First known collector of cowboy songs and first to edit and publish a cowboy songbook,
Songs of the Cowboy (1908). Thorp was born in New York City and educated in New
Hampshire, but he spent his summers on his brother’s ranch in Nebraska. He loved the
Western cowboy life, and in 1886 he moved to New Mexico to buy horses to be trained
as polo ponies. There he learned the techniques of cowboying. In 1889, with his banjomandolin and on horseback, he rode to various cow camps in New Mexico, Texas, and
Indian Territory collecting songs sung by cowboys. This was probably the first Anglo
folksong field collecting in the United States.
In 1898, while trail herding cattle from New Mexico to Texas, Thorp wrote “Little Joe
the Wrangler”; inl 908 he took twenty-three of his collected songs as well as songs he had
written to a printer in Estancia, New Mexico, and had 2,000 paperback copies printed at
six cents a copy. In 1921, angry that John A.Lomax, folksong collector, had used songs
from his book without giving credit, he expanded his text to 101 songs and republished it.
As a cowboy poet, Thorp had his poems published in Poetry, Literary Digest, and
numerous cattlemen’s publications. He was also a skillful raconteur; J. Frank Dobie
credited Thorp as his source for many stories.
Thorp died in his home near Alameda, New Mexico, on June4, 1940.
Guy Logsdon
References
Thorp, N.Howard “Jack” [1921] 1984. Songs of the Cowboy, with Introduction by Guy Logsdon.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
——. 1926. Tales of the Chuck Wagon. Santa Fe: Privately Printed.
——. 1966. Songs of the Cowboys. Variants, Commentary, Notes, and Lexicon by Austin E. and
Alta S.Fife. New York: Clarkson N.Potter.
Thorp, N.Howard “Jack,” and Neil M.Clark. [1945] 1977. Pardner of theWind. Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press.