. Berlin: The Hauge: Mouton Publishers, 1975.
Beck, Ervin. "Telling the Tale in Belize." Journal of American Folklore 93, no. 370 (October-December 1980): 417-434.
Beck, Jane C. "The Implied Obeah Man." Western Folklore 35, no. 1 (January 1976): 23-33.
Ben-Amos, Dan. "Two Benin Storytellers." In African Folklore, edited by Richard. M Doson, 103-114. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972.
Berlin, Ira and Herbert G. Gutman. "Natives and Immigrants, Free Men and Slaves: Urban Workingmen in the Antebellum American South." The American Historical Review 88, no. 5 (December 1983): 1175-1200.
Bethke, Robert D. "Storytelling at an Adirondack Inn." Western Folklore 35, (1976): 123-139.
Biebuyck-Goetz, Brunhilde. "'This is the Dyin' Trugh': Mechanisms of Lying." Journal of the Folklore Institute 14, no. 1-2 (1977): 73-95.
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Charters, Samuel. Robert Johnson. New York: Oak Publications, 1973.
Chatman, Samuel L. "'There are No Slaves in France': A Re-Examination of Slave Laws in Eighteenth Century France." The Journal of Negro History 85, no. 3 (Summer, 2000): 144-153.
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Cothman, Kay L. "Talking Trash in the Okefenokee Swamp Rim, Georgia." Journal of American Folklore 87 (1974): 340-356.
Crowley, Daniel J. "I Could Talk Old-Story Good: Creativity in Bahamian Folklore." University of California Folklore Studies, no. 17 (1966).
Davis, Richard Beale. "The Devil in Virginia in the 17th Century." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 65, no. 2 (April 1957).
Dew, Thomas. "Dissertation on the Characteristic Differences Between the Sexes, and on the Position and Influence of Women in Society." Southern Literary Messenger 1, no. 9, (May 1835): 493-512.
Dorson, Richard M. "The Legend of the Missing Pajamas and other Sad Sagas." Journal of the Folklore Institute 14, no. 1-2 (1977): 115-124.
Dundes, Alan. "On the Psychology of Legend." In American Folk Legend, edited by Wayland D. Hand, 21-36. Oakland: University of California Press, 1971.
Duncan, John Donald. "Servitude and Slavery in Colonial South Carolina 1670-1776." PhD diss., Emory University, 1972.
Ellis, Bill. "'Ralph and Rudy': The Audience's Role in Recreating a Camp Legend." Western Folklore 41, no. 3 (July 1982): 169-191.
Feldstein, Stanley. "Life on Plantation - Area of Dehumanimation." In Once A Slave: The Slaves' View of Slavery. New York: William Morrow and Company Inc., 1971.
"Female Education." Southern Literary Messenger 6, Issue 6, (1840): 451-456.
Fleming, John E. "Taking Stock of Afro-American Material Culture." History News: American Association for State and Local History 40, no. 2 (February 1985).
Freilich, Morris. "Levi-Strauss' Myth of Method." In Patterns in Oral Literature, edited by Heda Jason and Dimitri Segal, 223-249. Berlin: The Hauge: Mouton Publishers, 1977.
Gay, Dorothy Ann. "The Tangled Skein of Romanticism and Violence in the Old South: The Southern Response to Abolitionism and Feminism, 1830-1861." PhD diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1975.
Gayle, Sarah. "Journal of Mrs. Gov. John Gayle." Alabama Quarterly 5, (1943): 159-187.
Georges, Robert A. "Do Narrators Really Digress? A Reconsideration of 'Audience Assides' in Narrating." Western Folklore 40, no. 3 (July 1981): 245-252.
Georges, Robert A. "Feedback and Response in Storytelling." Western Folklore 38, no. 2 (April 1979): 104-110.
Georgia Writers Project. Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1940.
Gibbs, Tyson, Kathleen Cargill, Leslie Sue Liberman, and Elizabeth Reitz. "Nutrition in a Slave Population: An Anthropological Examination." Medical Anthropology 4, Issue 2 (Spring 1980): 175-262.
Goodwin, Thelma. "The Devil in American Folklore." Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin 26, no. 2 (June 1960).
Gordon, Raymond L. Interviewing: Strategy, Techniques, and Tactics. Homewood: The Dorsey Press, 1969.
Greenberg, Michael. "Gentlemen Slaveholders: The Social Outlook of the Virginia Planter Class." PhD diss., Rutgers University, 1972.
Gutierrez, C. Paige. "The Narrative Style of Marshall Ward, Jack Tale-Teller." North Carolina Folklore Journal 26, no. 2 (September 1978): 111-126.
Gwyndaf, Robin. "The Prose Narrative Repertoire of a Passive Tradition Bearer in a Welsch Rural Community: Gene Analysis and Formation." In Folk Narrative Research: Some Papers Presented at the VI Congress of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research, edited by Juha Pentikainen and Tuula Jurrikka, 283-293. Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura, 1976.
Hall, Jane Masi. "Homer Spriggs: Chronicler of Brummetts Creek." Journal of the Folklore Institute 14, no. 1-2 (1977): 31-49.
Hazzard-Gordon, Katrina. "Dancing Under the Lash" Jookin': The Rise of Social Dance Formations in African-American Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990.
Herskovits, Melville. The Myth of the Negro Past. New York: Harper and Brother Publisher, 1941.
Hillig, Otto. "Magic in Primitive and Modern Society." Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin 18, no. 1 (March 1952).
Hill, Judith Parks America. A History of Henry County, Virginia, with Biographical Sketches of its Most Prominent Citizens... Oldest Families. Baltimore: Regional Publishing Co., 1976.
Hudson, Larry E. To Have and to Hold: Slave Work and Family Life in the Antebellum South Carolina. Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1997.
Hrdlickova, Vena. "The Professional Training of Chinese Storytellers and the Storytellers' Guilds." Archiv Orientalni 33 (1965): 225-247.
Hymes, Dell. "Breakthrough into Performance." In Folklore: Performance and Communication, edited by Dan Ben-Amos and Kenneth S. Goldstein, 11-74. Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1975
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Jason, Heda. "A Model for Narrative Structure in Oral Literature." In Patterns in Oral Literature, edited by Heda Jason and Dimitri Segal, 99-139. Berlin: The Hauge: Mouton Publishers, 1977.
Johnson, Mildred and Theresa Delsoin. "Rose Dawn is Enslaved." In Malindy's Freedom: The Story of a Slave Family, 13-31. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press, 2005.
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Kalcik, Susan. "'...like Ann's Gynecologist or the time I was Almost Raped': Personal narratives in Women's Rap Groups." Journal of American Folklore 88, (1975): 3-11.
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"Marriage and Divorce." Southern Quarterly Review 26, (1854): 332-335
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Subject
- Title
- Finding Aid for the Gladys-Marie Fry papers
- Status
- 4 Published And Cataloged
- Author
- Lydia Tang, Matthew Brazier, Taylor Peterson, Zoe Russell, and Sharon Herring
- Date
- 2020
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- English
Repository Details
Part of the Stephen O. Murray and Keelung Hong Special Collections Repository