Historic Bibliographies and Reference Aids

A Brief List of Materials Relating to "John Henry"

Compiled by: Archive of Folk Culture staff
Publication Date: October 30, 1970

Botkin, B. A.
A Treasury of American Folklore. New York: Crown Publishers, 1944. Pp. 230-240.

Bowman, James Lloyd.
John Henry. Chicago: Albert Whitman Co., 1942.

Bradford, Roark.
John Henry. New York: Harper and Bros., 1931.

John Henry [A Play]. New York: Harper and Bros., 1939.

Burchard, Hank.
"In Quest of the Historical John Henry." Washington Post Potomac, August 24, 1969, pp. 11-16, 22-24.

Carmer, Carl.
America Sings. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942. Pp. 172-179.

Hurricane's Children. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, Inc., 1937. Pp. 122-128.

Chappell, Louis W.
John Henry: A Folk-Lore Study. Jena: Frommansche Verlag, Walter Biedermann, 1933. Reprint edition, Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1968.

Courlander, Harold.
Negro Folk Music U.S.A. New York: Columbia University Press, 1963. Pp. 110-115, 280-286.

Cox, John Harrington.
"'John Hardy.'" Journal of American Folklore, volume 32, number 126, October-December 1919, pp. 505-520.

Dorson, Richard M.
"The Career of 'John Henry.'" Western Folklore, volume 24, number 3, July 1965, pp. 155-163.

"The Ballad of John Henry c. 1872," in An American Primer, ed. By Daniel J. Boorstein, two volumes, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1966, vol. 1, pp. 437-445.

Felton, Harold W.
John Henry and his Hammer. New York: Knopf, 1950.

Fishwick, Marshall.
"Uncle Remus vs. John Henry: Folk Tension." Western Folklore, volume 20, number 2, April 1961, pp. 77-85.

Hendricks, W. C.
Bundle of Troubles and Other Tarheel Tales. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1943. Pp. 37-51.

Hubbard, Freeman H.
Railroad Avenue. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1945. Pp. 58-64.

Johnson, Guy B.
"John Henry—A Negro Legend." Ebony and Topaz, edited by Charles S. Johnson, New York: National Urban League, 1927, pp. 47-51.

John Henry: Tracking Down a Negro Legend. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1929. Reprint edition, New York: AMS Press, 1969.

Keats, Ezra Jack.
John Henry: An American Legend. New York: Pantheon Books, 1965.

Laws, G. Malcolm, Jr.
Native American Balladry: A Descriptive Study and a Bibliographic Syllabus. Revised edition, Philadelphia: Publications of the American Folklore Society, Bibliographical and Special Series, volume 1, 1964. P. 246.

Leach, MacEdward.
"John Henry." Folklore & Society: Essays in Honor of Banjamin A. Botkin, edited by Bruce Jackson, Hatboro, Pennsylvania: Folklore Associates, 1966.

Lloyd, A.L.
"The Anatomy of John Henry." Keynote, volume 2, number 1, August-September 1947, pp. 12-15.

Lomax, Alan.
Folk Songs of North America in the English Language. New York: Macmillan, 1960. Pp. 551-553, 560-564.

Lomax, John A. and Alan.
American Ballads and Folk Songs. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1934. Pp. 3-10

Miller, Olive Beaupre.
Heroes, Outlaws & Funny Fellows of American Popular Tales. New York: Doubleday, Doran and Co., Inc., 1939. Pp. 147-157.

Odum, Howard W., and Guy B. Johnson.
Negro Workaday Songs. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1926. Pp. 221-240. Reprint edition, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969.

Scarborough, Dorothy.
On the Trail of Negro Folk-Songs. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univeristy Press, 1925. Reprint edition, foreward by Roger D. Abrahams, Hatboro, Pennsylvania: Folklore Associates, 1965. Pp. 218-222.

Shapiro, Irwin.
John Henry and the Double Jointed Steam Drill. New York: Julian Messner, n.d.

Shay, Frank.
Here’s Audacity. New York: The Macaulay Co., 1930. Pp. 245-253.

White, Newman Ivey.
American Negro Folk-Songs. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univeristy Press, 1928. Reprint edition, foreword by Bruce Jackson, Hatboro, Pennsylvania: Folklore Associates, 1965. Pp. 189-190.

White, Newman Ivey, General Editor.
The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore. Seven volumes, Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1952-1964.
Volume 2, Folk Ballads, edited by Henry M. Belden and Arthur Palmer Hudson, 1952. Pp. 623-627.
Volume 4, The Music of the Ballads, edited by Jan P. Shinhan, 1957. Pp. 298-302.