The Badger State Folklore Society, an organization designed to encourage the collection, preservation, and publication of Wisconsin folklore, was organized in Madison, Wisconsin, on June 7, 1947 as an affiliate of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. An earlier folklore organization, the Wisconsin Folklore Society, had ended in 1946 with the death of Charles E. Brown. Rather than resurrect the old organization, interested folklorists organized a new group to preserve those Wisconsin traditions reflected in tall tales, legends, beliefs, customs, proverbs, songs, arts, and handicrafts.
The new group elected a 12-member Board of Directors and talked of establishing regional societies throughout the state to report on regional festivals and to gather materials for publication. The Society also planned to regularly issue Badger Folklore, a publication that would preserve and popularize Wisconsin traditions. However, although membership grew from 41 in 1947 to 129 in 1950, the Society could not solicit enough quality work from its membership for regular publication. Although its publication program proved sporadic, the Society did organize exhibits, sponsor speakers, folk plays, and folk dancing, and encouraged its members to participate in folklore conventions. Eventually it also published jointly with the Wisconsin Idea Theater Wisconsin Through the Comic Looking Glass.
Annual meetings were planned regularly but in 1953 not enough members were present to elect officers. No meeting was held in 1954. In 1955 the remaining members voted to make the Society a paper organization and to transfer funds to the Wisconsin Rural Writers, Inc. in exchange for an annual subscription to Creative Wisconsin.
