author
Martha Warren Beckwith
1871–1959
A pioneering folklorist and ethnographer, she helped make folklore a serious academic field in the United States and became the first person to hold a university chair in folklore there. Her work is especially valued for preserving Hawaiian traditions, myths, and oral literature with unusual depth and care.
1 Audiobook
Jamaica Anansi stories
by Martha Warren Beckwith
About the author
Born in Massachusetts in 1871 and raised partly in Hawaiʻi, Martha Warren Beckwith grew up with close ties to island life and culture. She later studied at Vassar College and went on to become an influential scholar of folklore and ethnography.
Beckwith taught at Vassar for many years and was appointed to what is widely described as the first chair in folklore at any American college or university. She is best known for her fieldwork and writing on Hawaiian folklore, mythology, and oral traditions, as well as for research on Jamaican and other folk traditions.
Her books, including Hawaiian Mythology, helped preserve stories and cultural knowledge that might otherwise have been lost or scattered. She died in 1959, but her work remains important to readers interested in folklore, oral tradition, and the cultural history of Hawaiʻi.