Katherine Jackson French. Elizabeth DiSavino

dirty, and dangerous. On the one hand, Frost sought to redeem them from that stereotype by exalting them as “of pure English and Scottish stock” and giving them a chance to better themselves through a Berea education. On the other hand, he viewed the population of the southern mountains as utilitarian “reserve forces for the coming battles of America and of Protestant Christianity” against “the foreign born and hyphenated population.” This notion of the white race being overrun by Catholics, Jews, and other non-Anglo foreigners was a prospect that many white people feared.⁷

      Exaltation of Angloness went neatly hand in hand with that fear, and the collecting of Anglo balladry was a part of that. The fact that ballad collectors in those same mountains were finding a wealth of supposedly pure, ancient Anglo song implied, by extension, a superior and eternal value to Anglo culture. The very longevity of these songs in the face of hardship indicated, in this view, the inherent superiority of the culture from which they sprang and promised the continued dominance of that culture in the future.⁸

      Jackson’s own interest in these ballads came from a variety of motives. First, as a scholar of English literature, Jackson was interested in and appreciated them for their own sake and expressed a kind of awed delight at experiencing them firsthand. Second, she was out to make a name for herself in academe, and this seemed a handy way to do so. Third, she was a woman acquainted with and proud of her Scottish heritage (though, like Bradley Kincaid, she equated that to being Anglo-Saxon) and therefore felt a personal connection to the ballads. Finally, she was a believer in the power of English literature and English culture. As with other early collectors, this resulted in a bias of omission against other musics of the mountains.