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Archive: April 2018 (8 Posts)

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

Folklife at the International Level: Recent Developments in Protecting Traditional Cultural Expressions

Posted by: Michelle Stefano

  Yet another World Intellectual Property Day has arrived, and what better way to celebrate than to catch up with related developments on the folklife front? So far, this series has explored the international efforts of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in protecting traditional cultural expressions (TCEs) as intellectual property (IP) via IP protections. …

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

Don’t Play in Mixed Company: Audio Correspondence from the United States’ Wars

Posted by: Megan Harris

The following is a guest blog post by Matt McCrady, Digital Conversion Specialist for the Library of Congress. The voice from seven decades ago comes through clear and distinct, with only the slight crackle of dust on the phonograph record to suggest the age of the recording. “Lloyd, this is Len. Remember? … Other day …

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

Food from the Forest: Some Native Fruit and Nut Trees

Posted by: Stephanie Hall

The last Friday in April is celebrated as National Arbor Day.  The history of Arbor Day is profoundly connected with Americans’ relationships to trees over many generations. When European settlers first landed on the shores of eastern North America they encountered a landscape that is difficult for modern Americans to imagine. Familiar trees such as …

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

AFC’s James Madison Carpenter Collection Is Online

Posted by: Stephen Winick

On behalf of the American Folklife Center, I am pleased to announce that our James Madison Carpenter collection is now online. The collection, which consists of manuscripts, audio, photographs, and drawings documenting British folk music, song, and drama in the first half of the 20th century, is available worldwide through the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library’s …

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

Community Service Hero: Veterans Heritage Project Continues to Shine

Posted by: Lisa Taylor

The following is a guest post by Barbara Hatch, Veterans Heritage Project Founder and Program Director. The program is based in Arizona. To learn more about this organization, read our 2016 post about it here. In 1998, students in my history classroom had seen the movie Saving Private Ryan and wanted to separate fact from …

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

No ordinary banjo

Posted by: Nicole Saylor

This is a guest post by acquisitions coordinator Todd Harvey of the American Folklife Center. Today the American Folklife Center accessioned an extraordinary, hand-crafted North Carolina banjo. The instrument was built in 1961 by Frank Proffitt, Sr., of western North Carolina, and given to the eminent folk musician and dancer Douglas Kennedy, of the English …

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

Marian Anderson’s Spirituals

Posted by: Stephanie Hall

When I was a child, in about 1960, I remember two of my father’s cousins getting into an animated discussion about Marian Anderson and the time they resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). Although I was not old enough to understand the event they were talking about, it made a strong impression. …

A man sits in a chair with a small banjo

Brooklyn Folk Festival Turns 10: Q&A with Eli Smith

Posted by: John Fenn

A little over a decade ago, Brooklyn-based musician and promoter, Eli Smith, merged his passion for folk music with the inspiration he got from the community of artists calling New York City home and created the Brooklyn Folk Festival. Along the ten-year journey of the Festival, Eli has engaged the American Folklife Center in numerous …