Abigail Mandana Holmes Christensen (c. 1852–1938) was an American collector of folklore.

Biography

Abigail ("Abbie") Christensen was born in

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the political movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world. The first country to fully outlaw slavery was Kingdom of France, France in 1315, but it was later used ...

parents, her family later moved to

South Carolina South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...

. She investigated the African origin of the folklore recorded in the region, forwarding selections to newspapers and journals, she eventually published several works on African-American tales and dialect. Christensen was, for a short time, a member of the

American Folklore Society The American Folklore Society (AFS) is the United States (US)-based professional association for folklorists, with members from the US, Canada, and around the world, which aims to encourage research, aid in disseminating that research, promote t ...

and published in its journal. She sympathised with contemporary movements concerning temperance, protest on inequality, and other socialist causes, but gave special regard to the plight of the peoples from whom she gathered her material. Her major work was ''Afro-American folk lore: told round cabin fires on the Sea Islands of South Carolina'', Christensen intended that profits from this be used to advance African American equality and

self-determination Self-determination refers to a people's right to form its own political entity, and internal self-determination is the right to representative government with full suffrage. Self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international la ...

, she assisted in the funding of the Port Royal Agricultural School for this purpose. Christensen's paper on African-American spirituals and shouts was read to attendees at the

World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in Chicago from May 5 to October 31, 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The ...

References

1850s births 1938 deaths Collectors of fairy tales American folk-song collectors American women folklorists American folklorists People from Beaufort, South Carolina People from Massachusetts {{US-academic-bio-stub