Note: This blog was updated on July 26, 2024 to add the event videos and make it part of the Homegrown Plus series. At that time the language about these public events was recast into the past tense. Doug Peach, who wrote this as a guest scholar in 2015, is now an AFC staff member …
The American Folklife Center is very grateful to April Rodriguez, one of this year’s 36 Library of Congress Junior Fellow Summer Interns. April has been working with Alan Lomax’s choreometrics materials, a lesser-known but crucial aspect of his research. Her work has revealed aspects of the collection our own staff didn’t know about, and will …
The following installment in Botkin Folklife Lectures Plus post introduces James P. Leary, a distinguished folklorist and researcher who has published extensively on Library of Congress collections in the American Folklife Center. In addition to his lecture video, it includes photos, audio, and video from AFC's collections of Midwestern folk music, including Croatian, French, Scandinavian, Oneida, English, Welsh, and other ethnic groups. Most of the quotations from Leary in this article come from an email interview we did in July 2015, but I also quote occasionally from the lecture itself, which is also here as an embedded video.
The following is the second of a two-part guest post by Joseph Patton, a Library of Congress Junior Fellow working with the Veterans History Project this summer. Last week, I shared with you three stories from the Veterans History Project (VHP) collections of World War II Navy veterans who served in the Pacific theater of …
War disrupts populations, and refugees fleeing the conflict may leave their country permanently to settle elsewhere. The first World War caused such disruptions throughout Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia. Crossing one border was no longer an escape for many of these people on the move. Refugees fled to countries distant from their …
Two short weeks ago, I mentioned the new traveling exhibit Treasures of the American Folklife Center Archive. The exhibit takes the form of lightweight, colorful vinyl banners containing information about the American Folklife Center, the Library of Congress, and (as the title suggests) some of the treasures found in our archive. I promised at that …
The earliest East Asian immigrants often had a difficult journey making their way to the United States. Many carried little with them but the cultural traditions they knew, such as language, stories, religious customs, foodways, music, song, and dance. Chinese Americans Chinese immigrants, mainly Cantonese speakers from Guangdong, were among the first Asians to come …
At the American Folklife Center, researchers come from around the world to study our unparalleled documentation of traditional culture. But sometimes, they don’t even have to come here. Occasionally, new discoveries by our staff are so exciting or so curious that we feel prominent researchers need to know. For this reason, our reference librarians keep …
John James Audubon was born on April 26, 1785 in what is now Haiti. His passion for North American wild birds fostered an ongoing interest in birds and bird conservation in the United States. But, of course, interest in birds and birdsong is as old as humankind. This essay will look at some of the …
