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Abstract
Edith Fowke's life and publications are surveyed, from her childhood in Saskathewan to her final books and articles
on folkore and traditional song. Based on writings by and about Fowke as well as communications with friends and
co-workers, emphasis is on her song anthologies, broadcasting career, and pioneering field recordings in Ontario.
Edith Fowke was once asked why she had devoted so much of her life to the study of folk music and folklore. She
responded by saying "I'm an ordinary person, and what ordinary people do is important" (Ross 1996). Edith was a
very significant collector of Ontario folk songs, but her interest in folk music was national. Edith produced more than
thirty books and dozens of articles dealing with Canadian folk songs and folklore. She exposed thousands of people
to folk music and story through her radio broadcasts on the CBC and her university lectures. Edith was a Member of
the Order of Canada, a Fellow of The Royal Society, and she had honorary doctorates from Brock University, Trent
University, York University and the University of Regina. She wrote throughout her life and was still writing at the end.
When Edith passed away on March 28, 1996 at Women's College Hospital in Toronto, she had already left an
indelible mark on the study and enjoyment of Canadian folk music and folklore.
1913-1955
Edith Margaret Fulton was born on April 30, 1913, one of two daughters of William and Margaret. The Fultons had
emigrated from Northern Ireland to settle in Lumsden, Saskatchewan, a town of 500 located just northwest of Regina,
on the Qu'Appelle River. William Fulton worked as an oil distributor and provided a middle-class home for the family.
Childhood and Adolescence
Edith said her enthusiasm for folk song and folklore came later: in Lumsden she was a reader. As a young girl, Edith
loved books. She read everything she could get her hands on. Because Lumsden was short of good books, Edith
had to work her way through the books of her neighbors and friends. She borrowed books from the Methodist
minister's wife and from teachers. Literature was her passion (Donald 1975:69).
By the age of ten, she was a member of the Torchbearer's Club, a group associated with the nearby city newspaper,
the Regina Leader-Post. The Torchbearer's Club enabled amateur writers and artists to have their work published in
a magazine which accompanied the newspaper's Saturday edition. Over a period of approximately six years, Edith
contributed poetry and fiction to the publication (Johnson 1996:15).
Although she did not know it at the time, her folklore collecting had already begun in Lumsden. For her 1976
publication Folklore of Canada, Edith used four autograph books, filled by Lumsden and Regina friends from 1927 to
1933 "because of the dearth of English-Canadian folklore from Saskatchewan" (1976a: 237, 310).
University Studies
In 1933, Edith graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Her concentrations
were English and History. The year of her graduation was the same year that the political party which had evolved out
of a union of prairie farmers, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), held its first national convention in
Regina. From an early age, Edith had been interested in social issues. It seemed natural for her to become attracted
to the policies of the CCF and its prominent leader J.S. Woodsworth. Edith became an active member of the party, an
involvement which would last twenty years. For a number of those years, she would edit the CCF newsletters
(Fruitman 1996).
Edith taught school for a brief time after graduation. She also edited a magazine for teachers and carried on her
interest in politics. But she wanted more education. After a while, she decided to return to the University of
Saskatchewan for the M.A. degree in English -- during the Depression, a time when very few women undertook
graduate education. Edith graduated in 1937 with a thesis on the 19th-century English poet and novelist, George
Meredith (Donald 1975:69; Ross 1996).
Early Years in Toronto
In 1938, Edith married Frank Fowke, an engineering graduate with an interest in music (Ross 1996). The couple
soon moved to Toronto where Edith worked as a freelance writer and editor for a number of years. Between 1937 and
1944, she was Editor of the Western Teacher. From 1945 to 1949, she was Associate Editor of the Magazine Digest
(Johnson 1996: 18).
Edith continued her interest in political and social affairs through her involvement with the CCF, Citizen's Forum,
Friends of Overseas Students, The Co-operative Committee for Japanese Canadians, and the Woodsworth
Foundation (Johnson 1996: 7). Edith's participation in these organizations resulted in two books. In 1948, she edited
Toward Socialism: Selections from the Writings of J.S. Woodsworth. This paperback book, for which she wrote the
"Foreword," contained fifteen essays by the founder of the CCF. Published through the Ontario Woodsworth Memorial
Foundation, the 48-page book was sold for 25 cents. A few years later, in 1951, Edith wrote They Made Democracy
Work: The Story of the Co-operative Committee on Japanese Canadians. This was also a paperback book which
sold for 25 cents.
In the early 1950s, Edith edited the magazine Food For Thought, which dealt with issues of adult education (Donald
1975: 70). As well, she served on the editorial board of The Canadian Forum, a well-known monthly journal of
literature and public affairs. For this magazine she wrote one of her first articles dealing with folk music in Canada
(Fowke 1949). The article provided some of the history of Canadian song collecting, described the work of collectors
such as Elizabeth Greenleaf, Marius Barbeau, Maud Karpeles, Helen Creighton and Roy Mackenzie, and mentioned
Alice Fletcher's work in collecting North American native music.
Edith became disillusioned with politics and the CCF in 1952. That was the year David Lewis and the Steelworkers
packed the annual meeting and drove out many of the people who had been running the programs. Edith fought the
new regime briefly. After a short time, however, she decided to turn her energy to the study of folk music and folklore
(Johnson 1996: 7).
Her interest in folk music had started casually in the 1940s as she began to acquire recordings of performers such
as Josh White, Burl Ives, and Dyer-Bennett (Weihs et al. 1978: 4). By the late 1940s, her collection of records was
becoming quite significant. In 1949, Edith began to make some of these recordings available to the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation for use on a program called Folk Song Time.1 [1 One of the early narrators was reportedly
Bill Reid, the noted Haida sculptor.]
Folk Song Time
In its formative days the program was narrated by CBC hosts, using scripts provided by Edith (Johnson 1996: 7). 1
The first programs, a half hour long, were a direct result of Edith approaching David Boyle at the CBC and persuading
him it was time for a folk-music show (Weihs et al. 1978: 5).
Folk Song Time, which varied in length from 30 to 60 minutes, ran on the CBC until 1958. Edith eventually both wrote
and read the scripts. After 1958, the name was changed to Folk Sounds and the show continued into the 1970s.
Most of the music played on the show in its early years originated in the United States. There were few recordings of
Canadian folk songs or singers available. Canadian content was limited to the recordings of Ed McCurdy and Alan
Mills (Weihs et al. 1978: 5).
At the time, these were the only people singing Canadian folk songs on record and Edith gave them "airplay."
Through the radio program, Edith came to know many members of the folk-music community personally. She
became a good friend of Alan Mills. She was a guest at the homes of Burl Ives and Pete Seeger. She socialized with
Charles Seeger and Joe Glazer (Johnson 1996: 8).
The weekly radio show led Edith into researching the origin of folk songs. She felt it was necessary to know the
background of the songs, particularly Canadian songs. It was information of which Edith thought listeners should be
aware. She wanted her programs to be informative and interesting, as well as musical. This led to many hours of
library research and the purchase of a substantial number of books (Weihs et al. 1978:5; Donald 1975: 70).
Edith quickly concluded that there was a limited quantity of historical material available on Canadian folk music. This
was a situation she wanted to see remedied. As Folk Song Time gained popularity in the early 1950s, listeners
began to asking where they could get copies of the songs for singing. Edith felt the books of Marius Barbeau, Helen
Creighton, and Roy Mackenzie could not satisfy this demand. She determined that a new singing book was required
(Weihs et al. 1978: 5).
Folk Songs of Canada
In 1952, Edith began collaborating with Richard Johnston on a book of Canadian folk songs. She worked as the
literary editor while Johnston edited the music. The collection of 76 songs selected for the publication was gleaned
mostly from the field collections of Barbeau, Peacock; Karpeles, Greenleaf, Mackenzie, and Creighton.
The volume was designed as a singing book. The songs were selected on the basis of their perceived popularity, the
ease with which they could be sung, and the extent to which they represented a particular aspect of Canadian history
or life. Canadian versions of American songs were also included (Fowke and Johnston 1954: 9-12).
Johnston notated each song using keys that were suitable for group singing. The score contained a melody line,
lyrics, piano accompaniment and guitar chords. Edith helped with the selection of the songs and their texts. As well,
she prepared the historical sketches printed with each song. These explained the songs' significance for Canada.
After more than two years of work, Folk Songs of Canada was published in April 1954. It was such an immediate
success that Waterloo Music produced a second printing less than a year later, in February 1955.
The successful introduction of Folk Songs of Canada to the public was followed by a couple of closely associated
projects, also produced through Waterloo Music. First, a choral edition of the book was available the same year. The
provision of choral arrangements by Richard Johnston was another step in the legitimization of Canadian folk music,
enabling folk songs to be sung by choirsof all types: church, school, amateur, and professional.
The second project was the record album Folk Songs of Canada. Produced under the musical direction of Richard
Johnston for the Waterloo label, It featured Joyce Sullivan and Charles Jordan singing a selection of songs from the
book accompanied by chorus, guitar, and piano. Edith was much involved in broadcasting at the time and was firmly
believed recordings were the most effective way to expose the general public to folk music.
Kenneth Goldstein
A few months after the book's release, Edith went to New York City to purchase more folk recordings. In the Stinson
record shop in Greenwich Village, the owner introduced her to Kenneth Goldstein. Goldstein made his living at that
time as a statistician, but his hobby was folklore and folk music. He was also a producer of folk recordings, and had
worked with such prominent American folk singers as Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston, Leadbeily, and Milt Okun.
Goldstein seemed to be aware of every folk music publication in existence. He surprised Edith by letting her know that
he had enjoyed her efforts in Folk Songs of Canada. They became friends instantly, a friendship that would last until
his death in 1996.
Through Goldstein, Edith became a member of the American Folklore Society. As well, he was instrumental in getting
her books published in the United States. This establishment of a permanent connection with the American folk
music and folklore community would be of considerable help to Edith Fowke in subsequent years (Fowke 1996a: 22).
Back in Canada, Edith resumed her work with Richard Johnston. Their next effort, Folk Songs of Quebec, would
eventually be published in 1957. This book was intended to introduce French Canadian songs to English Canadian
people. It was an idea that did not work well and there was little demand for the book (Weihs et a!. 1978: 5).
Nevertheless, the work involved in the creation of the two books, both published by Waterloo Music, along with her
preparation of radio scripts, led Edith to the realization that there was very little folk music in print that had originated
west of Quebec. (Weihs et al. 1978: 5).
One of Edith's earliest friends and associates in folk music was British Columbia song collector, composer, teacher,
and singer Philip Thomas. In response to an inquiry I made about some of the early thoughts Edith may have had on
song collecting, Thomas replied (1998):
Collecting, in the field, was something that Edith had considered doing from those early years
Edith, as I understand it, was initially primarily a popularizer of folk song in the mould of the
American Ben Botkin. She truly believed that folk songs reflected lives of the people who sang
them, and that assertion, which she scripted in the introduction to her weekly CBC program
Folk Song Time, gave them a cultural pedigree to be honoured.
In the autumn of 1956, Edith began her song collecting in rural Ontario.
[Next]
Edith Fowke's life and publications are surveyed, from her childhood in Saskathewan to her final books and articles
on folkore and traditional song. Based on writings by and about Fowke as well as communications with friends and
co-workers, emphasis is on her song anthologies, broadcasting career, and pioneering field recordings in Ontario.
Edith Fowke was once asked why she had devoted so much of her life to the study of folk music and folklore. She
responded by saying "I'm an ordinary person, and what ordinary people do is important" (Ross 1996). Edith was a
very significant collector of Ontario folk songs, but her interest in folk music was national. Edith produced more than
thirty books and dozens of articles dealing with Canadian folk songs and folklore. She exposed thousands of people
to folk music and story through her radio broadcasts on the CBC and her university lectures. Edith was a Member of
the Order of Canada, a Fellow of The Royal Society, and she had honorary doctorates from Brock University, Trent
University, York University and the University of Regina. She wrote throughout her life and was still writing at the end.
When Edith passed away on March 28, 1996 at Women's College Hospital in Toronto, she had already left an
indelible mark on the study and enjoyment of Canadian folk music and folklore.
1913-1955
Edith Margaret Fulton was born on April 30, 1913, one of two daughters of William and Margaret. The Fultons had
emigrated from Northern Ireland to settle in Lumsden, Saskatchewan, a town of 500 located just northwest of Regina,
on the Qu'Appelle River. William Fulton worked as an oil distributor and provided a middle-class home for the family.
Childhood and Adolescence
Edith said her enthusiasm for folk song and folklore came later: in Lumsden she was a reader. As a young girl, Edith
loved books. She read everything she could get her hands on. Because Lumsden was short of good books, Edith
had to work her way through the books of her neighbors and friends. She borrowed books from the Methodist
minister's wife and from teachers. Literature was her passion (Donald 1975:69).
By the age of ten, she was a member of the Torchbearer's Club, a group associated with the nearby city newspaper,
the Regina Leader-Post. The Torchbearer's Club enabled amateur writers and artists to have their work published in
a magazine which accompanied the newspaper's Saturday edition. Over a period of approximately six years, Edith
contributed poetry and fiction to the publication (Johnson 1996:15).
Although she did not know it at the time, her folklore collecting had already begun in Lumsden. For her 1976
publication Folklore of Canada, Edith used four autograph books, filled by Lumsden and Regina friends from 1927 to
1933 "because of the dearth of English-Canadian folklore from Saskatchewan" (1976a: 237, 310).
University Studies
In 1933, Edith graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Her concentrations
were English and History. The year of her graduation was the same year that the political party which had evolved out
of a union of prairie farmers, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), held its first national convention in
Regina. From an early age, Edith had been interested in social issues. It seemed natural for her to become attracted
to the policies of the CCF and its prominent leader J.S. Woodsworth. Edith became an active member of the party, an
involvement which would last twenty years. For a number of those years, she would edit the CCF newsletters
(Fruitman 1996).
Edith taught school for a brief time after graduation. She also edited a magazine for teachers and carried on her
interest in politics. But she wanted more education. After a while, she decided to return to the University of
Saskatchewan for the M.A. degree in English -- during the Depression, a time when very few women undertook
graduate education. Edith graduated in 1937 with a thesis on the 19th-century English poet and novelist, George
Meredith (Donald 1975:69; Ross 1996).
Early Years in Toronto
In 1938, Edith married Frank Fowke, an engineering graduate with an interest in music (Ross 1996). The couple
soon moved to Toronto where Edith worked as a freelance writer and editor for a number of years. Between 1937 and
1944, she was Editor of the Western Teacher. From 1945 to 1949, she was Associate Editor of the Magazine Digest
(Johnson 1996: 18).
Edith continued her interest in political and social affairs through her involvement with the CCF, Citizen's Forum,
Friends of Overseas Students, The Co-operative Committee for Japanese Canadians, and the Woodsworth
Foundation (Johnson 1996: 7). Edith's participation in these organizations resulted in two books. In 1948, she edited
Toward Socialism: Selections from the Writings of J.S. Woodsworth. This paperback book, for which she wrote the
"Foreword," contained fifteen essays by the founder of the CCF. Published through the Ontario Woodsworth Memorial
Foundation, the 48-page book was sold for 25 cents. A few years later, in 1951, Edith wrote They Made Democracy
Work: The Story of the Co-operative Committee on Japanese Canadians. This was also a paperback book which
sold for 25 cents.
In the early 1950s, Edith edited the magazine Food For Thought, which dealt with issues of adult education (Donald
1975: 70). As well, she served on the editorial board of The Canadian Forum, a well-known monthly journal of
literature and public affairs. For this magazine she wrote one of her first articles dealing with folk music in Canada
(Fowke 1949). The article provided some of the history of Canadian song collecting, described the work of collectors
such as Elizabeth Greenleaf, Marius Barbeau, Maud Karpeles, Helen Creighton and Roy Mackenzie, and mentioned
Alice Fletcher's work in collecting North American native music.
Edith became disillusioned with politics and the CCF in 1952. That was the year David Lewis and the Steelworkers
packed the annual meeting and drove out many of the people who had been running the programs. Edith fought the
new regime briefly. After a short time, however, she decided to turn her energy to the study of folk music and folklore
(Johnson 1996: 7).
Her interest in folk music had started casually in the 1940s as she began to acquire recordings of performers such
as Josh White, Burl Ives, and Dyer-Bennett (Weihs et al. 1978: 4). By the late 1940s, her collection of records was
becoming quite significant. In 1949, Edith began to make some of these recordings available to the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation for use on a program called Folk Song Time.1 [1 One of the early narrators was reportedly
Bill Reid, the noted Haida sculptor.]
Folk Song Time
In its formative days the program was narrated by CBC hosts, using scripts provided by Edith (Johnson 1996: 7). 1
The first programs, a half hour long, were a direct result of Edith approaching David Boyle at the CBC and persuading
him it was time for a folk-music show (Weihs et al. 1978: 5).
Folk Song Time, which varied in length from 30 to 60 minutes, ran on the CBC until 1958. Edith eventually both wrote
and read the scripts. After 1958, the name was changed to Folk Sounds and the show continued into the 1970s.
Most of the music played on the show in its early years originated in the United States. There were few recordings of
Canadian folk songs or singers available. Canadian content was limited to the recordings of Ed McCurdy and Alan
Mills (Weihs et al. 1978: 5).
At the time, these were the only people singing Canadian folk songs on record and Edith gave them "airplay."
Through the radio program, Edith came to know many members of the folk-music community personally. She
became a good friend of Alan Mills. She was a guest at the homes of Burl Ives and Pete Seeger. She socialized with
Charles Seeger and Joe Glazer (Johnson 1996: 8).
The weekly radio show led Edith into researching the origin of folk songs. She felt it was necessary to know the
background of the songs, particularly Canadian songs. It was information of which Edith thought listeners should be
aware. She wanted her programs to be informative and interesting, as well as musical. This led to many hours of
library research and the purchase of a substantial number of books (Weihs et al. 1978:5; Donald 1975: 70).
Edith quickly concluded that there was a limited quantity of historical material available on Canadian folk music. This
was a situation she wanted to see remedied. As Folk Song Time gained popularity in the early 1950s, listeners
began to asking where they could get copies of the songs for singing. Edith felt the books of Marius Barbeau, Helen
Creighton, and Roy Mackenzie could not satisfy this demand. She determined that a new singing book was required
(Weihs et al. 1978: 5).
Folk Songs of Canada
In 1952, Edith began collaborating with Richard Johnston on a book of Canadian folk songs. She worked as the
literary editor while Johnston edited the music. The collection of 76 songs selected for the publication was gleaned
mostly from the field collections of Barbeau, Peacock; Karpeles, Greenleaf, Mackenzie, and Creighton.
The volume was designed as a singing book. The songs were selected on the basis of their perceived popularity, the
ease with which they could be sung, and the extent to which they represented a particular aspect of Canadian history
or life. Canadian versions of American songs were also included (Fowke and Johnston 1954: 9-12).
Johnston notated each song using keys that were suitable for group singing. The score contained a melody line,
lyrics, piano accompaniment and guitar chords. Edith helped with the selection of the songs and their texts. As well,
she prepared the historical sketches printed with each song. These explained the songs' significance for Canada.
After more than two years of work, Folk Songs of Canada was published in April 1954. It was such an immediate
success that Waterloo Music produced a second printing less than a year later, in February 1955.
The successful introduction of Folk Songs of Canada to the public was followed by a couple of closely associated
projects, also produced through Waterloo Music. First, a choral edition of the book was available the same year. The
provision of choral arrangements by Richard Johnston was another step in the legitimization of Canadian folk music,
enabling folk songs to be sung by choirsof all types: church, school, amateur, and professional.
The second project was the record album Folk Songs of Canada. Produced under the musical direction of Richard
Johnston for the Waterloo label, It featured Joyce Sullivan and Charles Jordan singing a selection of songs from the
book accompanied by chorus, guitar, and piano. Edith was much involved in broadcasting at the time and was firmly
believed recordings were the most effective way to expose the general public to folk music.
Kenneth Goldstein
A few months after the book's release, Edith went to New York City to purchase more folk recordings. In the Stinson
record shop in Greenwich Village, the owner introduced her to Kenneth Goldstein. Goldstein made his living at that
time as a statistician, but his hobby was folklore and folk music. He was also a producer of folk recordings, and had
worked with such prominent American folk singers as Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston, Leadbeily, and Milt Okun.
Goldstein seemed to be aware of every folk music publication in existence. He surprised Edith by letting her know that
he had enjoyed her efforts in Folk Songs of Canada. They became friends instantly, a friendship that would last until
his death in 1996.
Through Goldstein, Edith became a member of the American Folklore Society. As well, he was instrumental in getting
her books published in the United States. This establishment of a permanent connection with the American folk
music and folklore community would be of considerable help to Edith Fowke in subsequent years (Fowke 1996a: 22).
Back in Canada, Edith resumed her work with Richard Johnston. Their next effort, Folk Songs of Quebec, would
eventually be published in 1957. This book was intended to introduce French Canadian songs to English Canadian
people. It was an idea that did not work well and there was little demand for the book (Weihs et a!. 1978: 5).
Nevertheless, the work involved in the creation of the two books, both published by Waterloo Music, along with her
preparation of radio scripts, led Edith to the realization that there was very little folk music in print that had originated
west of Quebec. (Weihs et al. 1978: 5).
One of Edith's earliest friends and associates in folk music was British Columbia song collector, composer, teacher,
and singer Philip Thomas. In response to an inquiry I made about some of the early thoughts Edith may have had on
song collecting, Thomas replied (1998):
Collecting, in the field, was something that Edith had considered doing from those early years
Edith, as I understand it, was initially primarily a popularizer of folk song in the mould of the
American Ben Botkin. She truly believed that folk songs reflected lives of the people who sang
them, and that assertion, which she scripted in the introduction to her weekly CBC program
Folk Song Time, gave them a cultural pedigree to be honoured.
In the autumn of 1956, Edith began her song collecting in rural Ontario.
[Next]