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]
This collection has access restrictions. For details, please see the restrictions.
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the Duplication Policy section for more information.
Archival processing of the Joseph Daniel Sobol Collection was made possible through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
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Collection Overview
| Size | 25 items |
| Abstract | Audio recordings of storytellers, blues musicians, midwives, farmers, and herbalists of the southern United States, compiled by Joseph Daniel Sobol, a white storyteller, musician, and folklorist. The majority of the recordings document stories and songs of residents of Cleveland County, N.C., Hyde County, N.C., and Lee County, S.C. Of particular note is a recording of Drink Small, an African American blues singer of Columbia, S.C., recollecting his musical background and life interspersed with songs and reflections on blues and gospel music; oral history recordings with students and faculty of the Bishopville High School and Mt. Pleasant High School, both in Lee County, S.C., regarding folk tales, supernatural legends, and various rhymes, riddles, and jokes, as well as local student folklore projects; an oral history recording with Elsie Magazine (1904- ), a retired African American midwife of Browntown, Lee County, S.C.; and an oral history recordings of Ivory ("He") Wilson (1913- ), an African American retired farmer of Lee County, S.C. Additional recordings found in the collection include a live recording of Arthur Lee "Tommie" Bass (1908-1996), a white herbalist from Alabama, on a field hike in Duke Forest, Durham County, N.C., as well as live recordings of Donald Davis, a white tale teller from North Carolina, performing and discussing four different jack tales as part of a small group discussion in the Graduate Lounge of Greenlaw Hall on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus. The collection also contains supporting documentation prepared by former Southern Folklife Collection staff that correspond to the Lee County, S.C. and Donald Davis recordings. Documentation consists of select transcripts and tape logs, which include both technical information on the recordings and descriptions of content. |
| Creator | Sobol, Joseph Daniel. |
| Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Folklife Collection. |
| Language | English |
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Information For Users
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Processing Information
Processed by: Anne Wells and Meredith Kite, June 2020
Encoded by: Anne Wells, June 2020
Since August 2017, we have added ethnic and racial identities for individuals and families represented in collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.
Archival processing of the Joseph Daniel Sobol Collection was made possible through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
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Subject Headings
The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.
Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.
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Related Collections
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Biographical Information
Joseph Daniel Sobol is a white storyteller, musician, folklorist, author, and professor. He is the director of the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling Studies and professor of Storytelling in the Faculty of Creative Industries at the University of South Wales in Cardiff, Wales. He was previously the coordinator of the graduate program in Storytelling and a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at East Tennessee State University. He received his bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts from Sarah Lawrence College in 1976, his master’s degree in Folklore from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1987, and his Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University in 1994. Sobol plays traditional Irish and Celtic music on the cittern, guitar, and other fretted instruments. He is the author of The storytellers' journey: an American revival (1999) and The house between earth and sky: harvesting new American folktales (2005).
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Scope and Content
Audio recordings of storytellers, blues musicians, midwives, farmers, and herbalists of the southern United States, compiled by Joseph Daniel Sobol, a white folklorist, storyteller, and musician. The majority of the recordings found in the collection document stories and songs of residents of Cleveland County, N.C., Hyde County, N.C., and Lee County, S.C., including recordings of Drink Small, an African American blues singer of Columbia, S.C., recollecting his musical background and life interspersed with songs and reflections on blues and gospel music; oral history recordings with students and faculty of the Bishopville High School and Mt. Pleasant High School, both in Lee County, S.C., regarding folk tales, supernatural legends, and various rhymes, riddles, and jokes, as well as local student folklore projects; an oral history recording with Elsie Magazine (1904- ), a retired African American midwife of Browntown, Lee County, S.C.; and an oral history recordings of Ivory ("He") Wilson (1913- ), an African American retired farmer of Lee County, S.C.; and interviews with white residents Hal C. Austin, Sr. (1913- ), his son H.C. ("Buddy") Austin, Jr., and Marion McCutcheon Anderson, concerning anecdotes of local events and characters in Bishopville, S.C. Additional recordings found in the collection include a live recording of Arthur Lee "Tommie" Bass (1908-1996), a white herbalist from Alabama, on a field hike in Duke Forest, Durham County, N.C., as well as live recordings of Donald Davis, a white tale teller from North Carolina, performing and discussing four different jack tales as part of a small group discussion in the Graduate Lounge of Greenlaw Hall on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus. Audio recordings are on audiocassette and 1/4" open reel audio. The collection also contains supporting documentation prepared by former Southern Folklife Collection staff that correspond to the Lee County, S.C. and Donald Davis recordings. Documentation consists of select transcripts and tape logs, which include both technical information on the recordings and brief descriptions of content.
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Joseph Daniel Sobol Collection, 1983-1989.
Arrangement: In order as received.
Processing information: Titles compiled from SFC database and supporting field note documentation.
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Items Separated