Fife, Austin E.

The Austin and Alta Fife Fieldwork Collection is comprised of the original fieldwork (acetate discs, reel-to-reel field recordings and field notes) and slides gathered/taken by the Fife's between the 1940s and late 1970s. Using summer vacations and weekends, the Fifes traveled all over the west–most intensively in their native Utah–with a camping trailer, recording equipment, camera and stenographic materials to collect the folklife of the American West, including cowboy songs, Mormon folklore and slides of vernacular architecture. On their fieldtrips, typically, one of them would interview someone while the other took notes or operated a recording device. They also visited libraries throughout the west, taking notes and making copies of songs and stories housed in regional and archival collections. Austin Fife took the slide images.

From the guide to the Fife American Collection, 1940-1976, (Utah State University. Merrill-Cazier Library. Special Collections and Archives)

Folklorist, author, and co-founder, with his wife, of the Fife Folklore Archive at Utah State University.

From the guide to the Austin Fife photograph collection, 1946-1987, (Utah State University. Special Collections and Archives)

Austin Edwin Fife was born on December 18, 1909, in Lincoln, Idaho to Robert Harris and Mary Elizabeth Stocks Fife. When he was seven years old his father moved the family to Logan, Utah, and Austin graduated from high school and LDS seminary in Logan. In 1928 he entered the Utah State Agricultural College, now Utah State University. He interrupted his studies to serve a mission for the LDS Church in France from 1929 to 1932 where he developed a love for the French language and French literature.

Upon his return he continued studying at USAC for a further two years and in 1932, he met Alta Stevens from Bountiful, Utah. Alta was the daughter of George Henry and Clara Whitby Stevens. She was born on March 16, 1912, in Salt Lake City, Utah. In 1919, her family moved to Bountiful, Utah. After she graduated from high school, she worked as a secretary and bookkeeper in Salt Lake. In 1932, she enrolled at USAC. However, in 1934, Austin received a fellowship to study at Stanford and he moved to Palo Alto, California where he completed his Bachelors in French. On March 27, 1934, Austin and Alta married in Palo Alto. Alta quit school and worked to support the couple. They remained there while Austin completed his Master of Arts degree in Romance languages, which he obtained in 1935. They briefly moved to Massachusetts where Austin obtained an MA in Romance Philology from Harvard University in 1937 and Alta worked as bookkeeper for the Harvard Psychological Clinic.

In 1937, Austin and Alta returned to Palo Alto and Austin obtained a PhD in Romance Languages from Stanford University in 1939. His thesis, The Concept of the Sacredness of Bees, Honey, and Wax in Christian Popular Tradition, showed his burgeoning interest in popular traditions and folklore. This was due in large part to his work as a graduate student with Aurelio Espinoza, a prominent Spanish folklorist. It was also in 1939, that Alta and Austin began to study the folklore traditions of their own background, the Mormon community of Utah and Idaho. While both had by this time become inactive in the LDS Church, they were nevertheless interested in the culture which the Mormons had developed in the Intermountain West. Austin early wrote articles saying that the Mormons were a distinct and autonomous culture deserving of study and rich with folklore and traditions. Austin began teaching French at Santa Monica City College in California, where he taught until 1942. In their free time they drove to Southern Utah to collect folklore from the Mormon communities. This first venture was to collect stories about the Three Nephites that figure so prominently in Mormon lore. This research was published in 1941.

In 1942 Austin entered active duty with the United States Air Force. During World War II, Austin served primarily as a historian for his battalion and even published articles covering the history of their campaigns during the War. From March 1944 to November 1945 Austin served overseas in the Philippines. Alta meanwhile moved in with her parents in Bountiful along with her first child, Carolyn who had been born in 1941. Alta continued to collect Mormon folklore while Austin served and Austin began collecting folksongs and stories from soldiers in the Philippines.

Upon Austin's return in 1945 he began teaching at the Occidental College in Los Angeles. In 1947, their second daughter, Marian, was born. Austin taught there until 1958 interrupting his service for three years to serve in the Air Force during the Korean War from 1951 to 1953. In 1953, he retired from active duty in the Air Force with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. During these years at Occidental College, Alta and Austin used every opportunity to gather Mormon folklore in Utah. Driving a mobile home, they traveled all over Utah and Idaho gathering folk music and folk tales from anyone who would talk to them. They even followed the Mormon trail from Vermont to Utah bringing their children along and gathering stories from the locals about the Mormons.

In 1958, Austin received a position at Parson's College in Iowa where he taught for one year. At the same time Austin served as a Language Specialist for the United States Office of Education. In 1960, he received an offer to return to his Alma Mater, Utah State University, and become the Head of the Department of Languages, a position he retained until 1971. They returned to Logan and soon began their work on folklife in Utah. The 1960s also became the greatest period of publishing for the couple. While they had published two books and numerous articles in the 1950s, most prominently Saints of Sage and Saddle: Folklore among the Mormons (1956) and a translation, done by Austin, of The Borzoi Book of French Folktales (1956), during the 1960s and early 1970s, Austin and Alta wrote or edited five well received books: Songs of the Cowboys (1966), Ballads of the Great West (1969), Lore of Faith and Folly (1971), and Bill Bailey Came Home (1973). Alta and Austin wrote these books together, and while Alta was often the main writer, it is virtually impossible to separate the work of this prolific wife and husband team.

While Austin taught mainly French and French literature while at college, his research continued to broaden into many areas of folklore and folklife. In 1950, he received a Fulbright Scholarship to study in France, in 1958 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship to study cowboy songs, and in 1970 they jointly received the National Endowment for the Arts Senior Scholar Award. Austin also served on many committees and on the boards of many organizations over his years as a scholar. From 1947 to 1971, he was an editor for Journal of Western Folklore. He was President of the Modern Language Association of Southern California from 1956 to 1957. He served on the Committee on Folksong for the Modern Language Association of America, besides being a Fellow the American Folklore Society. In 1959, and from 1967 to 1969, he served as Vice President of the American Folklore Society, and from 1967 to 1968, he was President of the Folklore Society of Utah. He was also on the Advisory board of the Utah Heritage Foundation, and a fellow of the Utah State Historical Society.

In 1966, Alta and Austin began donating some of their materials gathered over the years to Utah State University. These donations were the origin of the Fife Americana and Fife Mormon collections. In 1972, the USU libraries established the Fife Library of Western Folklore, later renamed the Fife Folklore Archives.

In 1971, Austin stepped down from being Department Head, but continued teaching. It was that same year that he finally began teaching the subject which had so preoccupied his research for so many years when he taught the first folklore class at Utah State University. In 1975, he retired from teaching, but not from his research. He continued to publish, and even produced one more book, a translation of the Manuel de Folklore Français (1985). He likewise worked during this time to establish a museum called "Man and His Bread," to be a part of the Jensen Historical Farm, now called the American West Heritage Center. Together, he and Alta continued the work of collating and organizing the Fife Folklore Archives at Utah State University. On February 7, 1986, Austin Fife succumbed to the Parkinson's Disease which had afflicted him for many years. After his death, Alta continued organizing their research. In 1986 she received the Utah Governor's "Service to Folk Arts" Award. She also edited and published a collection of Austin's most important essays on Western Folklore called Exploring Western Americana In 1991, she was honored for her many years of service to folk traditions by the Utah State University's Women's Center. Throughout her life Alta had been plagued by many different illnesses and on December 8, 1996 she passed away at her home in Logan, Utah.

Source:

Biographical Data of Alta S. Fife. The Papers of Austin E. and Alta S. Fife. Mss Coll 281, Box 1, Fd 15. Special Collections and Archives, Utah State University Merrill Library: Logan, Utah.

Curricula Vitae and Data of Austin Fife. The Papers of Austin E. and Alta S. Fife. Mss Coll 281, Box 1, Fd 3. Special Collections and Archives, Utah State University Merrill Library: Logan, Utah.

Fife, James Milton. "Memoirs of Austin Fife." The Papers of Austin E. and Alta S. Fife. Mss Coll 281, Box 1, Fd 21. Special Collections and Archives, Utah State University Merrill Library: Logan, Utah.

Hand, Wayland D. "Austin E. Fife: An Appreciation." in Folklore of Mountain and Plain . Privately Published (1972), 1-6.

Toelken, Barre. "Alta S. Fife: 1912 – 1996." Unpublished Essay. 1996.

From the guide to the Austin E. and Alta S. Fife papers, 1910-1996, (Utah State University. Special Collections and Archives)

The Austin and Alta Fife Fieldwork Collection is comprised of the original fieldwork (acetate discs, reel-to-reel field recordings and field notes) and slides gathered/taken by the Fife's between the 1940s and late 1970s. Using summer vacations and weekends, the Fifes traveled all over the west–most intensively in their native Utah–with a camping trailer, recording equipment, camera and stenographic materials to collect the folklife of the American West, including cowboy songs, Mormon folklore and slides of vernacular architecture. On their fieldtrips, typically, one of them would interview someone while the other took notes or operated a recording device. They also visited libraries throughout the west, taking notes and making copies of songs and stories housed in regional and archival collections. Austin Fife took the slide images.

From the guide to the Fife Mormon collection, 1940-1976, (Utah State University. Merrill-Cazier Library. Special Collections and Archives)