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Posted by: Meg Nicholas
The first entry in a month-long series on the Dog Days of August, highlighting American Folklife Center collections items featuring "man's best friend," this post presents audio recordings and photographs about dogs at work.
Posted in: Animals, Collection Highlight, Dog Days of August
Posted by: Meg Nicholas
For International Clown Week, AFC Folklife Specialist (and former clown) Meg Nicholas guides readers through the types of clowns found in the American Folklife Center's archival collections.
Posted in: clowns, Collection Highlight
Posted by: Nicole Saylor
In June 2024, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi had a special viewing of the AIDS Memorial Quilt Records stewarded by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. This post details Pelosi's visit to the Library, her previous work to advocate for the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, and the work American Folklife Center staff to steward these valuable collections.
Posted in: AIDS Memorial Quilt, Folk Art, LGBTQ, Quilts, U.S. Congress, Uncategorized
Posted by: Meg Nicholas
This post is an excerpt of a longer interview with Alex Lumelsky, COO and Creative Director for the Chaldean News, about the 2024 Community Collections Grant (CCG) project, Chaldeans: Portrait of an Evolving Community. The excerpt links to the original post on the Library's Of the People: Widening the Path blog.
Posted in: Community Collections Grants
Posted by: Douglas D. Peach
In 2023, the American Folklife Center contracted Gran Enterprises LLC to conduct interviews with licensed funeral professionals about their COVID-19 pandemic experiences for the COVID-19 American History Project. This post is an interview with Anita Grant and Joél Maldonado of Gran Enterprises. In it, they detail their inspiration for the project, their initial findings, and why documenting licensed funeral professionals' pandemic experiences is important for understanding Americans' experiences with COVID-19.
Posted in: African Americans, COVID-19 American History Project, COVID-19 pandemic, Fieldwork, Folk Medicine, Narratives, Storytelling, Uncategorized
Posted by: Stephen Winick
The latest entry in our Homegrown Plus series features Celtic duo Rakish. As usual, it includes a concert video, an interview video, and a set of links to explore. Rakish is made up of violinist Maura Shawn Scanlin and guitarist Conor Hearn. Maura and Conor draw on the music they grew up with and perform it in a way that reflects their shared interest in and love for chamber music as well as improvised music. Maura Shawn, a two-time U.S. National Scottish Fiddle Champion, and a winner of the Glenfiddich Fiddle Competition, has the technical range of a classical violinist and the sensitivity of a traditional musician. Conor, a native to the Irish music communities of Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, MD, makes his home in Boston playing guitar for several traditional music acts and bands. Using musical form and harmonic language as focal points, Rakish demonstrate the influence and overlap between dance music and airs from Britain and Ireland and art music or classical music from surrounding countries. The concert included musical dance forms and tune types including jigs, reels, hornpipes, and airs, arranged from written collections to be performed on the fiddle and guitar. In the interview, we talked about how Rakish prepared for this concert. using musical transcriptions from The American Folklife Center and the Library’s Music Division, including late baroque and early galant music. Watch the concert and interview right in this blog post!
Posted in: Celtic Music, Folk Music, Irish American History, Scotland, Uncategorized
Posted by: Meg Nicholas
The National Day of the Cowboy is coming up soon (the fourth Saturday of July), prompting me to go sifting through the archive for collection items to highlight. The national day officially began in 2008, when the National Day of the Cowboy resolution passed in both the Senate and the House, though there had been …
Posted in: Collection Highlight, Cowboy and Western Music, Cowboys, Montana, Nevada
Posted by: Douglas D. Peach
In 2023, the American Folklife Center contracted folklorist Nicole Musgrave to conduct interviews with Appalachian-based child care workers about their COVID-19 pandemic experiences for the COVID-19 American History Project. The post, guest authored by Musgrave, details her inspiration for the project, the initial findings from her interviews, and why documenting child care workers' pandemic experiences is important for understanding Americans' experiences with COVID-19.
Posted in: Appalachia, COVID-19 American History Project, COVID-19 pandemic, Fieldwork, Folklorists, Kentucky, Narratives, Oral History, Storytelling, Uncategorized
Posted by: Nicole Saylor
The American Folklife Center is pleased to announce the appointment of Jessica Looman, Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division (WHD), to the American Folklife Center Board of Trustees. President Biden appointed Looman for a term expiring June 1, 2030. Looman had previously served as the Principal Deputy Administrator of WHD since Wednesday, January 20, 2021. WHD enforces worker protections and provides outreach and education about federal labor laws including minimum wage, overtime, child labor, and family and medical leave.
Posted in: AFC History, Archie Green