Skinners" (which George Lyman Kittredge considered "one of the greatest western ballads" and which was praised for its Homeric quality by Carl Sandburg and Virgil Thomson.) From the first, John Lomax insisted on the inclusiveness of American culture. Some of the most famous songs in the book — "Git Along Little Dogies", "Sam Bass," and "Home on the Range" — were sourced from African-American cowboys. Before Home on the Range was published Lomax recorded a black saloon keeper in San Antonio singing it on an Edison cylinder. Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads emerged as a major collection of Western songs and had "a profound effect on other folk song students.". According to noted folklore scholar, D. K. Wilgus, the book's publication "sparked a great surge of interest in folk songs of all kinds, and in fact, inspired a search for folk material in all regions of the nation." Its success transformed John A. Lomax into a nationally known figure. Texas Folklore Society Around the same time, Lomax and Professor Leonidas Payne of the University of Texas at Austin co-founded the Texas Folklore Society, following Kittredge's suggestion that Lomax establish a Texas branch of the American Folklore Society. Lomax and Payne hoped that the society would further their own research while kindling an interest in folklore among like-minded Texans. On Thanksgiving Day, 1909, Lomax nominated Payne as president of the society, and Payne nominated Lomax as first secretary. The two set out to marshal support, and a month later, Killis Campbell, an associate professor at the University, publicly proposed the formation of the Society at a meeting of the Texas State Teachers Association in Dallas. By April 1910, there were 92 charter members. Lomax then used his prestige as a nationally known author to travel the country raising money for folklore studies and to establish other state folklore societies. "He was among the first scholars to present papers about American folk songs to the Modern Language Association, the nation's leading organization of teachers of languages and literature. For the next several years he hit the lecture circuit, traveling so often that his wife, Bess Brown, had to help him with his schedules and even some of his speeches." His lectures on cowboy songs, ballads and poetry took him all across the eastern USA. For example, in December 1911, Lomax made a successful performance at Cornell University, singing and reciting some