The American Folklife Center is delighted to announce that an important new oral history collection documenting the lives and careers of home health care workers throughout the state of Oregon is now available online through the Library of Congress’s website. This fieldwork project is part of American Folklife Center’s Occupational Folklife Project and the 7th …
This photo of an unknown Crow Indian girl has always fascinated me. Everything about her tells a story — but I don’t know the full story. The American Folklife Center’s Montana Field Survey, which includes this photo, was done fairly quickly, identifying places and people that might be studied in more depth at a later …
November 11, 2018 is the 100th anniversary of the formal end of World War I. It seems appropriate to say something about what this new day meant and came to mean. Also, I want to provide some highlights of Folklife Today blogs that marked the 100th anniversary of World War I. These were a part …
In 1938 Alan Lomax embarked on his first solo recording trip, available on the Library of Congress website as Alan Lomax Collection of Michigan and Wisconsin Recordings. Among these recordings are songs of the local history of ships and shipping on the Great Lakes. One of my mother’s brothers and his family lived on the …
A team of folklorists made recordings of Cuban folk and dance hall music as part of projects to document Florida arts for the WPA (Works Progress Administration). Found online in the presentation Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections, 1938-1942, these recordings occurred at a time when old songs from rural Cuba could still be found, …
On August 30th, 1979, a group of hardy adventurers left Dewey Hart Ranch in the Larb Hills, Phillips County, Montana, in covered wagons and other horse-drawn vehicles to meet the Milk River and travel along it to Malta. The goal was to experience the wagon train as Montana pioneers once did, and to arrive in …
When I was growing up going swimming near home usually meant going to a public pool, or possibly a nearby man-made lake. But when we visited relatives in the summer swimming more often was at the beach, at a lake, or at a quiet section of a river. I liked swimming in natural waters, but …
This is part three of a three-part series presenting the lesson suggestions on the Explore Your Community Poster (PDF), designed for middle school and high school classrooms. Read Part One. Read Part Two. Mapping Your World All communities—whether urban, suburban, or rural—have their own cultural heritage. Did you ever explain your neighborhood to someone visiting …
This is part two of a three-part series presenting the lesson suggestions on the Explore Your Community Poster (PDF), designed for middle school and high school classrooms. Read Part One. Read Part Three. Community Culture: It’s All Around You One important aspect of culture that is hard to remember when when we go out to …
