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Posted by: Megan Harris
This is a guest post by Colleen Benoit Kim, Senior Archives Specialist in the Manuscript Division. Editors note: this post explores one of our LC colleagues’ favorite VHP collections. Watch this space for upcoming blog posts written by AFC and VHP staff about their own favorite VHP collections, part of our newest Experiencing War web …
Posted in: Veterans History Project, World War II
Posted by: Stephen Winick
Happy Thanksgiving! In this post, we’ll take a look at a set of interesting photos from the Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs Division. They depict a custom most people nowadays don’t know much about: Thanksgiving masking. Thanksgiving maskers, like trick-or-treaters on contemporary Halloween, used to go door to door, begging for handouts. They also …
Posted in: christmas, Halloween, Holidays, Mumming, Thanksgiving, Uncategorized
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
Thanksgiving days were declared by United States Presidents at various times in American history, beginning with George Washington making November 26, 1789, a day of thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving was not established as a regular yearly Federal holiday until 1870. So there are not a great many songs specifically for American Thanksgiving, and these were composed …
Posted in: Folksong, Thanksgiving
Posted by: Kerry Ward
The following is a guest blog post by liaison specialist Owen Rogers about the November 11, 2020 completion and programing surrounding the National Native American Veterans Memorial. American Indians and Alaska Natives comprise less than 1% of the United States population. They boast a higher percentage of veterans than any other ethnicity and a tradition of …
Posted in: Narratives, Native American History, Oral History, Storytelling, Veterans Day, Veterans History Project
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
Folklorist Tom Burns, working as a fieldworker in the Rhode Island Folklife Project in 1979, sought out the Narragansett people, crossing the border into Connecticut to find tribal leaders with whom to talk. At that time the Narragansetts were somewhat spread out, as they had no lands. What they did have was a strong desire …
Posted in: Languages and Dialects, Native American History