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Archive: November 2017 (11 Posts)

In this painting, Pilgrims and Natives gather to share meal.

Don’t Worry, Turkey on Thanksgiving is Historically Accurate!

Posted by: Stephen Winick

Each year, as Thanksgiving Day rolls around, the blogosphere is bombarded with articles telling us that everything we know about Thanksgiving is wrong. In particular, these articles focus on the three-day event in autumn 1621, during which English colonists at Plymouth, Massachusetts, hosted 90 members of the Wampanoag tribe for a feast. Skeptical articles revisiting …

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

Thanksgiving Road Trip

Posted by: Kerry Ward

The following is the fourth in a series relating to the Medal of Honor. Thanksgiving, with millions of Americans on the road, is one of the busiest travel seasons of the year.  If you’re doing the traveling this year, I implore you to try a new travel game: find the Medal of Honor landmarks/monuments across America, and the recipients …

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

StoryCorps interviews and the importance of keywords

Posted by: Nicole Saylor

This is a guest post from Julia Kim, Digital Assets Specialist at the American Folklife Center. This Thanksgiving, StoryCorps invites everyone to take part in The Great Listen, a national movement that empowers young people–and people of all ages–to create an oral history of the contemporary United States by recording an interview with an elder …

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

James Mooney Recordings of American Indian Ghost Dance Songs, 1894

Posted by: Stephanie Hall

In the summer of 1894 James Mooney, a scholar of American Indian culture and language, made recordings of songs of the Ghost Dance in several languages.  The James Money Recordings of American Indian Ghost Dance Songs have recently been updated and are part of the presentation, Emile Berliner and the Birth of the Recording Industry. …

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

AFC accelerates its efforts to preserve analog media

Posted by: Nicole Saylor

This is a guest post by American Folklife Center archivist Maya Lerman. Staff in the American Folklife Center archive finished a project that will improve our efficiency in preserving and making accessible AFC’s rich audiovisual collections. Like audiovisual archives everywhere, AFC is working to prepare for a time when obsolescence and degradation of physical media will greatly hinder preservation efforts. We …

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

Folklife at the International Level: Issues in Protecting Traditional Cultural Expressions

Posted by: Michelle Stefano

In the last “Folklife at the International Level” post, Wend Wendland, Director of WIPO’s Traditional Knowledge Division, recounted that the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) was formed by WIPO member states in 2000. The aim was to discuss issues relating to the protection of TCEs (called at …

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

U.S. Marine Medal of Honor Recipients: Even Superman Needs Someone to Look Up To

Posted by: Megan Harris

The following is a guest blog post by Kerry Ward, liaison specialist for the Veterans History Project (VHP), and is the third in a series of blog posts relating to the Medal of Honor. The recent slew of superhero films have me recognizing that while they are brilliant and entertaining, at movie’s end the superheroes …