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Archive: January 2014 (7 Posts)

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Alan Lomax and the Voyager Golden Records

Posted by: Nicole Saylor

The following is a guest post from Bertram Lyons, the digital assets manager and a folklife specialist at the American Folklife Center’s archives at the Library of Congress. This post originally appeared on the Association for Cultural Equity site and is reposted with permission. Prior to his arrival at the Library, Lyons was the archivist at the …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Play Ball!… Aboard Ship?

Posted by: Megan Harris

Though the recent polar vortex may have tempered my enthusiasm a bit, this January I’ve been pulling on my running shoes and hitting the pavement with renewed focus. The resolution to exercise more in the new year led me to think about the role that sports have played in military life over the years. Athletics …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Soldier’s Joy: An American Classic

Posted by: Stephen Winick

“Soldier’s Joy” is one of our favorite fiddle tunes, and one of the oldest and most widely distributed tunes in the English-speaking world. There are numerous renditions of this piece located throughout Library of Congress collections, many of which are online.  Let’s take a brief tour of this American classic. “Soldier’s Joy”  appeared in late eighteenth-century sheet …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Computing culture in the AFC Archive

Posted by: Nicole Saylor

  This week we’re hosting three digital humanities scholars at the American Folklife Center to discuss potential research projects that would draw upon AFC collections. It got me thinking about digital humanities inquiry in developing and understanding the AFC Archives. Across our history, we have embraced new media, explored data- and metric-driven approaches to studying and computing …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

The End of the Holidays….

Posted by: Stephen Winick

As the holiday season comes to a close, the staff of the American Folklife Center wishes you all the best for the coming year. In this picture, we pose by the Christmas Tree in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, with some of us still in the costumes we wore in the AFC …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

The Battles of Leyte and Luzon, 1944-1945

Posted by: Megan Harris

When the New Year arrives, thoughts often turn to what the coming year might bring. During wartime, service members inevitably wonder if the next year will be the year: the long-anticipated time when peace is declared and they can reunite with their families after so many months spent apart. For soldiers fighting in the Pacific …