Francis barton gummere biography of williams

American professor and folklore scholar (1855–1919)

Francis Barton Gummere (March 6, 1855, Burlington, New Jersey – May 30, 1919, Haverford, Pennsylvania) was a Professor of English, an influential scholar of folklore and ancient languages, and a student of Francis James Child.

He was an elected member of both the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.^[1][2]

Early life

Gummere was a descendant of an old German-American Quaker family; his grandfather John Gummere (1784-1845) was one of the founders of the Haverford School, which became Haverford College, of which Gummere's father Samuel James Gummere (1811-1874) was the first president.^[3] Gummere's father became the president of the college in 1862, when Gummere was 7, and Gummere graduated from Haverford at the age of 17.

After working for several years, he returned to study and received an A.B. from Harvard University and an A.M