Henry M. Belden

Career

Henry Marvin Belden joined the University of Missouri as an assistant professor of English in 1895. Eight years later, in January 1903, a university club—eventually named the English Club—started out focused on performing literature but shifted toward collecting Missouri folksongs and ballads. This change happened partly because Belden recognized that a ballad performed at a club meeting was actually a Child ballad, a significant discovery since Francis James Child had believed such traditional songs had vanished by the late 1800s.

Belden became an active club member, urging others to gather local songs, and published an article on their early work in the Journal of American Folklore in 1906. In December 1906, the English Club was reorganized into the Missouri Folk-Lore Society, with Belden serving as its Secretary. His growing ballad research led to a leave from the university for a research trip to the British Museum in 1908, and he spent 1916 and 1917 at Harvard University studying Missouri ballads further.

Belden planned to publish a collection of Missouri folk songs, but World War I delayed the project, and the Missouri Folklore Society’s activity slowed during the 1920s and 1930s. His book Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society finally appeared in 1940, containing over 600 versions of roughly 280 ballads and songs, gathered by more than 100 collectors, mostly University of Missouri students. After retiring in 1935, Belden continued his research, collaborating with Arthur Palmer Hudson to edit the ballad and folksong volumes of Frank Clyde Brown’s North Carolina Folklore collection.

Selected publications

Henry M. Belden published several works on traditional ballads in the early twentieth century. In 1905, he wrote about the song "Ranordine, Rinordine, Rinor." A series of articles on old-country ballads found in Missouri appeared in 1906 and 1907, including a piece on "Geordie." He also examined the connection between balladry and folklore in 1911, and the following year discussed the state of balladry in America.

In 1910, he documented three additional old ballads from Missouri. Belden later edited a collection titled "Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society," published in 1940 as part of the University of Missouri Studies. Along with Arthur Palmer Hudson, he co-edited the third volume of "The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore," which came out in 1952.

Did You Know?

• He recognized a ballad sung at the English Club as a Child ballad, contradicting Francis James Child's claim that traditional ballads had not survived into the late 19th century.
• Belden served as president of the American Folklore Society from 1910 to 1911, using his presidential address to argue against the theory of the communal origin of ballads.