Louis C. Jones

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Louis C. Jones
DiedNovember 25, 1990(1990-11-25) (aged 82)
Haverford, Pennsylvania
SpouseAgnes Halsey
AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship
Academic background
Education
ThesisThe Clubs of the Georgian Rakes (1941)
Academic work
DisciplineMuseum Studies, Folklore, History
InstitutionsState University of New York at Oneonta

Louis Clark Jones was an American folklorist, historian, and museologist. In 1964, Jones created the Cooperstown Graduate Program, the first museum studies program in the United States, in collaboration with State University of New York at Oneonta and the New York State Historical Association.[1] He was head of Association from 1947 until his retirement in 1972.[2] Jones also developed a graduate level degree in American public folklore at Cooperstown, though this program was later abolished while the museum studies program remains.[3]

In 1946, Jones received a Guggenheim Fellowship to study paranormal folklife in New York, with a focus on werewolves.[4] His early work often focuses on the supernatural aspects of folklore, publishing works such as Things That Go Bump in the Night, and commented often on ghostlore.

Jones's work in Cooperstown aimed to include the general public and their ways of life in museological space.[5] He died of a stroke on November 25, 1990.[2]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Walker, Will (2017-02-03). "Folklore and the roots of public history training in Cooperstown". National Council on Public History.
  2. ^ a b Fowler, Glenn (1990-11-28). "L.C. Jones, 82, Dies; A Writer and Expert On Folklore in U.S." The New York Times. p. 22.
  3. ^ Jones, Michael Owen (1994-02-22). Putting Folklore to Use. University Press of Kentucky. p. 11. ISBN 9780813108186.
  4. ^ Hand, Wayland D. (1975). "Louis C. Jones and the Study of Folk Belief, Witchcraft and Popular Medicine in America". New York Folklore. 1 (1): 7–13.
  5. ^ Walker, William S. (2021), Meringolo, Denise D. (ed.), "Louis C. Jones and the Cooperstown Model: Working at the Nexus of Public Folklore and Public History", Radical Roots, Public History and a Tradition of Social Justice Activism, Amherst College Press, pp. 247–270, doi:10.3998/mpub.12366495.13, ISBN 978-1-943208-20-3, retrieved 2025-10-20