Elizabeth Bristol Greenleaf

Elizabeth Bristol Greenleaf
Born
Elisabeth Bristol

1895
New York, U.S.
Died1980
Westerly, Rhode Island, U.S.
Alma materVassar College (1917)
OccupationFolklorist

Elizabeth Bristol Greenleaf (1895–1980) was an American collector of folk songs.[1] She was among the first people to collect both the words and the music of the folk songs of Newfoundland, and (together with the musicologist Grace Yarrow Mansfield) compiled the definitive collection of them.[2]

Early life and education

Elisabeth Bristol was born in New York, the daughter of Charles Lawrence Bristol and Ellen Gallup Bristol. Her mother was a teacher,[3] and her father was a zoology professor at New York University.[4] She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar College in 1917.[5]

Career

After college, Bristol worked for the Food Administration from 1917 to 1918.[4] In 1920 she volunteered to teach for the Grenfell Mission summer school at Sally's Cove, near Bonne Bay on the west coast of Newfoundland. There she heard traditional singing for the first time and began to write down the songs she heard.[6] In 1921 she returned to Newfoundland to teach for a summer, and again in 1929 with a musicologist, Grace Yarrow Mansfield, as part of the Vassar College Folklore Expedition to Newfoundland.[2]

They made an extensive collection of folk songs and tunes, published in 1933 by Harvard University Press as Ballads and Sea Songs of Newfoundland.[7] "This was the first scholarly publication of a collection of Newfoundland folk songs and one of the first North American collections to give the tunes equal emphasis with the texts."[2] The book, reprinted in 1968, remains a definitive source of the songs of Newfoundland.[8]

Greenleaf spoke to campus and community groups about Newfoundland folk music.[9][10][11] In her later years, she welcomed young musicians and singers including Pete Seeger and Janis Ian to her home in Westerly, Rhode Island, to learn the songs she collected.[12]

Publications

  • Ballads and Sea Songs of Newfoundland (1933, with Grace Yarrow Mansfield)[13]

Personal life

Bristol married biology professor William Eben Greenleaf in 1921.[4] They had a son, William. Her husband died in 1959,[14] and she died in 1980, in her eighties, in Rhode Island.[2] Her grandson Christopher Marmon Greenleaf is artistic advisor for a music series.[12]

References

  1. ^ Anna Kearney Guigné (2008). Folksongs and folk revival: the cultural politics of Kenneth Peacock's Songs of the Newfoundland outports. Memorial University of Newfoundland. Institute of Social and Economic Research. ISBN 978-1-894725-06-4. Retrieved 10 June 2012.
  2. ^ a b c d Anita Best, Elisabeth Greenleaf fonds Archived 2016-08-01 at the Wayback Machine at Memorial University Department of Folklore; PDF as of 2025.
  3. ^ "Ellen G. Bristol Dies at Westerly". The Day. 1940-06-25. p. 6. Retrieved 2025-05-01 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ a b c "Miss Bristol Engaged; Daughter of New York University Professor to Wed W. E. Greenleaf". The New York Times. 1921-06-23. p. 17. Retrieved 2025-05-01 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ Vassar College, Vassarion (1917 yearbook): 63.
  6. ^ "Newfoundland Yields Up Rich Fund of Sea Songs and Ballads". Hartford Courant. 1933-05-07. p. 54. Retrieved 2025-05-01 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ Greenleaf, Elisabeth Bristol; Mansfield, Grace Yarrow (1933). Ballads and Sea-Songs of Newfoundland. Harvard University Press.
  8. ^ "Newfoundland music". National Post. 1969-11-29. p. 19. Retrieved 2025-05-01 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ "Concert of Folk Songs is Arranged at Vassar". Poughkeepsie Eagle-News. 1929-10-03. p. 5. Retrieved 2025-05-01 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ "Folk Songs Program For Manor Club". The Standard-Star. 1932-03-01. p. 5. Retrieved 2025-05-01 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ "Athenaeum Has Anniversary Tea; Folk-Lore Theme". The Morning Call. 1932-02-21. p. 5. Retrieved 2025-05-01 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ a b Burns-Fusaro, Nancy (2019-10-27). "Rare piano's sound is what Romantic masters had in mind". Westerly Sun. Retrieved 2025-05-01.
  13. ^ Belden, H. M. (1934). "Review of Ballads and Sea Songs of Newfoundland". The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. 33 (1): 144–147. ISSN 0363-6941.
  14. ^ "Dr. Greenleaf Dies; Taught at Wesleyan". Hartford Courant. 1959-07-09. p. 1. Retrieved 2025-05-01 – via Newspapers.com.

Further reading

  • R. D. Madison (ed.) Newfoundland summers: the ballad collecting of Elisabeth Bristol Greenleaf. Westerly, R.I.: Utter Co., 1982.
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