The American Folklife Center recently acquired the collection of Tom Pich—an acclaimed photographer of traditional artists. Pich is best known for his photographs of recipients of the National Heritage Fellowship—the nation's highest honor in the traditional arts presented annually by the National Endowment for the Arts. In this celebratory post, AFC Folklife Specialist Nancy Groce highlights the importance of this acquisition, contextualizes Tom Pich's work, and details the beauty of his photographs.
The first interviews documented for the COVID-19 American History Project--an initiative of the American Folklife Center to create an archival collection of Americans' experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic--are now available in the online collections of the Library of Congress. In this post, learn more about the workers featured in the interviews, find out how to access their stories, and explore how you can have your pandemic story preserved as part of the COVID-19 American History Project.
Folklife Specialist Nancy Groce announces a new American Folklife Center archival collection, the Warp and Weft of Yap’s Outer Islands: Backstrap Weaving in Micronesia, as supported through the Center's Community Collections Grant program.
The following is a guest post by Andrew Huber, a liaison specialist for the Veterans History Project (VHP). April Fools is a time of year when you have to expect the unexpected, and things are not always as they seem. Here at the Veterans History Project (VHP), it’s no different, except that we have to …
The American Folklife Center has recently acquired a five-string Fairbanks Vega banjo donated by musician, photographer, and filmmaker John Cohen before his death in 2019. The John Cohen banjo is extraordinary for three reasons: it is in itself a classic instrument, a beautiful example of a Fairbanks Vega banjo with a Whyte Laydie tone ring and an unusual tone projector; it belonged to John Cohen, one of the most significant figures in the revival of the five-string banjo; and it was often played by Roscoe Holcomb, a singular artist and crucial figure in American traditional music. Read more about the banjo's history, see pictures, and follow links to some video of the banjo being played, all in this blog post!
The American Folklife Center is delighted to announce the acquisition of the Missouri Friends of the Folk Arts collection from Julia Olin and Barry Bergey. The collection includes concert recordings of iconic blues and old time musicians like Henry Townsend and Robert Jr. Lockwood; festival performances from the Frontier Folk Festival; fiddling traditions from Ozark and Midwestern regions; and traditional arts documentation from around the state of Missouri. Communities documented include the French speaking towns around Old Mines, Native American communities, and several Spanish speaking communities. Bergey and Olin wrote this blog post to introduce the collection to researchers at the American Folklife Center.
This guest post was authored by Jesse Hocking, an archivist at the American Folklife Center who was centrally involved with the acquisition of the collection he describes below. In March 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic began to spread widely in the United States, The Nocturnists, a podcast and medical storytelling community, posted the following message …
This is a guest post by American Folklife Center archivist Charles Hosale. A little more than one year ago, the American Folklife Center announced the acquisition of the AIDS Memorial Quilt records . My colleagues and I continue work to preserve the records and make them accessible. This year, living under the weight of another …
This is a guest post by reference librarian Todd Harvey, who curates the Lomax family papers at the American Folklife Center. Today, the American Folklife Center announces the launch of the Bess Lomax Hawes (1921-2009) digital collection, now available at this link. A scholar, teacher, performer, writer, and filmmaker, Bess established and stewarded the Folk …
