Archer Taylor was one of America's "foremost specialists in American and European folklore", with a special interest in cultural history, literature, proverbs, riddles and bibliography.
In 1915 Taylor began teaching German at Washington University in St. Louis, eventually being promoted to professor. He moved to the University of Chicago in 1925. By 1927 Taylor had become the Chairman of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures. He married his childhood sweetheart Alice Jones on September 9, 1915, and they had three children. He lost her June 16, 1930, while they lived in Chicago. He later married Dr. Hasseltine Byrd, who became his second wife on June 17, 1932. They had two children. Like her husband, Dr. Hasseltine Byrd Taylor also taught for many years at the University of California Berkeley.
Berkeley
In 1939, they moved to California where he served as Professor of German Literature and Folklore at the University of California at Berkeley, as Chairman of the Department from 1940 to 1945. While in California, they built a home in the Napa Valley, where they hosted many folklorists. While in California, he worked as a journal editor, for California Folklore Quarterly and the Journal of American Folklore. In 1965, Archer worked with his Finnish friend Matti Kuusi to establish the journal Proverbium.
Retirement
Taylor retired in 1958 but continued to be intellectually active and productive, spending periods as visiting professor at the "University of Texas, Indiana University and Ohio State University " and continuing to publish books. He died on September 30, 1973.
Legacy
His publications were numerous, included work in medieval literature, philology, folklore, bibliography, etc., eventually totalling over four hundred books, monographs, articles and notes in America and Europe. His most famous work was The Proverb, which contains his most famous quote, "the definition of a proverb is too difficult to repay the undertaking... An incommunicable quality tells us this sentence is proverbial and that is not". Though Taylor's contribution to the studies of proverbs is better known, his contribution to the studies of riddles is also significant. "Archer Taylor... among modern folklorists has contributed most to riddle scholarship."
Honors
Taylor received honorary doctorate of law degree from the University of California and was appointed a senator of the University of Giessen in Germany. He was a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1927 and again in 1960, was elected president of the Modern Language Association in 1951, and was president of the American Folklore Society 1936–38. In 1960 Taylor was honored by a Festschrift, Humaniora: Essays in Literature, Folklore, Bibliography: Honoring Archer Taylor on His Seventieth Birthday, edited by his friends Wayland D. Hand and Gustave O. Arlt. At the annual meetings of the Western States Folklore Society, which he helped found, there is an invited lecture in the Archer Taylor Lecture Series.
Books on Folklore, Proverbs and Riddles
The Black Ox: A Study in the History of a Folk-Tale, Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1927.
"Edward" and "Sven i Rosengard": A Study in The Dissemination of a Ballad, University of Chicago Press, 1931.
English Riddles from Oral Tradition, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1951.
Proverbial Comparisons and Similes from California, Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1954.
A Collection of Irish Riddles, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1955. Joint editor: Vernam Hull.
The Shanghai Gesture, Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia - Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1956.
Selected Writings on Proverbs, Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia - Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1975.
Books and Articles about Archer Taylor
Wayland D. Hand and Gustave O. Arlt, eds., Humaniora: essays in literature, folklore, bibliography: honoring Archer Taylor on his seventieth birthday, Locust Valley, New York: Augustin, 1960.
Wolfgang Mieder, "Seven overlooked paremiological publications by Archer Taylor". Proverbium 6 : 187–190.
