Fanny Hagin Mayer Explained

Fanny Hagin Mayer
Birth Name:	Fanny Alice Hagin
Birth Date:	September 3, 1899
Birth Place:	Shenandoah, Iowa, U.S.
Death Date:	November 6, 1990
Death Place:	Whittier, California, U.S.
Other Names:	Fanny Alice Mayer, Fannie Alice Mayer
Occupation:	Educator, folklorist, translator, writer

Fanny Alice Hagin Mayer (September 3, 1899 – November 6, 1990) was an American folklorist, translator, and educator. Her work focused on Japanese folktales.

Early life and education

Hagin was born in Shenandoah, Iowa, the daughter of Fred Eugene Hagin and Myrtle Edith Willett Hagin. She lived in Japan during her childhood, while her father worked there as a Christian missionary.^[1] She graduated from Glendale Union High School^[2] and from Occidental College. She earned a master's degree from the University of Southern California.^[3]

Career

Hagin taught school in California from 1928 to 1947; she was a vice principal at a junior high school and president of the Toastmistress Club of Glendale.^[4] She was a member of the WACs during World War II.^[5] After the war she worked in Japan for the Allied occupation forces based in Niigata, as an assistant officer focusing on education and women's affairs. In 1950, she became chair of the English department at Tsuda College.^[6] She was a lecturer at Tokyo Gakugei University in 1959.^[7] In 1960, she spoke at a festival of Asian music and arts at UCLA.^[8] In 1963, she taught at Sophia University in Tokyo.^[9]

Publications

Mayer's work appeared in academic publications including Folklore Studies, Midwest Folklore, Anthropos, Japan Quarterly, Asian Folklore Studies, Monumenta Nipponica, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, and Journal of Japanese Studies.

• "Japanese Folk Tales" by Yanagita Kunio (1952, translator)^[10]
• "Collecting Folk Tales in Niigata, Japan" (1959)
• "Character Portrayal in the Japanese Folk Tale" (1960)^[11]
• "Tales for the Little New Year" (1966)^[12]
• "Kenichi Mizusawa, a Modern Collector of Japanese Folk Tales" (1967)^[13]
• The Golden Thread: Japanese Stories for Children by Tazu Sasaki (1968, translator)^[14]
• "Available Japanese Folk Tales" (1969)^[15]
• About Our Ancestors: The Japanese Family System by Yanagita Kunio (1970, co-translator with Ishiwara Yasuyo)^[16]
• "Even a Mudsnail" (1970)^[17]
• "The Devoted Fox-Wife" (1971)^[18]
• "Religious concepts in the Japanese folk tale" (1974)^[19]
• "Japan's Folk Tale Boom" (1978)^[20]
• Ancient Tales in Modern Japan: An Anthology of Japanese Folk Tales (1985)^{[21] [22]}
• The Yanagita Kunio Guide to the Japanese Folk Tale (1986, editor and translator)^[23]
• "Fauna and Flora in Japanese Folktales" (1981)^[24]
• "Japanese Folk Humor" (1982)^[25]
• "The Calendar of Village Festivals: Japan" (1989)^[26]

Personal life

Hagin married Emmanuel Mayer. They had a daughter, Dorothy, and they divorced by 1930. Mayer lived her later years in Whittier, California, where she died in 1990, at the age of 91.^[27] She donated hundreds of volumes of Japanese-language texts to the UCLA Library.

Notes and References

1. News: July 25, 1938 . Rev. Fred Hagin Dies at California Home . The Pantagraph . 3 . Newspapers.com.
2. News: December 6, 1915 . Helen Watson to Speak . The Register . 3 . Newspapers.com.
3. News: Talwar . Ambika . July 24, 1986 . Japanese Folk Tales Written in Whittier . East Review . 1 . Newspapers.com.
4. News: Horney . Bernadine . September 4, 1947 . La Crescenta . Valley Times . 20 . Newspapers.com.
5. News: Horney . Bernadine . September 29, 1947 . La Crescenta-La Canada . Valley Times . 15 . Newspapers.com.
6. News: Allison . Guy . August 12, 1950 . Bypaths of History . The Daily Breeze . 4 . Newspapers.com.
7. Mayer . Fanny Hagin . 1959 . Collecting Folk Tales in Niigata, Japan . Midwest Folklore . 9 . 2 . 103–109 . 0544-0750.
8. News: April 13, 1960 . Arts Festival Scheduled at UCLA . Evening Vanguard . 25 . California Digital Newspaper Collection.
9. News: Gannon . Flore . April 4, 1963 . News Net . Los Angeles Independent . 30 . Newspapers.com.
10. Mayer . Fanny Hagin . Kunio . Yanagita . 1952 . Japanese Folk Tales . Folklore Studies . 11 . 1 . i–97 . 10.2307/1177324 . 0388-0370.
11. Mayer . Fanny Hagin . 1960 . Character Portrayal in the Japanese Folk Tale . Anthropos . 55 . 5/6 . 665–670 . 0257-9774.
12. Mayer, Fanny Hagin. "Tales for the Little New Year" Japan Quarterly 13, no. 1 (1966): 76.
13. Mayer . Fanny Hagin . 1967 . Kenichi Mizusawa, a Modern Collector of Japanese Folk Tales . Asian Folklore Studies . 26 . 2 . 149–159 . 10.2307/1177731 . 0385-2342.
14. News: Remaley . Sally . May 12, 1968 . Fairy Tales . The Bradenton Herald . 65 . Newspapers.com.
15. Mayer . Fanny Hagin . 1969 . Available Japanese Folk Tales . Monumenta Nipponica . 24 . 3 . 235–247 . 10.2307/2383632 . 0027-0741.
16. Ushioda . Sharlie C. . November 1971 . About our Ancestors. By Kunio Yanagita. Translated by Fanny Hagin Mayer and Ishiwara Yasuyo. Tokyo: Bunsyodo Printing. (Published by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) . The Journal of Asian Studies . en . 31 . 1 . 202–203 . 10.2307/2053085 . 1752-0401.
17. Mayer, Fanny Hagin. "Even a Mudsnail" Japan Quarterly 17, no. 2 (1970): 191.
18. Mayer . Fanny Hagin . October 1971 . The Devoted Fox-Wife . Japan Quarterly . 18 . 4 . 463.
19. Mayer . Fanny Hagin . 1974 . Religious Concepts in the Japanese Folk Tale . Japanese Journal of Religious Studies . 1 . 1 . 73–101 . 0304-1042.
20. Mayer . Fanny Hagin . 1978 . Japan's Folk Tale Boom . Journal of Japanese Studies . 4 . 1 . 215–224 . 10.2307/132081 . 0095-6848.
21. Book: Mayer, Fanny Hagin . Ancient Tales in Modern Japan: An Anthology of Japanese Folktales . 1985-04-22 . Indiana University Press . 978-0-253-30710-1 . en.
22. News: Weinberger . Andrew . July 28, 1985 . Ancient Tales in Modern Japan (review) . The Los Angeles Times . 316 . Newspapers.com.
23. Book: Mayer, Fanny Hagin . The Yanagita Kunio Guide to the Japanese Folk Tale . 1986 . Indiana University Press . 978-0-253-36812-6 . en.
24. Mayer . Fanny Hagin . 1981 . Fauna and Flora in Japanese Folktales . Asian Folklore Studies . 40 . 1 . 23–32 . 10.2307/1178139 . 0385-2342.
25. Mayer . Fanny Hagin . 1982 . Japanese Folk Humor . Asian Folklore Studies . 41 . 2 . 187–199 . 10.2307/1178122 . 0385-2342.
26. Mayer . Fanny Hagin . 1989 . The Calendar of Village Festivals: Japan . Asian Folklore Studies . 48 . 1 . 141–147 . 10.2307/1178538 . 0385-2342.
27. Immoos . Thomas . Knecht . Peter . 1991 . In Memoriam: Fanny Hagin Mayer: 1899-1990 . Asian Folklore Studies . 50 . 2 . 343–348 . 0385-2342.