Ellen Stekert

Ellen Stekert has been recognized as one of the pioneering scholars in the field of folklore studies. She was one of the early participants of the 1950s Greenwich Village folk scene, and found herself in the same circles as Dave Van Ronk, Pete Seeger, Reverend Gary Davis, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan, and countless others. Ellen earned her Ph.D. in folklore at the University of Pennsylvania in 1965. As part of her studies, she did fieldwork in Kentucky, New York, and Michigan, collecting folksongs, photographs, and other material from singers including Sarah Ogan Gunning, Ezra “Fuzzy” Barhight, Willie Nolan, and others. Today, Ellen lives in south Minneapolis with her partner, Beth. Now 90, Ellen is energetic and full of life, although increasingly dealing with the difficulties of post-polio syndrome, as she has for many years. She has a large archive of songs in her tape and digital archives, as well as photographs and much more, and has been enjoying the process of revisiting them. “It’s like meeting myself coming down the street,” she says. As Ellen and her team continue to sift through her archives, never-before-seen photographs of her travels and research will be intermittently posted on this website. Please consider purchasing a print to support her as she continues to make her vast body of work available to the public.