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Posted by: Stephen Winick
Last month I had the sad duty of reporting the death of one of my mentors, the late folklorist Don Yoder. By coincidence, a couple of weeks after Dr. Yoder’s death, another of his former students came across new documents pertaining to his career as a folklorist. When going through old records of the Center …
Posted in: AFC History, Benjamin A. Botkin, Don Yoder, Folklorists, German Americans
Posted by: Lisa Taylor
Happy birthday to the U. S. Air Force, whose brave members have protected our skies for the past 68 years. Click here to access more than 3,000 Air Force veterans’ stories from the Veterans History Project archive.
Posted in: Narratives, Oral History, Storytelling, Veterans History Project
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
On September 15 and 16, 2015, AFC will be featuring a lecture and workshop with Juan Díes, and a and concert with Sones de México Ensemble, presenting the corrido, a type of narrative song native to the Texas-Mexico border region. In honor of these events, I thought I would introduce our readers to some of …
Posted in: Folk Music, Folklorists, Folksong, Hispanic American History, John Lomax, Ruby Terrill Lomax
Posted by: Nicole Saylor
The National Folklore Archives Initiative (NFAI), an effort by the American Folklore Society to document and provide access to folklore archival collections, recently received a second round of funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Earlier funding in 2011-2013 resulted in the creation of the Folklore Collections Database (FCD), a stable framework hosted …
Posted in: American Folklore Society, Archival Practice
Posted by: Megan Harris
“Home Alive in ’45!” As World War II veteran Merle Korte explains, so went the popular mantra–though he and his shipmates aboard the USS Ritilicus, serving in the Pacific Ocean and awaiting the imminent invasion of Japan, could scarcely believe it was possible. Along with the rest of the world, they had lived with war …
Posted in: Oral History, Veterans History Project, World War II
Posted by: Lisa Taylor
The Library of Congress and the Veterans History Project (VHP) are counting down to the National Book Festival, taking place tomorrow, September 5th, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. The event, free and open to the public, will run from 10 am to 10 pm. In addition to having an opportunity …
Posted in: Narratives, Oral History, Storytelling, Veterans History Project
Posted by: Stephen Winick
This weekend, the Library of Congress is excited to be producing the 15th annual National Book Festival, the most expansive event in the festival’s history. The festival is Saturday, Sept. 5, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. (doors open at 9 a.m.). The event is free and open …
Posted in: AFC Events, AFC History
Posted by: Stephen Winick
To launch the annual International Conference of Indigenous Archives, Libraries and Museums, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress (AFC) and the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries and Museums (ATALM) present a symposium. Titled Civil Rights, Identity and Sovereignty: Native American Perspectives on History, Law, and the Path Ahead, it will take place …
Posted in: Uncategorized
Posted by: Stephen Winick
On September 9 and 10, the American Folklife Center will feature a concert and symposium celebrating the accomplishments of Ola Belle Reed. The following is a guest post by Douglas Dowling Peach, which will fill you in on who Reed was and why we’re featuring these events. Peach is a graduate student in the Department …
Posted in: AFC Events, Folk Music, Folklorists, Folksong, Homegrown Concert Series, Uncategorized