Judith McCulloh

Judith McCulloh (August 16, 1935 – July 13, 2014) was an American folklorist, ethnomusicologist, and university press editor.

Early life and education McCulloh was born in Spring Valley, Illinois, on August 16, 1935 to Henry and Edna Binkele. All four of her grandparents were from Germany. She grew up at Northmoor Orchard, not far from Peoria, where her parents had bought an apple orchard and sold apples and cider. She graduated from Peoria Central High School. The summer before she was to travel to Europe on a Fulbright Fellowship, she attended a Folklore Institute at Indiana University for several weeks. That event was "the most exhilarating experience" with minors in anthropology and linguistics. which was a text tune study of the lyric folk song "In the Pines" and the 160 variants and arrangements of the song created up to that time. and a collection of field recordings from central and southern Illinois titled Green Fields of Illinois.

In 1972, she began working as an assistant editor at the University of Illinois Press, where she continued to work for 35 years until her retirement in 2007. Under McCulloh's editorship, 130 titles were published in the series and 20 of them earned American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Awards. Several memorials in her name were posthumously established, among them the Judith McCulloh Fellowship by the Society for American Music, the Judith McCulloh Fund for American Music at the University of Illinois Press, and the Judith McCulloh Public Sector Award, distributed by the Society for Ethnomusicology.

Published works Books 1975: Stars of Country Music: Uncle Dave Macon to Johnny Rodriquez, edited by Bill C. Malone and Judith McCulloh

1982: Ethnic Recordings in America: A Neglected Heritage, edited by Judith McCulloh

1984: Folklore/Folklife, edited by Bruce Jackson, Judith McCulloh, and Marta Weigle

Selected journal articles and book chapters 1965: Traditional Music of America by Ira W. Ford; reprint of the 1940 edition with an introduction by McCulloh

1966: "Some Child Ballads on Hillbilly Records" in Folklore & Society: Essays in Honor of Benj. A. Botkin

1967: "Hillbilly Records and Tune Transcriptions" in Western Folklore

1970: "Indiana's Treasure Store is a Wealth of Good Old Hoosier Lore" in Folklore Forum

1975: "Uncle Absie Morrison's Historical Tunes" in Mid-South Folklore

1976: "More of Uncle Absie Morrison's Historical Tunes" in Mid-South Folklore

1978: "What is 'The Tune' " in Essays in Honor of George List

1983: "The Problem of Identity in Lyric Folksong" in The Ballad Image: Essays Presented to Bertrand Harris Bronson

1988: "Writing for the World" in Journal of American Folklore

Awards and honors 1958–59: Fulbright Fellowship to study Indo-European philology at the Free University of Brussels 2011: Association for Recorded Sound Collections Distinguished Service Award University of Illinois Chancellor's Academic Professional Excellence Award (year unknown) Ohio Wesleyan University Distinguished Achievement Citation (year unknown)