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Posted by: Stephen Winick
Note: Every year, in the week before Christmas, staff members of the American Folklife Center put our research and performance skills into play, bringing collections to life in a dramatic performance that tours the halls of the Library of Congress. Dressed in costumes that range from striking to silly, we sing, act, rhyme, and dance …
Posted in: Dance, Drama, Folk Drama, Holidays, Mumming
Posted by: Stephen Winick
Whether you’ve been a follower of Folklife Today from the outset, or you’ve only recently joined us, we’d like you to help us celebrate a milestone: this is our 100th post! And what better way to mark that point on our journey than to announce a centennial celebration? So I’m pleased to announce AFC’s 2015 …
Posted in: AFC Events, AFC History, African Americans, Alan Lomax, Folk Music, Folklorists, Folksong, John Lomax, Louisiana
Posted by: Stephen Winick
The following is part of a series of guest posts by Carl Fleischhauer of the Library of Congress’s Office of Strategic Initiatives. Carl is a former staff member of the American Folklife Center and participated in many of the Center’s field collecting projects. All the photos embedded in this post were shot by Carl in …
Posted in: AFC History, Cowboys, Native American History
Posted by: Stephen Winick
The following is a guest post authored in 2014 by Russell Rodríguez and Quetzal Flores of the Alliance for California Traditional Arts. We edited the post in 2024 to add two relevant videos, making it part of the Homegrown Plus series. Welcome to our introduction to son jarocho and the fandango. Before we get started, …
Posted in: AFC Events, Dance, Folk Music, Folksong, Hispanic American History, Homegrown Concert Series, Homegrown Plus
Posted by: Stephen Winick
This post presents two primary source documents, both in the public domain, which are difficult to find online. Both relate to my previous post on William John Thoms. They are the first two columns in Thoms’ series “Folk-Lore,” which ran in the journal The Athenæum from 1846 to 1849, and in Notes & Queries from …
Posted in: England, Folklorists
Posted by: Stephen Winick
August 22 is an important date to folklore fans. It is, in fact, the anniversary of the first appearance of the (originally hyphenated) word “Folk-Lore” in print. The medium was a letter to the editor of the Athenæum, a scholarly journal, and the author was William John Thoms, although he wrote the letter under his …
Posted in: England, Folklorists, Uncategorized
Posted by: Stephen Winick
This post looks at the origin of "Ring Around the Rosie" and its history. It asks whether there is any reason to believe the story that the rhyme is about the plague. And it introduces the idea of metafolklore, folklore about folklore.
Posted in: Folksong, Legends, Medieval Folklore, Metafolklore (Folklore about Folklore), Poetry
Posted by: Stephen Winick
In honor of Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month, we present this vintage AFC researcher photo. (And by “vintage,” I mean “prior to the existence of Folklife Today.”) This photo shows the stage, film, and television actor George Takei, best known as Mr. Sulu from the original Star Trek, who visited the AFC Reading Room on April …
Posted in: AFC Reading Room Visitors, Asian American History, Veterans History Project
Posted by: Stephen Winick
NOTE: After the concert video went online, we updated this blog post to feature the concert itself after Solomia’s essay. Scroll down to the bottom to watch it! On Thursday, May 22, at noon, in the Library’s Whittall Pavilion (right next door to the Coolidge Auditorium in the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, which is 10 …
Posted in: AFC Events, Folk Music, Folksong, Ukrainian Americans