Leonidas Warren Payne Jr. (July 12, 1873 – June 16, 1945) was an American

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

and professor of English at the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

. He was a co-founder of the

Texas Folklore Society The Texas Folklore Society is a non-profit organization formed on December 29, 1909, in Dallas, Texas. According to John Avery Lomax, the first print collection included "public songs and ballads; superstitions, signs and omens, cures and peculiar ...

along with

John Lomax John Avery Lomax (September 23, 1867 – January 26, 1948) was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist, and a folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk music. He was the father of Alan Lomax, John Lomax Jr. and Bess ...

, edited the first anthology of Texas literature, and was one of the first to recognize the talent of

e.e. cummings Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 – September 3, 1962), commonly known as e e cummings or E. E. Cummings, was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright. During World War I, he worked as an ambulance driver and was ...

. Payne was born in

Auburn, Alabama Auburn is a city in Lee County, Alabama, United States. It is the largest city in eastern Alabama. The population was 76,143 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is a principal city of the Auburn metropolitan area, Alabama, Aubu ...

. He was the eldest son of Leonidas Warren Payne Sr., who was sometimes called Lonnie Payne, and attended the Auburn High School. He received bachelor's and master's degrees from what was then-called the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama in Auburn in 1892 and 1893, and a Ph.D. from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

in 1904. While at Auburn, Leonidas was the first initiate into the newly formed Upsilon Chapter of

Pi Kappa Alpha Pi Kappa Alpha (), commonly known as Pike is a college fraternity founded at the University of Virginia in 1868. The fraternity has over 225 chapters and provisional chapters across the United States and abroad with over 15,500 undergraduate mem ...

. He taught English at the Southwest Alabama Agricultural School, the State Normal School of Alabama, and the University of Pennsylvania prior to being awarded his Ph.D. From 1904 to 1906, he was the associate editor of Worcester's ''Dictionary'', and in 1906 was appointed an assistant professor at

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as Louisiana State University (LSU), is an American Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louis ...

. After a few months at Louisiana State, Payne was offered and accepted a position on the faculty at the

. In 1909, he and John Lomax founded the Texas Folklore Society, of which Payne was the first president. In 1919, he was elected full professor at Texas. In 1928, he published the first anthology of Texas literature, ''A Survey of Texas Literature''. Payne, at Texas, was one of the first teachers of

American literature American literature is literature written or produced in the United States of America and in the British colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature, but also ...

. He maintained friendships with

Edward Arlington Robinson Edwin Arlington Robinson (December 22, 1869 – April 6, 1935) was an American poet and playwright. Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on three occasions and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times. Early life Robinso ...

Carl Sandburg Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg w ...

, and

Robert Frost Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American Colloquialism, colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New E ...

. He mentored

Stark Young Stark Young (October 11, 1881 – January 6, 1963) was an American teacher, playwright, novelist, painter, literary critic, translator, and essayist. Early life Young was born on October 11, 1881, in Como, Mississippi. His father, Alfred Al ...

and

J. Frank Dobie James Frank Dobie (September 26, 1888 – September 18, 1964) was an American folklorist, writer, and newspaper columnist best known for his many books depicting the richness and traditions of life in rural Texas during the days of the open rang ...

, and was one of the first to champion

. Payne published eight books including ''History of American Literature'' (1919) and ''Texas Poems'' (1936). Payne retired from the University of Texas in 1943, and died in 1945. A biography on Payne entitled "Rare Integrity: A Portrait of L. W. Payne, Jr." was written by Hansen Alexander and published in 1986.https://www.texascapitolgiftshop.com/211646/rare-integrity-a-portrait-of-lw-payne-jr.html

References

*Abernathy, Frances Edward (1982). ''T for Texas: A State Full of Folklore''. Dallas, E-Hart Press. *Durbin, John R. (1945).
In Memoriam: Leonidas Warren Payne, Jr.
'. Retrieved April 7, 2007. *Foxworth, Sarah Payne.
Payne, Leonidas Warren, Jr.
, ''The Handbook of Texas Online''. Retrieved April 7, 2007. *The University of Texas (1906). ''The University of Texas Record, Volume VII'', Austin, Texas, University. pp 201–202. American folklorists Auburn High School (Alabama) alumni Auburn University alumni University of Pennsylvania alumni Louisiana State University faculty University of Texas at Austin faculty 1873 births 1945 deaths {{Texas-bio-stub