Starting Points for Research

On the Web:

  • Boatwright Library's Online Database collection (includes MLA Bibliography and Harpers Weekly from 1857-1877) and Online Journal Locator.
  • The Making of America (Cornell's and Michigan's archives of primary materials. An amazing resource).
  • Images from Special Collections at the Library of VA and other sites.
  • My Newspaper database and other materials in local collections.
  • Southern Cultures via Project Muse (a cultural-studies goldmine--on campus access only). You may also access this via Boatwright's Online Journal Locator
  • American Folklore: An Encyclopedia ; note entries on "Crockett, Davy" and "Fink, Mike." Available through NetLibrary

In Print:

Primary Sources

Harpers. Boatwright has good microfilm copies from 1850-early 20th century.
The Southern Planter. Boatwright has originals, 1841-61; Library of Virginia has microfilm.

Secondary Sources

Articles (also online as noted):

Lemay, J.A. Leo. "The Text, Tradition and Themes of 'The Big Bear of Arkansas.'" American Literature 47:3 (Nov., 1975) 321-342. (available at http://www.jstor.org/)

Shapiro, Edward. "The Southern Agrarians and the Tennessee Valley Authority." American Quarterly 22.4 (Winter 1970): 791-806. (available at http://www.jstor.org/)

Solomon, Eric. "Huckleberry Finn Once More." College English 22:3 (Dec.,
1960) 172-178. (available at http://www.jstor.org/)

In the Boatwright Stacks:

  • A Collection of Classic Southern Humor II.
  • Bier, Jesse. The Rise & Fall of American Humor. Note chapter on SW Humorists.
  • Blair, Walter. Essays on American Humor.
  • Blair, Walter. Horse Sense in American Humor.
  • Clark, William Bedford and W. Craig Turner (eds.). Critical Essays on American Humor.
  • Cook, Sylvia Jenning. From Tobacco Road to Route 66.
  • Dabney, Virginius. Pistols & Pointed Pens. Richmond's dueling newspaper editors & their times.
  • Faulkner and Humor.
  • Guilds, John Caldwell and Caroline Collins (eds.). William Gilmore Simms and the American Frontier.
  • Hudson, Arthur Palmer. Humor of the Old Deep South.
  • Humor Scholarship: A Research Bibliography.
  • Inge, M. Thomas. The Frontier Humorists: Critical Views.
  • Inge, M. Thomas and James E. Caron (eds.). Sut Lovingood's Nat'ral Born Yarnspinner: Essays on George Washington Harris. Good collection of criticism, from Mark Twain's review to a current study that compares Sut's attitudes to those of Andrew Dice Clay.
  • Kolodny, Annette. The Land Before Her: Fantasy & Experience of the American Frontiers, 1630-1860. (Also at Library of VA).
  • Long, Candice D. Irony/Humor: Critical Paradigms.
  • Lynn, Kenneth Schayler. Mark Twain and Southwestern Humor.
  • Marx, Leo. The Pilot and the Passenger. Note title essay and the discussion of how Americans viewed the frontier landscape using either picturesque attitude of artists and travelers or the realistic view of the riverboat pilot.
  • Sloan, David E.E. Mark Twain's Humor.
  • Yates, Norris Wilson. William T. Porter and the Spirit of the Times.

In the Boatwright Reference Section:

  • Riley, Sam G. Index to Southern Periodicals.
  • Snell-Griffith, Nancy. Humor of the Old Southwest: An Annotated Bibliography.
    Subject Guide to Humor    .

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