Combs, Josiah Henry, 1886-1960

Josiah H. Combs (1886-1960) was born in Hazard (Perry County) Kentucky. He grew up in Knott County and attended Hindman Settlement School. The songs he had learned at home came to the attention of Hindman director Katherine Pettit, who, with folk music scholar George Lyman Kittredge, arranged for their publication in the Journal of American Folklore. Combs went to college at Transylvania University (Ky.) in 1905. In 1911, with Dr. Hubert G. Shearin, Combs published A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk Songs, which included over 333 titles from eastern and central Kentucky. After leaving Transylvania, Combs taught in high schools in Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee and presented many public lectures and song recitals (1911-1918). After World War I Army service, he taught English and Spanish at West Virginia University (1922-24). He finished work on his doctorate at the Sorbonne (University of Paris) in 1925. His thesis, Folk Songs du Midi des Etats-Unis (Folk-songs of the Southern United States) was an exploration of the origins of Appalachian songs and ballads as revealed in the language, names, and customs of the people from whom he collected them. Combs' academic career included professorships at the University of Oklahoma (1926-27), Texas Christian University (1927-1947), and Mary Washington College of the University of Virginia where he retired in 1956. Other of Combs' published works includes, The Kentucky Highlanders (1912), All That's Kentucky (1915), Twenty Mountain Songs (1915), Folk Songs of the Kentucky Highlands (1939), and The Language of the Southern Highlanders.