Big Onion; Origin of "Paul Bunyan" (1904? 1906?)

[Jonathan Lighter]

Strictly speaking, "fakelore" is fake "lore" presented by writers as authentic (and especially as widely-known regional) traditions and beliefs.  Thus Laughead's ads were not "fakelore,"  just vaguely folk-inspired writings. Paul Bunyan in his familiar form is, however, in Richard Bluestein's nonjudgmental coinage, "poplore," like Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, and (to a  lesser degree) Kwanzaa.

  When they want lore nowadays, the teeming masses generally turn to commercial pop culture. Easy to get, grasp, and groove to!  Paul is dead! Elvis lives!

  JL


  Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Charles Doyle
Subject: Re: Big Onion; Origin of "Paul Bunyan" (1904? 1906?)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It might be of some historical interest to note that the great folklorist Richard Dorson coined the term "fakelore" specifically in reference to Paul Bunyan and his ilk--heroes with little (or no) basis in genuine oral tradition, largely the fabrications of journalists, chamber-of-commerce boosters, literary local-colorists, or writers of children's books, who would often package the tales as "folklore."

For "fakelore" the OED cites Dorson in 1949: ". . . not folklore but what I have elsewhere called fakelore." The "elsewhere" is mysterious; my surmise is that he may have used the term in an article completed and submitted earlier but printed later than 1949. Dorson divided the spelling in the title of his famous (among folklorists!) 1950 article "Folklore and Fake Lore" (_American Mercury_ 70: 335 f.).

--Charlie
_____________________________________________________________

---- Original message ----
>Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2007 09:57:49 -0800
>From: Jonathan Lighter
>
>1904 is undoubtedly the earliest discovered date, Barry. For many years the date to beat was 1910.
>
> Bunyan was a prominent topic among American folklorists from the '20s through the '50s, but now they mostly don't care. The character appeared in 1914 in an advertising booklet written and illustrated by W. B. Laughead for the Red River Lumber Co. of Westwood, Calif. Ex-lumberman Laughead claimed to have heard his first Bunyan story between 1900 and 1908 in northern Minnestota. He said the original ad campaign was a flop because few loggers had ever heard the name of Paul Bunyan.
>
> JL

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



---------------------------------
Get easy, one-click access to your favorites.  Make Yahoo! your homepage.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org