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Dorothy Scarborough, a native Texan perhaps best known as author of the 1925 novel The Wind, was also a respected folklorist. Scarborough called herself a "song catcher." She believed radio threatened the survival of folk music and traveled around the Appalachian Mountains recording centuries-old ballads with a hand-powered Dictaphone. Scarborough believed these folk songs told stories about a community's values and its collective history.

Novelist, folklorist, a catcher of songs, Dorothy Scarborough took inspiration from America's regional cultures and, in doing so, preserved the creative expressions of ordinary people from times past. More»