Writings and Contributions of
Dr. Angus Kress Gillespie
Folklore Research
Gillespie’s interest in folklore and folklife began during his years of graduate study at the University of Pennsylvania between 1967 and 1973. His first published book, based on his dissertation was Folklorist of the Coal Fields: George Korson’s Life and Work. It came out in 1980. It told the story of Korson’s life. During forty-three years of journalistic employment, Korson wrote five definitive books on coal mining folklore. He founded and directed the Pennsylvania Folk Festival, and he helped to launch the National Folk Festival.
Next, Gillespie had a chapter “Foodways in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. It was one of twelve chapters which appeared in the book Ethnic and Regional Foodways in the United States: The Performance of Group Identity, published in 1984. In that chapter, Gillespie wrote that hunting, fishing, and gardening are the most respected ways of going about getting food in the Pines. Agriculture, in the form of the family garden plot, is the next best mode. The least desirable mode is the general store, or worse yet, the supermarket.
Gillespie’s time at the University of Texas in Austin was the inspiration for his next book, American Wildlife in Symbol and Story, edited by himself and Jay Mechling, published in 1987. The book had lively essays by seven folklorists. Each author examined the symbolic use of one animal (turkey, rattlesnake, alligator, armadillo, bear, fox, or coyote). Gillespie’s essay dealt with the armadillo. Rather than focusing on facts about the animals, the authors explored the social and psychological meanings these creatures have held for Americans.
In 1976, James F. McCloy and Ray Miller, Jr., published The Jersey Devil, which enjoyed good sales and a large readership, due to its popular and readable style. It was widely used by teachers, librarians, and school children. In 1998, some twenty-two years later, they published a sequel called Phantom of the Pines: More Tales of the Jersey Devil. This book featured new research, new interviews, as well as a chapter on popular culture. Gillespie wrote the foreword to that publication.
Then, in 1999, Gillespie and David Scofield Wilson served as co-editors, and they brought out Rooted in America: Foodlore of Popular Fruits and Vegetables. The book explored ten familiar cultivars—apples, bananas, corn, cranberries, peppers, oranges, pumpkins, tobacco, tomatoes, and watermelons—to show how they have become intimately entwined with the American way of life. Gillespie’s chapter dealt with the cranberry. There, he pointed out that the leading state in cranberry production was Massachusetts, followed by Wisconsin, and then New Jersey.
Lastly, Gillespie was pleased to learn that his essay on “The Jersey Devil” was included in North American Monsters: A Contemporary Legend Casebook edited by David J. Puglia and published in 2022. Gillespie’s original article on the Jersey Devil was published in the little-circulated, short-lived, and now defunct, nearly inaccessible Journal of Regional Cultures, back in 1985. Thanks to the editor, Gillespie’s research has now reached a whole new audience. Gillespie concluded that this folk legend has seeped into statewide popular culture.