Folklore and Folklife Department Kenneth S. Goldstein Collection

Kenneth S. Goldstein was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1927. After serving in the army for a short period, he attended the City College of New York, earning bachelor's and master's degrees in business administration in 1949 and 1951.

Goldstein used his education in business to become a record producer. He produced and recorded over 500 records with legendary folk and blues musicians like Ewan MacColl, Jean Ritchie, the Clancy Brothers, Reverend Gary Davis, Lightnin' Hopkins, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, and Lead Belly. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, he acted as folk music director for Stinson, Folkways, and Riverside Records; as well as being folk and blues director for Prestige Records. Goldstein also founded the Philadelphia Folk Festival in 1962, one of the longest-running folk music festivals in the United States.

After conducting some short-term fieldwork, Goldstein became interested in academic folklore studies. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963 with the university's first PhD in Folklore and Folklife, and shortly thereafter became a professor in the Folklore Department. His thesis, A Guide for Fieldworkers in Folklore, became an essential guide for students in the field. In 1967, Goldstein received the Lindback Foundation Award for distinguished teaching, an award he considered to be one of his proudest accomplishments.

Goldstein served as chair of the Penn Folklore Department for nearly 20 years. He was also active in the Pennsylvania Folklore Society and the American Folklore Society (he was president of the latter from 1975 to 1976). Goldstein acted as a special assistant on folklore and folklife at the Smithsonian Institution in the 1970s, as well as being on the advisory and review panel for the National Endowment for the Arts folk arts program. Throughout his career he was frequently traveling between England, Ireland, Scotland, and Canada to conduct field recordings and research. From 1976 to 1978 Goldstein temporarily relocated to Canada to serve as the Folklore Department head at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Afterwards, he came back to Philadelphia and returned to his post at Penn, continuing to teach at the university until his retirement in 1992.

The Kenneth S. Goldstein collection was originally part of the Penn Folklore Archives. In 2011, the entire Folklore Archives were transferred to the Penn Museum Archives.

The Kenneth S. Goldstein collection is made up of 1.5 linear ft of materials relating to Goldstein's time at the University of Pennsylvania Folklore Department. The collection is mostly personal and professional correspondence spanning from 1966 to 1987, with the bulk of the correspondence being from 1971 to 1976. The collection also contains two copies of Goldstein's manuscript titled "The Monologue", a book of colleagues' memories from Goldstein's retirement, and Goldstein's portable Sony tape recorder. The collection has been maintained in its original order where possible, with correspondence being divided into folders by year, ordered from December to January within the folder. Correspondence that had been broken out into a specific subject has remained divided from the general. These subjects include American Folklore Society-related correspondence from 1968, correspondence relating to the publication and republication of the book Thrice Told Tales by Kenneth S. Goldstein and Dan Ben-Amos, correspondence with Dell Hymes from 1972 to 1975, and correspondence with Alan Bruford from 1974 to 1976.

The Folklore Department series contains some departmental correspondence from 1977 to 1978, as well as a journal written in by Goldstein's colleagues from his retirement in 1992.

The Manuscripts series contains two different copies of Goldstein's manuscript titled "The Monologue", each with slightly different edits.

The Sound Recordings series contains a listing of the audio recordings and photographs held by the Memorial University of Newfoundland in their Kenneth S. Goldstein Fonds collection.

The recordings themselves are divided into two groups. The Newfoundland Recordings contain approximately 230 hours of recorded sound. Included are recordings of singers and musicians in Newfoundland and Labrador on 80 reels and 148 audiocassettes. Many of these recordings were made in collaboration with collectors Aidan O'Hara, Wilf Wareham, Denyse O'Brian, Ellen McDonald, Lisa Null, Gerald Thomas, Hugh Rowlings and Eric West.

The Collection of Lectures, Monologues, Recitations, Storytellers, and Singers consists of approximately 30 hours of recorded sound. This collection of open-reel and cassette audio recordings includes monologues, recitations, folksong, and lectures that Goldstein delivered on folktales, as well as demonstration tapes used during lectures. Colleagues who contributed to the compilations included William Ferris, Robert Bethke, and Edith Fowke. Performers include such noted tradition bearers from the U.S., the British isles, and Ireland as Sarah Cleveland, Ruth Tongue, Marshall Dodge, Joe Heaney, and others.

The sound recordings are described separately. Copies of the Newfoundland and Labrador recordings can be found at the Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA): https://www.mun.ca/munfla/media/production/memorial/academic/faculty-of-humanities-and-social-sciences/munfla/collection/findingaids/Kenneth_Goldstein_MUNFLA_SC.pdf.

The Realia series contains Goldstein's portable Sony tape recorder, which he used while conducting field research.

Publication Information: University of Pennsylvania: Penn Museum Archives,

Finding Aid Author:

Use Restrictions:

Corporate Name(s)

• American Folklore Society AFS
• Philadelphia Folk Festival

Personal Name(s)

• Goldstein, Kenneth S.

Subject(s)

• Folk music

Occupation(s)

• Folklorists