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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.
Size | 13.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 2200 items) |
Abstract | Personal collection of white folklorist, healer, and herbalist Marina Bokelman, primarily consisting of fieldwork she and David Evans conducted from 1966 to 1968, when they were graduate students in the Folklore and Mythology Program at the University of California, Los Angeles. Materials include 35mm photographic negatives, annotated contact sheets and photographs, a cross-stitch sampler shown on the cover of the album The Blues in Memphis 1927-1939 (All the Uptown and Downhome Music of the Gateway to the Delta) , Bokelman's 1968 dissertation, 'The Coon Can Gang': A Blues Ballad Tradition, and an unfinished manuscript of Going Up the Country: Adventures in Blues Fieldwork. People documented in the collection include the musicians Rev. Rubin ("Rube") Lacy, Bubba Brown, Robert Pete Williams, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and Alan Wilson. |
Creator | Bokelman, Marina
Evans, David, 1944- |
Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Folklife Collection. |
Language | English |
Encoded by: Dawne Howard Lucas, June 2021
Updated by Rebecca Stubbs and Laura Smith, November 2021; Rebecca Stubbs, Luke Cimarusti, and Laura Smith, May 2024
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.
Back to TopThe 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.
Marina Bokelman (1942-2022) was a white folklorist, healer, and herbalist based in Grass Valley, Calif. Born in New York City, N.Y., Bokelman attended the University of California, Los Angeles, earning her BA degree in Cultural Anthropology (1965) and her MA degree in Folklore and Mythology (1968). Bokelman's publications include: Going Up The Country (co-written with David Evans), Tobaccos I Have Grown and Loved, A Simpler’s Garden: The Gentle Art of Poulticing, and The Tale of the Shirt: How Dale Pendell’s Power Shirt Came To Be.
Back to TopPersonal collection of Marina Bokelman, primarily consisting of photographs and fieldwork she and David Evans conducted from 1966 to 1968, when they were graduate students in the Folklore and Mythology Program at the University of California, Los Angeles. Bokelman and Evans spent the summers of 1966 and 1967 in Mississippi, Louisiana, and California, interviewing Rev. Rubin ("Rube") Lacy, documenting a church service in Bakersfield, Calif., and interviewing and photographing Bubba Brown, an important musician around Jackson, Miss., in the 1940s. The collection includes 35mm photographic negatives, annotated contact sheets and photographs, depicting blues musicians such as Robert Pete Williams, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and Alan Wilson, the founder/leader of the blues band Canned Heat. Many of the photographs were taken at Bokelman and Evans's home in Malibu, Calif. There are two prints, a 8.5” x 11” photo of Alan Wilson wearing a hat taken by an unknown photographer and a small print of Rev. Rube Lacy with John Fahey, Al Wilson and David Evans, also taken by an unknown photographer. There is an inventory and background information on the photographs written by Bokelman, as well as digitized files of the all the negatives.There is also a cross-stitch sampler made by Bokelman, commissioned by Bill Givens, the owner of the blues reissue label Origin Jazz Library, for LP record The Blues in Memphis 1927-1939 (All the Uptown and Downhome Music of the Gateway to the Delta). Givens used a photograph of the sampler for the LP’s cover.
The addition of June 2021 contains Bokelman's 1968 dissertation 'The Coon Can Gang': A Blues Ballad Tradition; original field notes from Bokelman's work in 1966 and 1967 with David Evans, in Mississippi, Louisiana and California; the unfinished manuscript Going Up the Country: Adventures in Blues Fieldwork, and digitized copies the field notes and manuscript. The manuscript is Bokelman's portion of an unfinished book about Bokelman and Evans's careers and personal lives.
The Addition of September 2023 contains black and white photographic negatives (original and digitized) and corresponding contact sheets. Some of the images appear in Marina Bokelman and David Evans' book Going up the Country: Adventures in Blues Fieldwork in the 1960s. According to Evans, the photographs were taken in 1966-1968 and were labeled as a group called "Studio City" (SC)," which is the suburb of Los Angeles, Calif., where Bokelman's parents lived. Many were of the photographs were taken at her parents' home, while most of the others were taken at the house in Malibu, Calif. These photographs mostly depict Bokelman and Evans, often playing guitar, or Bokelman's parents and brothers. None of them depict any of the activity of their fieldwork with blues artists, but they come from that time period and the general environment described in the book.
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Folder 1-3
Folder 1Folder 2Folder 3 |
Field notes, 1966-1967 |
Folder 2-4
Folder 2Folder 3Folder 4 |
"Going up the Country: Adventures in Blues Fieldwork in the 1960s"-unfinished manuscript |
Folder 5 |
"The Coon Can Game: A Blues Ballad Tradition," 1968 dissertation |
Image Folder PF-70035/1-2
PF-70035/1PF-70035/2 |
Contact Sheet for "MB-Gulch"Black and white print |
Image Folder PF-70035/3-13
PF-70035/3PF-70035/4PF-70035/5PF-70035/6PF-70035/7PF-70035/8PF-70035/9PF-70035/10PF-70035/11PF-70035/12PF-70035/13 |
Contact Sheet for "MB-1966"Black and white print |
Image Folder PF-70035/14-21
PF-70035/14PF-70035/15PF-70035/16PF-70035/17PF-70035/18PF-70035/19PF-70035/20PF-70035/21 |
Contact Sheet for "MB-1967"Black and white print |
Image Folder PF-70035/22 |
Al WilsonBlack and white print |
Image Folder PF-70035/23 |
Rube LacyBlack and white print |
Image Folder PF-70035/24-35
PF-70035/24PF-70035/25PF-70035/26PF-70035/27PF-70035/28PF-70035/29PF-70035/30PF-70035/31PF-70035/32PF-70035/33PF-70035/34PF-70035/35 |
Negatives for: "MB-Gulch"Black and White 35mm film |
Image Folder PF-70035/26-36
PF-70035/26PF-70035/27PF-70035/28PF-70035/29PF-70035/30PF-70035/31PF-70035/32PF-70035/33PF-70035/34PF-70035/35PF-70035/36 |
Negatives for: "MB-1966"Black and White 35mm film |
Image Folder PF-70035/37-44
PF-70035/37PF-70035/38PF-70035/39PF-70035/40PF-70035/41PF-70035/42PF-70035/43PF-70035/44 |
Negatives for: "MB-1967"Black and White 35mm film |
Museum Item MU-70035/1 |
Cross stitch sampler for the Jazz Library |
Image Folder PF-70035/45-46
PF-70035/45PF-70035/46 |
Studio City photographs20240103.4 |
Digital Folder DF-70035/1 |
Studio City photographs20240103.4 |