A look at our nation's past and development through tales, humor and contemporary hero tales.

Acknowledgments -- Foreword: identifying folklore -- Color plates -- Introduction: American life-styles and legends -- Colonial period: religious impulse -- Folklore of the religious era -- Providences -- Witchcraft -- Devil -- Judgments (Quaker view) -- Religious folklore motifs -- Early national period: democratic impulse -- Folk heroes of the democratic era -- Davy Crockett the backwoodsman -- Mike Find the keelboatman -- Sam Patch the mill hand -- Mose the bowery b'hoy -- Yankee Jonathan the countryman -- Later national period: economic impulse -- Folklore of economic occupations -- Cowboys: First cowboy folklorists -- Cowboy folktales about cowboys -- Cowboy code -- Lumberjacks: Lumberjack songs -- Lumberjack hero tales.