Koch, Frederick

Koch, Frederick (Henry)

(1877–1944) folklorist, educator; born in Covington, Ky. While teaching English at the University of North Dakota (1905–18), he organized a drama society of students and faculty to produce original plays on regional themes. He then went to the University of North Carolina (1918–44), where, in addition to his classes in drama and playwriting, he organized the Carolina Players, which presented dramas based on folk material and became a training ground for such writers as Thomas Wolfe and Paul Green. Through the establishment of the Bureau of Community Drama (1918), he promoted school and community theater throughout North Carolina; he also encouraged the outdoor pageant plays that Paul Green would make famous.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.