Edward Dawson (Sandy) Ives (September 4, 1925 – August 1, 2009) was an American folklorist. His work concentrated on the oral traditions of Maine and the Maritime Provinces of Canada, particularly, as he said, "on local songs and their makers but also on cycles of tales about local heroes." He founded the Maine Folklore Center in 1992 and was its director until his retirement in 1998.

Biography

He grew up in White Plains, New York, served in the Marines, studied literature in college and, beginning in 1955, taught English at the University of Maine. In 1962, he obtained a Ph.D. in folklore from Indiana University and in 1964, he became a professor of folklore at the University of Maine. Ives taught in the English and Anthropology Departments of the University of Maine for over forty years. One of Ives's most famous students was Stephen King. Ives was one of the dedicatees of King's novel Hearts in Suspension. He performed as a folk singer to supplement his income as a lecturer. This introduced him to the lumber camp singing tradition of Maine, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island and he soon found his calling. In 1957, he organized the Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History at the University of Maine. The next year, he founded the Northeast Folklore Society and began editing the monograph series Northeast Folklore. His Folkways Records album, Folk Songs of Maine, was released in 1959. For more than forty years, Ives continued to explore the northeastern oral tradition, publishing his findings with some regularity. Several of his books focus on individual subjects, whose names found their way into the titles of his books. This personalized approach permitted him to offer a deep exploration of the material, the subject, and himself. A reviewer has commented: "His books on Gorman, Scott, and Doyle... are personal accounts of discovery, as much as studies of regional and occupational singing traditions. Ives’s focus on the singers who gave him texts and on his own adventures in the field have made his studies models of contextual and reflexive scholarship." In his work in New Brunswick, he was closely associated with Louise Manny.

Honors