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Archive: January 2017 (11 Posts)

The Family of Far Away Moses: Tourism, Commerce and Folklife in the 19th Century

Posted by: Stephen Winick

In my first post about the fascinating character known as Far Away Moses, whose face adorns the outside of the Jefferson Building where the AFC is located, I covered the basics of his life and mentioned some of the ways in which his story became part of the folklore of the late 19th and early …

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

Nearly 300,000 Lomax documents now accessible online

Posted by: Nicole Saylor

This is a guest post by the American Folklife Center’s Alan Lomax curator Todd Harvey. Fans of folk music fire up your browsers! The second—and largest—phase of the Lomax family papers has just gone online at this link. This set of manuscripts joins ca. 25,000 items that went online last fall. Researchers now have access to nearly …

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

Alan Jabbour 1942 – 2017

Posted by: Stephen Winick

On behalf of the American Folklife Center, I’m very sad to pass on the news of the death of our founding director, Alan Jabbour. Alan was a folklorist, fiddler, fieldworker, and friend of the highest caliber, and he will be missed at AFC and around the world. AFC’s current director, Betsy Peterson, expressed the feelings …

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

Dr. King Remembered

Posted by: Guha Shankar

In remembrance of the Reverend Martin Luther King’s birthday, the Library of Congress and other federal agencies, will be closed on Monday, January 16th (to be faithful to the facts, the Reverend’s actual birthday is January 15, 1929). To commemorate the occasion, this blog draws from the American Folklife Center’s documentary collections to present selected …

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

Who’s Afraid of Friday the Thirteenth?

Posted by: Stephanie Hall

Friday the 13th may be considered an unlucky day in some parts of Europe and in North America.   For some, the day can cause great anxiety, called paraskevidekatriaphobia, meaning fear of Friday the 13th. The idea that Friday the 13th is unlucky is not very old. It seems to have arisen in the 19th century. …

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

AFC Welcomes John Fenn, New Head of Research & Programs

Posted by: Stephen Winick

The American Folklife Center is pleased to welcome John B. Fenn III as the Head of the Research and Programs section.  Fenn will be supervising the members of our staff involved in public programming, publications, research, and training in the field of folklife. John Fenn’s academic training is in folklore and ethnomusicology (Ph.D., Indiana University, …