Back
to top of page
By-Laws
Constitution
Officers and Board of Directors
History of the Missouri Folklore
Society
By-Laws
First adopted at the business meeting at 12:00 noon,
July 17, 1977.
Dues changed at business meeting at 4:30 p.m., October
7, 1983.
Dues changed at business meeting at 4:00 p.m., October
27, 1989.
Artice II.2 amended at business meeting on October
27, 1991.
Dues changed at business meeting at 11:30 a.m., October
28, 1995.
I. Dues. As of October 28, 1995, the membership dues
for the Missouri
Folklore Society shall be as follows:
Individual Membership $12.00
Family Membership $15.00
Student or Retired Person $5.00
Institutional membership $15.00
Sustaining Membership $35.00
Life Membership $150.00
II. Duties and Responsibilities of officers and committees.
1. The President shall chair a committee responsible
for programs
and meetings.
2. The Executive Committee shall determine, each year,
the time and
place of the annual meeting.
3. The Executive Committee may appoint from time to
time, as
occasion arises, special officers or committees to
foster research or other
activities in the different aspects of folklore and
to direct the
publication of newsletters and a yearbook.
MISSOURI FOLKLORE SOCIETY
Constitution
(Approved June l6, l977)
(Amended October 26, 1991)
I. Purpose. The purpose of this Society is to encourage
the collection,
preservation, and study of Folklore in the widest
sense, including customs,
institutions, beliefs, signs, legends, language, literature,
musical arts,
and folk arts and crafts of all ethnic groups throughout
the State of
Missouri.
II. Officers. The officers of the Society shall be
a President, one or
more Vice-Presidents, a Secretary, a Treasurer, and
a Board of Directors of
no fewer than five members. The duties of the officers
shall be the usual
duties of the respective offices. Additional Vice-Presidents
may be
elected to provide regional representation. The Board
of Directors, in
conjunction with the other officers, shall constitute
an Executive
Committee, which shall meet at the Society's annual
meeting to plan the
following annual meeting, decide upon affiliation
with other organizations
and the establishment of local chapters, oversee fiscal
matters, and
determine the place of deposit of manuscripts, books,
and other
collections. The President may call a meeting of the
Executive Committee
during the period of time between annual meetings,
with prior notice of
three weeks, to conduct necessary business. Decisions
of the Executive
Committee require a simple majority of the Officers
and Board Members
attending the meeting at which votes are taken.
The President may appoint, with approval of the Executive
Committee, an Advisory Committee to serve during the
term of office of the
President. The Advisory Committee, whose term of office
shall end at the
time of the annual meeting following their appointment,
shall consist of
officers and no more than six other members of the
Society. The President
may call one or more meetings of the Advisory Committee
during the period
of time between annual meetings, or may solicit advice
by mail, when
necessary to make decisions on questions, issues,
and requests that require
action but are not so urgent as to warrant an emergency
meeting of the
Executive Committee. Decisions of the Advisory Committee
require a simple
majority vote. Decisions and actions of the Advisory
Committee shall be
reported and reviewed at the next meeting of the Executive
Committee.
The officers shall be elected at the annual meeting
to serve for
one year, except that the Board of Directors shall
be elected to serve for
three years, approximately a third being elected each
year. Initial
members of the Board shall be elected to specified
one, two, or three year
terms. The President shall serve as Chair of the Executive
Committee. All
members of the Missouri Folklore Society shall have
the right of nominating
and voting for officers and Board members.
III. Membership. Membership is of six kinds: (l) regular,
(2) family, (3)
students and retired persons, (4) sustaining, (5)
life, and (6)
institutional (non-voting). The dues structure will
be established in the
by-laws.
IV. Publications. The Society shall publish a Newsletter
to apprise
members of plans and activities of the Society and
shall include, when
possible, other news relating to folklore provided
by members and friends.
A Missouri Folklore Journal will be published when
appropriate research
material is available to warrant publication. All
publications shall be
distributed to all members of the Society in good
standing.
V. Meetings. An annual meeting shall be held for the
reading of papers,
the election of officers, and such other business
as may come before the
meeting. Additional meetings may be called by the
President. A quorum
shall consist of those voting members present at a
properly announced
business meeting.
VI. Changes in the Constitution. Written notice of
any proposed change
must be submitted to the Secretary not less than two
months prior to the
meeting at which the proposal is to be made. Not less
than three weeks'
notice of any such proposal shall be given by the
Secretary to the members.
Changes in this constitution may be made only at an
annual meeting or at a
properly announced meeting for business. Change requires
two-thirds
majority of voting members present.
VII. By-laws. By-laws may be adopted or changed by
a simple majority vote
at a properly announced business meeting. Chapters
of the Society may form
their own chapter by-laws.
VIII. Cooperation. It shall be the policy of the Missouri
Folklore Society
to work in cooperation, wherever possible, with National,
State, or other
societies of kindred aims and interests. Manuscripts
and other matter of
permanent value may be deposited in the archives of
such societies, or in
museums, at the discretion of the Executive Committee.
Local and regional clubs and societies interested
in Missouri
Folklore may be affiliated with the Society upon the
recommendation of the
Executive Committee. Local chapters may be established
in the same way.
Annual Meetings
1977 Columbia
1978 Columbia
1979 Springfield
1980 Rolla -
1981 Columbia
1982 Warrensburg
1983 St. Louis
1984 Rolla
1985 Cape Girardeau
1986 Columbia
1987 Jefferson City
1988 St. Joseph
1989 Point Lookout
1990 Hannibal
1991 Flat River
1992 Hermann
1993 Kansas City
1994 Arrow Rock
1995 Trenton
1996 Columbia
1997 Stockton
1998 Hannibal
1999 Sikeston
2000 Fulton
2001 Kansas City
2002 Potosi
2003 Kirksville 2004
Cape Girardeau
2005 Springfield
2006 Centennial: Columbia
MISSOURI FOLKLORE SOCIETY
In 1903, at an English Club meeting at the University
of Missouri,
a student from Clinton County, Missouri, sang a version
of a ballad that
the faculty advisor recognized as a variant of one
in Child's English and
Scottish Ballads. When the students assured him that
many such songs were still sung in Missouri, he enlisted their aid in collecting
them. During the next three years, the English Club initiated a
collection that their advisor, Henry Marvin Belden, continued for over three
decades, and in 1940 he published Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri
Folk-Lore Society.
When the Missouri Folk-Lore Society was established
in 1906 with
Belden as Secretary, officers and members included
residents from
throughout the state, including Missouri's most prominent
folklorist, Mary Alicia Owen of St. Joseph. The stated purpose of the
new Society was the study of "Folk-Lore in the widest sense of the term,
including customs, institutions, superstitions, signs, legends, language
and literature of all races, so far as they are found in the State of Missouri,"
a statement echoing the advice Charles Godfrey Leland had given
in an 1889 letter to Owen about her work among the Mesquakie Indians.
Owen was elected President of MFS in 1908, and in
1909, at the
third annual meeting of the Society in Columbia, the
63 members included residents of Washington DC, Chicago, New York, and
other states as well as Missouri. Publications by Belden and other MFS members
in JAF and other journals brought national attention to the Society.
At the request of L. W. Payne, who with John A. Lomax founded the Texas Folklore
Society, Belden sent copies of several of the leaflets he and Miss
Owen had prepared for MFS. A comparison of the constitution and early publications
of the two societies shows many similarities, according to F.
E. Abernethy, historian of the Texas Society.
It was not until 1913, at a meeting in St. Louis attended
by George
Lyman Kittredge, that the members of the Missouri
Folk-Lore Society were persuaded to associate formally with the American
Folklore Society, as other state societies were doing. Categories of membership
were established distinguishing "professed folk-lorists" (those belonging
to AFS) from "antiquarians and collectors who approach the subject
from the point of view of state history or local history."
As attendance and membership declined, Belden suggested
that MFS
members meet with the Missouri State Teachers Association. Accordingly, MFS became a department of MSTA, and at the 1916 meeting
in St. Louis there was a standing-room-only audience at the program and a
large group at the "folklore supper." However, World War I and the flu
epidemic weakened the Society, and its 1920 meeting in Kansas City was the
last for many years to come.
Other collectors began working in Missouri. Vance
Randolph collected in the Ozarks in the 1920s and 1930s. Joseph
M. Carrière and Ward Dorrance gathered and published French folk tales
and songs in Ste.
Genevieve and the Old Mines community in the 1930s.
In the late 1940s R. P. Christeson began recording old-time fiddle tunes in
Missouri and other states. While a student at the University of Missouri,
Loman Cansler discovered that songs in the Belden, Randolph, and
Sandburg collections were still sung by his family and friends in Dallas
County, so he too began collecting. In the 1950s Max Hunter, a Springfield
businessman, started recording ballads and songs on trips around the Ozarks.
The Carrière, Christeson, Cansler, and Hunter materials constitute
major American collections.
In the 1970s others developed an interest in the collection
and
study of Missouri's folklore, including the Missouri
Friends of the Folk
Arts in St. Louis; Gordon McCann in Springfield; John
W. Roberts, then a professor at the University of Missouri; Adolf E.
Schroeder, who
established a German Folklore Project in Missouri;
and Cathy Barton, a folk musician and student at Stephens College. In response
to the need for some means of bringing together the knowledge of these
researchers, the Missouri Folklore Society was reactivated in 1977. Roberts
was the first President and later served as Secretary, publishing in that
capacity the 1979 Missouri Folklore Society Journal. In 1981 Donald
Lance, who first became interested in the field in Texas, was elected Secretary
and editor of publications, a position in which he continues to
serve.
The 1980s brought a number of folklorists to the state-Erika
Brady,
John Foley, Elaine Lawless, Sandy Rikoon, Howard Marshall,
Ray Brassieur, Dana Everts-Boehm, and Prahlad Folly-all welcome additions.
In 1996, with Ray Brassier serving as president, MFS celebrated
the 90th anniversary of its founding and the 20th anniversary of its reactivation.
The work of the Society continues, with volunteers
from every area
of the state, some associated with academic institutions
but many more who simply have an enduring interest in Missouri traditions.
With a membership of around 350, the Society holds annual meetings,
publishes an annual journal and quarterly newsletters, and awards prizes
for student papers related to Missouri folklore. Future meetings will
be in Hannibal (1998), Sikeston (1999), and Fulton (2000). Membership dues
are $15 a year. For further information, contact Missouri Folklore Society,
P. O. Box 1757, Columbia, MO 65205.
Rebecca B. Schroeder, MFS Archivist