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Posted by: Michelle Stefano
The American Folklife Center announces the launch of the Chicago 1977: People, Places, and Cultures transcription campaign, as part of the Library of Congress By the People volunteer transcription initiative, and based on the Center's Chicago Ethnic Arts Project Collection from 1977.
Posted in: AFC History, Fieldwork, Folklorists, Volunteer
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: Douglas D. Peach
On April 10, 2024, Dr. Melissa Cooper (Associate Professor of History, Rutgers University-Newark) presented a fascinating lecture on Gullah Geechee cultural history at the Library of Congress, as part of the American Folklife Center's Benjamin A. Botkin Lecture Series. In this post, we highlight the video recording of Cooper's lecture and an oral history interview with Cooper, conducted by American Folklife Center staff members.
Posted in: AFC Events, African American History, African Americans, Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series, Black History Month, Cultural Heritage, Folk Music, Folklorists, Gullah Geechee, Narratives
Posted by: Douglas D. Peach
In February 2024, the American Folklife Center and the Health Services Division organized a panel discussion on longevity with experts in public health and the traditional arts. This post provides a webcast of the event and provides responses to audience questions that were unanswered, due to time constraints, during the event.
Posted in: AFC Events, Folk Medicine, Folklorists, Narratives
Posted by: Michelle Stefano
The American Folklife Center announces its new Story Map, California Gold: Sidney Robertson Cowell, 1930s California Folk Music, and the American Folklife Center, which follows the folk music collector, Sidney Robertson on her late 1930s trip to document musicians, singers, and their families and communities in California.
Posted in: AFC Publications, Fieldwork, Folklorists, Sidney Robertson Cowell
Posted by: Guha Shankar
This interview by AFC staff member, Guha Shankar, with Sarah Bryan, Executive Director of the cutural arts organization, the Association for Cultural Equity (ACE), highlights ACE's work in producing a range of programs and publications that raise public awareness of the richness and diversity of global expressive culture. ACE works in collaboration with the Library in several areas. particularly initiatives that center on the merican Folklife Center's seminal Alan Lomax collecton of world music, song and dance recordings.
Posted in: Alan Lomax, Association for Cultural Equity, Folk Music, Folklorists, Sarah Bryan, Women's History
Posted by: Douglas D. Peach
The American Folklife Center (AFC) is proud to announce a new research guide, which highlights AFC collections related to the National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. The National Heritage Fellowship is the highest honor for the traditional arts in the United States. Since 1982, the award has recognized lifetime achievement among traditional artists and advocates for the traditional arts. On Friday, September 29, 2023, the American Folklife Center will be hosting a public ceremony to honor the 2023 recipients of the National Heritage Fellowship. Awardees of the 2020, 2021, and 2022 National Heritage Fellowship will also be celebrated, as the COVID-19 pandemic inhibited their in-person recognition. Find about about the new guide and the ceremony in this blog post!
Posted in: AFC Awards, AFC Events, Bess Lomax Hawes, ethnomusicologists, Folk Music, Folklorists, Foodways, Jean Ritchie, Kentucky, Latino/a, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Material Culture, Narratives, NEA National Heritage Fellowship, Ohio, Puerto Rican Americans, Ukrainian Americans, Uncategorized
Posted by: Michelle Stefano
We are excited to announce the new Library story map, Work in Progress: The American Folklife Center’s Occupational Folklife Collections, which explores the many collections in the AFC archives dedicated to documenting “occupational folklife,” or work culture, and people’s work-related histories and experiences in places across the country. Check out the Work in Progress story …
Posted in: AFC Awards, AFC Publications, America Works, Archie Green, Fieldwork, Folklorists, Occupational Folklife Project, Story Map
Posted by: Stephen Winick
In this post, we continue presenting Jennifer Cutting’s 2003 interview with Tony Barrand, a singer, dancer, academic, writer, teacher, historian, folklorist, curator, producer, and festival organizer, who died on January 29. Barrand donated the Anthony Grant Barrand Collection of Morris, Sword, and Clog Dancing (AFC 2003/005) to AFC in 2003. This post is the fourth in a series of four posts, each of which will present a portion of the interview. In this post, Cutting and Barrand discuss the effect multiple sclerosis had on Barrand’s life and work, as well as his career from the mid 1980s until 2003 when the interview took place. It is being published on April 3, 2022, which would have been Barrand's 77th birthday.
Posted in: Dance, Folk Music, Folklorists, Tony Barrand Interview