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Archive: July 2017 (10 Posts)

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

World War I Homecomings

Posted by: Lisa Taylor

The following is a guest post by Irene Lule, a Library of Congress Junior Fellow working with the Veterans History Project (VHP) this summer. In today’s highly visual world, a popular type of YouTube video is the “soldier coming home” video. These clips are fairly basic in their premise. Someone captures the moment a service …

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

C’est la guerre-That’s the War!

Posted by: Lisa Taylor

The following is a guest post by Justina Moloney, a Library of Congress Junior Fellow working with the Veterans History Project (VHP) this summer. I own a special collection of letters my father sent to me during his deployment to Afghanistan six years ago, when I was in my second year of college. They were …

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

National Storytelling Festival photographer visits the Center

Posted by: Nicole Saylor

This is a guest post by Todd Harvey, acquisitions coordinator and folklife specialist at the American Folklife Center. Fifteen years ago, a moving van carrying four tons of archival material documenting the National Storytelling Festival arrived at the Library of Congress in the largest single acquisition the American Folklife Center has yet undertaken. The National …

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

The First Sound Recording of a Joke?

Posted by: Nicole Saylor

This is a guest post by American Folklife Center archivist Kelly Revak. I’ve recently joined the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress as an archivist. One of my first tasks was to catalog Jesse Walter Fewkes’s Passamaquoddy recordings as a part of the Ancestral Voices project team. Made in 1890, these recordings are …

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

Billy Bragg, Skiffle Historian and Singer, Visits the Library July 21

Posted by: Stephen Winick

This blog post about the singer-songwriter Billy Bragg is part of a series called “Hidden Folklorists,” which examines the folklore work of surprising people, including people better known for other pursuits. Billy Bragg will be here for a book talk, July 21 at 7:00 pm in the Mumford Room of the James Madison Memorial Building. …

“I Didn’t Done the Crime”: Stavin’ Chain’s “Batson” and the Batson Case

Posted by: Stephen Winick

Note: This is the third in a series of posts about the murder ballad “Batson.” This one discusses the version of the ballad performed by Wilson Jones, aka “Stavin’ Chain,” in light of the real-life Batson case. In previous blog posts about the murder ballad “Batson,” I looked at early versions collected by Robert Winslow …

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

Folklife at the International Level: Traditional Cultural Expressions as Intellectual Property

Posted by: Michelle Stefano

In the first of the “Folklife at the International Level” series, I ended with a glimpse into the complex issues that arise when intellectual property (IP) protection is sought for “traditional cultural expressions,” or “TCEs,” the terminology used by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). On its website, WIPO describes such expressions as including “music, …

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

AFC’s Occupational Folklife Project Goes Online with “Working the Port of Houston” Collection

Posted by: Stephen Winick

The following is a guest post by Nancy Groce, Senior Folklife Specialist and Director of the Occupational Folklife Project. After seven years of planning, research, fieldwork, and archiving, the American Folklife Center is delighted to announce that the first installment of its Occupational Folklife Project (OFP) launches today on the Library of Congress’s website with …