Wayland D. Hand collection of Superstition and Popular Belief, 1950-1996

Wayland D. Hand was a prominent American folklorist who founded the Department of Folklore and Mythology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Over the course of his career, Hand collaborated with students and fellow folklorists to document individual folk beliefs across a wide range of subjects, ultimately contributing to the creation of this extensive index card collection. He also served as editor of Popular Beliefs and Superstitions: A Compendium of American Folklore (1981), an abbreviated version of the broader body of materials. The collection primarily reflects beliefs gathered from English-speaking, European American sources, resulting in notable gaps in cultural representation. As such, the collection should not be considered comprehensive or representative of all belief systems in the United States. After Hand's death in 1986, UCLA continued to maintain and expand the collection for a period before donating it to Utah State University in 1996, where it has since been preserved and made available through USU's Special Collections and Archives.