Folklorist Michael Bell discussed ballad scholar Francis James Child. Beginning in 1846, soon after his graduation from Harvard College, Child — a Harvard professor, eventual first president of the American Folklore Society and the greatest ballad scholar of the 19th century — began what would become a 20-year correspondence with his closest college friend and future brother-in-law, William Ellery Sedgwick. Based on this cache of letters contained among the Sedgwick family papers deposited at the Massachusetts Historical Society, Bell’s presentation examined this “secret autobiography” for what it reveals about Child the man; his hopes, dreams and frustrations and his growing involvement in the intellectual and social cultures of late antebellum Cambridge.