Moving force behind the Chicago Folk-Lore Society. Bassett was born in Adams County, Kentucky, the year after the word “folklore” was coined, and was initially a military man, running away from home during the Civil War to enlist in the 108th Illinois Volunteers. He later enrolled in the U.S. Naval Academy and, after graduation, spent thirteen years in naval service. In 1882 ill health forced him into retirement, and he then moved to Chicago and devoted the remainder of his life to private scholarship. Bassett’s Legends and Superstitions of the Sea and of Sailors [1885] 1971, was a disappointing work, almost totally secondhand, although the topic is one that he knew firsthand. The book received enough favorable publicity to justify a second edition in 1892, but it has no real bearing on Bassett’s status in folklore. His reputation rests mainly on his organizational abilities, speciflcally his key role in founding the Chicago FolkLore Society (CFS). The inaugural meeting of this organization was held on December 12, 1891, and it soon became popular both as an agency for the collection of regional data and as a philosophical and organizational alternative to the American Folklore Society (AFS). For a brief period, the Chicago society was a formidable rival to the older society, but with Bassett’s death on October 19, 1893, the Chicago Folk-Lore Society soon lost steam, and it passed into oblivion in 1904. It did bring about the establishment of a fund to award an annual Chicago Folklore Prize, which continues to the present. The two societies were at odds over the question of whether the study of folklore properly belonged to the field of anthropology or literature. The AFS opted for the anthropology side, while the CFS chose the literary view. Bassett and William Wells Newell, the American Folklore Society’s intellectual leader, clashed over the International Folklore Congress of 1893 that Bassett organized. Held at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, it did bring folklore much favorable publicity by showcasing many important scholars from around the world. At the same time, the anthropological meeting supported by Newell was a failure. This small victory, however, was the Chicago Folk-Lore Society’s last hurrah. Bassett was in one sense a good organizer because he successfully brought together a large number of people to form an organization. In another sense, though, he was a poor organizer because he dominated the Chicago Folk-Lore Society so completely that after his death the association was leaderless. He also failed by recruiting a membership that was mainly made up of dilettantes. W.K.McNeil References Bassett, Fletcher S. [1885] 1971. Legends and Superstitions of the Sea and of Sailors. Detroit: Singing Tree Press. ——. [1892] 1973. The Folk-Lore Manual. Darby, PA: Norwood Editions.
The Folk-Lorist. [1892–1893] 1973. Philadelphia: Norwood Editions. McNeil, W.K. 1985. The Chicago Folklore Society and the International Folklore Congress of 1893. Midwestern Journal of Language and Folklore 11:5–19.